Tagged: Sandy Welch

Posted: December 12, 2012 at 8:15 am

If at First You Don’t Succeed

If at first you don’t succeed, claim the rules don’t apply to you.

That’s what the Montana Republican Party tried to do this week. The party which formerly claimed to stand for fiscal responsibility had hoped to force taxpayers to cough up the cash for a recount in the state superintendent race. In spite of the fact that their candidate had lost by too great a margin to qualify for a taxpayer funded recount, they went to court.

Sandy Welch, the GOP candidate, asked a judge to grant her an exception to the rules. She thought fancy out-of-state lawyers could convince a judge that there were special circumstances which would justify making you and me pay for her increasingly futile pursuit her own political ambitions.

Republicans also probably wanted the recount it in the news while they try to pass new laws that restrict voting rights, like same day registration, early voting, mail voting, etc. They were hoping they could use your money to create a climate for passing voter suppression laws in Montana.

Welch had tried to force the recount to be conducted right before the Christmas holiday–much to the dismay of county officials and their employees. The grinch-like demand wasn’t lost on internet pranksters, prompting a brief grinch mini-meme of sorts with pics like this making the rounds.

Thankfully, the GOP failed on both accounts. A judge said they had to live by the same rules as everyone else and must pay for the recount.

But when it came time to put up the money, Welch said she didn’t actually have it–revealing some inconsistencies with her previous statements.

First, Welch had said that the national republican party would pay for the recount, but when it came time to pay the money wasn’t there. The national Republicans refused to comment.

The GOP wouldn’t say how much they had raised, if anything. And instead of accepting the fact that the voters decided against the right-wing education policies the GOP was peddling, they tried to blame the Secretary of State for Welch’s loss.

There were other inconsistencies in Welch’s statements. As the Billings Gazette reported. “Welch said [Citizens United attorney James Bopp] is the lawyer hired by the Republican National Committee to work on the case, but another attorney from his firm, Anita Woudenberg, delivered arguments Friday.”

Perhaps all this talk of national money and famous lawyers was Welch was trying to color her race with some kind of national importance. Whatever the reason, somebody wasn’t telling the truth. Either that or intelligent life is just not found on this particular planet.

Posted: December 6, 2012 at 8:35 am

Sandy Welch, and the Ruse

The GOP is asking for a recount in the state superintendent’s race, for what appears to be part of a high-intensity push to create a climate for passing voter suppression laws in Montana.

The Associated Press reported this week that the national Republican Party gave Sandy Welch (who ran against popular dem Denise Juneau) $100,000 to pay for the recount and another $100,000 to hire GOP lawyer behind Citizens United, James Bopp to sue for a recount (one she can’t win).

Bopp is an infamous national GOP lawyer who has been called “Public enemy No. 1 for fair elections,” and has worked for dozens of extreme-right groups. He appeared on the recent Frontline expose of dark money groups in Montana, saying he is working to eliminate or significantly loosen campaign spending limits and to eliminate donor-name-reporting requirements.

Here’s what’s odd: Welch can get a recount without her costly lawsuit, for a $100,000. She is allowed by law to buy a recount, in essence. But she admitted yesterday that she’s now invested $200,000, half on the fancy lawyer and lawsuit, and half on the recount cost. In the lawsuit, she is asking to get her recount cost refunded if she wins. But that still leaves a grand total investment of $100,000. So why the lawsuit?

Because the GOP wants it in the air, while they try to pass new laws that restrict voting rights, like same day registration, early voting, mail voting, etc

The GOP’s future, given the trends, is looking bleak. Not just a more liberal electorate, but a wild gang of libertarian voters defecting at a rate of anywhere from 4 to 7 percent in statewide elections. The Rs are now seeing that they must find a way to balance the scale. So they will try to minimize votes from elderly, Indians, poor, young and other voting blocks.

To do that, they’ll need to convince the legislature that there were “irregularities.” Part of this will involve deceiving the press and the public that the last election was fraught with problems and “fraud.” Hence the $100,000 lawyer.

As the Billings Gazette reports, Welch already alleges

numerous examples of alleged vote-counting errors across the state on Nov. 6, including ballots jamming in electronic counting machines, re-marking of ballots that were run through the machines multiple times, failure to give voters new ballots to replace spoiled ballots, and ballots that weren’t officially stamped.

The recount will allow the GOP to paw through every single ballot cast, to find examples of what they’ll call “fraud.”

Perhaps the Montana GOP is taking a cue from Florida Republicans, who admitted last week that the voting restrictions they passed after the 2008 elections were specifically designed to keep Democratic turnout low:

Wayne Bertsch, who handles local and legislative races for Republicans, said he knew targeting Democrats was the goal[....]

Another GOP consultant, who did not want to be named, also confirmed that influential consultants to the Republican Party of Florida were intent on beating back Democratic turnout in early voting after 2008.

[...]A GOP consultant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution said black voters were a concern. “I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves,” he said.

Posted: November 16, 2012 at 6:58 am

Recount Charade

The Billings Gazette is reporting today that Montana GOP will put up $115,000 dollars to recount a race it has no chance of winning.

Word on the street is that the recount is a ruse to allow the GOP to continue to “investigate” the supposed problem of too many people voting in Yellowstone County. Voter suppression will be a first order of business for the new legislature. So, the GOP will use the recount as an occasion to rant in the press about how too many people voting caused long lines and delays in vote counts in certain major cities–to argue that liberalized voting rules have caused the problem.

GOP-er Sandy Welch is down over 2,000 votes, so Sandy Welch’s chances of overturning Denise Juneau’s victory are zero to none. To my knowledge, a recount has never overturned the results of a statewide race–even when the results were much closer than the Juneau/Welch contest.

The last time a statewide races was recounted was the 2000 democratic secretary of state primary. Linda McCulloch. As the Missoulian reported:

McCulloch nipped fellow challenger Gail Gray, 31,634 to 31,573 in the statewide recount. Although Gray picked up 65 misplaced votes in the recount, McCulloch gained 62. McCulloch’s final tally was 61 votes ahead of Gray, down from 64 votes in the original count. The third Democratic contestant, Mike Schwinden, saw his total rise 26 votes to 28,765.

The most recent recount before this was in 1980.

It involved Initiative 84, a measure to control disposal of uranium ore tailings. The original count showed 172,796 in favor to 172,173 against. The recount put the total at 172,909 to 172,493, preserving the initiative’s passage.

And so, you can see that a recount will not overturn the results of this race. But overturning the result is not the reason for the recount.

Too stupid to know how to organize a get-out-the-vote effort like Democrats with technology, sophistication and smarts, Republicans in Montana (and nationally) are now complaining about the fact that “too many people were voting.” They’re calling for an end to election day registration and a shrinking of early vote options.

For a preview of how this charade will play out in Montana, look how the Republicans are using the Allen West recount in Florida to peddle the voter fraud myth. The GOP thinks that if it’s harder to vote, they will gain an advantage. They will use this recount charade to try to get support for rolling back early voting, same day registration, etc.

And of course American Traditions Partnership will be all for this. ATP attorney Jim Brown is in on the ruse. He told Sandy Welch’s campaign manager that he liked their chances of winning the recount.

People in Montana are voting in some of the highest numbers in the state’s history. They are engaged, and the GOP doesn’t like that. Republicans did better when more voters were apathetic, and so they want to return to those glory days.

Early voting must remain; vote by mail must increase; and same day registration must remain, because it is an important way of allowing people to vote when they have moved addresses but there’s a glitch in the system, for whatever reason, that hasn’t recorded it properly. In the past, these folks have been turned away. Now with same day registration, they can vote.

Truth is, Republicans lost the big statewide races for three basic reasons, which are 1) they had inferior statewide candidates, 2) the Republican brand is in the toilet, thanks in large part to the Tea Party, and 3) in two races they gave away an average of 5 points to the libertarian candidate.

Had there been a third party candidate in the Juneau race, Welch would have already faded from view. The contest is the only statewide race in which the democratic candidate, Denise Juneau, received more than 50% of the vote against a real opponent.

Posted: November 5, 2012 at 12:14 pm

Something Fishy

Why is Republican legislative candidate Liz Bangerter is using her campaign account to make donations in her husbands name?

Don Pogreba at Intelligent Discontent recently took a look into Bangerter’s campaign finace report and found some irregularities. Bangerter’s report shows her campaign giving $620 to Republican Sandy Welch for State Superintendent, but there is no donation of $620 from the Bangerter campaign listed on Welch’s report:

Instead, there are two individual donations from the Bangerter family, one for $310 from Elizabeth Bangerter and another for $310 from Carl Bangerter.

The contribution limit for this race is $310, not $620. So it looks like one of these two campaigns has tried to disguise Bangerter’s campaign’s donation as two donations from Bangerter and her husband to make it appear to be within the legal limits.

Posted: November 2, 2012 at 6:47 am

Montana Doesn’t Need Florida to Tell Us What We Need

GOP candidate for state superintendent is touting an unfortunate endorsement today on the TEA Party conspiracy blog PolyMontana.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush says he ran Florida schools “using some of the same ideas that Sandy is proposing.” With a vote for Welch, says Jeb, Montana can be “just like Florida.”

Problem is, these ideas ran Florida schools into the toilet.

Montana eighth-graders have the highest science and reading scores in the nation, while Florida eighth-graders ranked 30th and 31st. In math, Montana eighth-graders have the second highest scores in the nation. Florida ranks 37th.

Perhaps if Welch can get the TEA Partiers to take down the blog post soon some of the damage can be mitigated.

Posted: September 27, 2012 at 9:48 pm

GOP Candidate Appears in Saucy Devil Costume on Newscast

The devil is in the details, as the old saying goes.

GOP candidate for State School Superintendent Sandy Welch has adopted a creative new strategy to come across as more friendly, hip, and fun.

A new photo depicts the candidate in a what looks like a saucy devil costume, complete with horns and a lacy top. The photo first appeared on the candidates Facebook page (left) and has since made an appearance in the television coverage of a recent education debate.

Here’s the video:

Until now, the Welch campaign has faced an uphill battle in many respects. First, the candidate is relatively unknown, having never held elective office. Second, Welch has come across as a little bit angry and negative in the past after dumping on Montana public school classrooms because she thought it would help her politically.

Those days are over. Image, as they say, is everything.

At this time, it is not clear with the saucy devil is a is a permanent addition to the campaign image or a special Halloween themed release. Kudos to Welch are in order for her creativity and willingness to think outside the box.

Posted: September 25, 2012 at 11:12 pm

Education Debate Recap

Tonight, the candidates for Montana’s chief state school official debated in Helena. The debate, which was broadcast live on the Northern Broadcasting Network, was a clear win for Denise Juneau.

The candidates differed on many issues: notably, using your tax dollars to subsidize private schools. Juneau opposes it, as do most Montanans. Welch supports it.

Juneau ran on her record of Montana’s kids scoring among the top ten states in the nation for reading, math, and science. Welch said she thought some changes to “process” were in order, but didn’t offer specifics.

The candidates also differ vastly in experience. Juneau has a post-secondary degree from Harvard in education and a law degree from U of M, and has worked in education in Montana and as a teacher her entire life.

On the other hand, Welch is a transplant from California who lacks familiarity and experience with local education concerns. When asked what qualifications she had to advocate for education in Montana, Welch cited—I kid you not—her work as a legislative staffer in the infamous Bat Crap secession session of 2011. Not something I would admit in public–even if I were one of the 18-year-old college Republicans who typically fill these positions.

The AP has a recap of the debate online here.

Posted: September 20, 2012 at 12:10 pm

Next Debate Tuesday in Helena

Montana’s superintendent of public instruction Denise Juneau (D) and challenger Sandy Welch (R-TEA) will debate here in Helena on Tuesday Sept. 25 at 6:30 p.m. at the Gateway Center.

Welch has been aptly called “the Derek Skees of education” (the comparison extends to spelling errors) and has even been compared to Skees by the infamous TEA Partier Tim Ravndal.

To be sure, there is one difference between Skees and Welch. Welch is a transplant from California while Skees hails from Florida. Most recently Ravndal linked the two in a bizarre post about the supposed need to break the collaboration between Montana PBS and public radio stations. Must be a conspiracy in there somewhere. Ravndal is one of Welch’s biggest fans.

Juneau meanwhile has launched an innovative series of reforms to increase Montana’s high school graduation rate that is popular with parents, unions, and the business community alike–no small feat. So this will be a very interesting debate.

Juneau/Welch Debate
6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, September 25
Gateway Center in Helena (map)