Tagged: Western Traditions Partnership

Posted: November 11, 2012 at 1:11 pm

American Traditions Partnership: Beyond Thunderdome

After the FRONTLINE documentary that uncovered potentially illegal collusion between a secretive right-wing group and Republican candidates, the attorney for that organization announced that he is leaving his position at the Doney, Crowley, Payne and Bloomquist firm.

Jim Brown, the Attorney for American Traditions Partnership (formerly Western Traditions Partnership or WTP) sent out an email Friday, Nov 9, saying he is leaving the firm effectively immediately.  Brown wrote that he will be starting his own law firm and “going into the business of political consulting” but will “continue doing association management work” (otherwise known as lobbying.)

Brown writes that he can now be reached at his new email address: thunderdomelaw@gmail.com

Under state law, third party groups like American Tradition Partnership which spend masses of unregulated, unreported money, are legally barred from coordinating with candidates.  But several legislative candidates and the ATP have been caught red handed, working together, in apparent violation of the law.

The FRONTLINE documentary revealed that a secret stash of incriminating documents has been found, showing extensive communications between Republican legislative candidates and the ATP, and showing that the ATP was even preparing campaign material for them.

When asked what ATP was doing with these documents on FRONTLINE (transcript), Brown said:

The answer is, is that I’ve never seen this material before. I don’t know if this was found in WTP materials. I’m not going to comment because I haven’t reviewed any of that material. I mean, I’m not going to, you know, have materials sent— you know, given to me on surprise and then asked to comment on them. I don’t know what they show or what they don’t show. I’m literally not going to comment on that. You can rely on your other sources for those.

Brown’s entire email can be read here:

I am pleased to announce that I started my own law practice, the James Brown Law Firm, PLLC.   In addition, I will continue doing association management work, but will be going into the business of political consulting.

If you are associated with me because of my work for the Montana Wool Growers and the Montana Independent Bankers, please take particular note of this contact information change.

Consequently, please take note that my contact information will change.  After November 9th, please direct your calls, emails, and correspondence to the following:

Phone: ppp-pppp

Cell: ccc-cccc

Email: thunderdomelaw@gmail.com

My new office will be located at 32 South Ewing Street, Suite 324, Helena, Montana, 59601.

I am excited about this new venture, and I look forward to continuing our working relationship after my big move.  Please let me know if you have any questions, and I wish you the best.

Sincerely,

James E. Brown

Attorney

Remember: break a deal, spin the wheel

James E. Brown, LL.M.

Associate Attorney

DONEY | CROWLEY | PAYNE | BLOOMQUIST P.C.

P.O. Box 1185

Helena, MT 59624-1185

Posted: October 30, 2012 at 8:50 pm

Watch FRONTLINE Expose: Big Sky Big Money Online Here

Tonight, the PBS investigative series FRONTLINE takes a look at the out-of-state groups working to buy our local elections.

The show looks into the files on 23 right-wing Montana candidates were found in a meth house in Colorado in a box labeled “Montana $ bomb.” The files contained information about how the American Tradition Partnership is manipulating Montana campaigns and elections.

Here’s the video:

Watch Big Sky, Big Money on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Posted: March 8, 2012 at 7:06 am

DOH! Meet the Montana TEA Party’s Keystone Kops

Rep. Tom Burnett (R-Bozeman)

The Montana Commissioner of Political Practices rejected a complaint by TEA Party Republicans this week. They claimed that their voting records on public spending and personal largesse were misrepresented by local Democrats.

The TEA Party legislature tried to shut down the state by blocking education and jobs–claiming a fake budget crisis, but the facts shows Tea Party lawmakers grabbing from the government trough.

Rep. Tom Burnett, of Bozeman, and Rep. Cleve Loney, of Great Falls, had filed a complaint against a flyer that exposed the big bump in taxpayer-funded personal compensation they gave themselves–while cutting education, jobs, and food for Montana families.   In an attempt to hide their hypocrisy from their base of low information voters, Burnett and Loney tried to claim that the campaign materials were untrue.

Cyndi Baker (left) and Rep. Cleve Loney R-Great Falls (right)
Rep. Cleve Loney (R-Great Falls) with megaphone.

Here’s where the story goes Keystone Kops.  It’s a classic case of TEA Party dysfunction and imbecility.  The law on which Burnett and Loney had tried to base their complaint–a law against misrepresenting voting records–has already been struck down in a case brought by the Tea Party-aligned Western Tradition Partnership, the OPP ruling shows.

Yeah, that’s the same Western Tradition Partnership that bought the election for idiots like Burnett and Loney. So even if the flyer was wrong (it isn’t), the very group that elected the TEA Partiers got a judge to block the law the OPP would have needed to correct the record.

Posted: January 10, 2012 at 6:47 am

Political Quick Hits

Supreme Court Fundraising

Steve Bullock’s victory in the Western Traditions Partnership v. Montana case is an important reminder of how important the Supreme Court races are in Montana.  The latest campaign finance reports for Supreme Court show Elizabeth Best of Great Falls has raised an impressive $62,500 last quarter, with $59,000 cash on hand. Meanwhile, Ed Sheehy Jr of Missoula has raised $5,000 and has $6,500 in the bank.

Oddly Silent

I posted last week about the Big Win for Bullock in Clean Elections Case – and the mainstream media and blogosphere has been all over it.  When it comes to the resistance to Citizens United, Montana is now the front line of the battle and people are paying attention.

There have been big stories in the national papers: Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal.  Denver radio host and former Montanan David Sirota had our Attorney General on his show.  The local editorial boards of the Great Falls Tribune, Helena Independent Record, Havre Daily News and Billings Gazette have all weighed in, giving Bullock some love.  Even the editor of the Daily Inter Lake – who is to the right of the John Birch Society – had good things to say.

With the conservative groups that brought the lawsuit appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the case going to be front and center this election year.

Which brings me to the question: why just crickets from the GOP candidates?  Not one of them (how many are there now?) will say one way or the other how they feel about the biggest decision to come out of the Montana Supreme Court in a really long time.

The likely reason is they’re caught between a rock and a hard place.  Regular Montanans – and Americans – want less corruption in their politics. But the special interests and the lobbyists don’t see it that way, and the candidates seem all too eager to pander for their donations.

It will be interesting to see what Rick Hill, Jeff Essmann, Corey Stapleton, Ken Miller, Neil Livingstone or any of the rest of these crazies say about where they stand.

Posted: January 4, 2012 at 12:46 pm

Big Win for Bullock in Clean Elections Case

All eyes are on Montana this week after AG Steve Bullock’s huge win against shadow political groups. These groups tried to overturn Montana’s centuries-old ban on corporate spending in elections.  Bullock beat them down.

A few years ago the U.S. Supreme Court gave it’s full seal of approval to corporate influence in elections, in the infamous Citizens United Case. Since then, Montana has been the only state in America with the backbone to wage a war to defend it’s own state laws prohibiting such corporate spending.   Our laws date back to 1912, and were passed in response to Copper Kings who tried to buy the entire state government with bribes.

The ruling by the Montana Supreme Court in Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. State of Montana is a ray of hope for American election law.  During the 2010 elections, giant industries descended on Montana and spent huge sums of unregulated, undisclosed money, as much as $6 million, to elect Republican legislative candidates. The result was the most lopsided election in Montana history.

A big shout-out to Chief Justice Mike McGrath, who found an artful way to weave an opinion out of delicate cloth, upholding Montana’s ban on corporate money passed by voters in 1912, by finding meaningful distinctions between Montana’s law and the federal law that was held unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in Citizens.

Bullock should be proud of having argued a landmark decision that will be remembered in Montana for many decades. This is our gubernatorial nominee. Contrast him to the nine homunculi put forward by the GOP, none of whom can point to a single accomplishment on behalf of Montana citizens.

What results might this crop of GOP contenders point to as evidence that they are competent leaders?

–creating the most expensive work-comp system in America, and raising taxes to try to fix it (Hill)

–working for Qadaffi (Livingstone)

–preventing terminally ill cancer patients from getting medical cannabis to ease their pain (Essmann)

My money is on Bullock.

Posted: November 14, 2011 at 7:48 am

Return of the Jedi

In 2010, the Empire struck back, hard. The Dark Side destroyed the Democrats, the first piece of sizable revenge exacted by the GOP ever since their Death Star (which had dominated the galaxy for two decades) was destroyed in the span of four years by Schweitzer, Tester, Bullock, McCulloch, Lindeen and Juneau.

The 2010 elections were bought, not won. There were millions of dollars brought in illegally by the GOP’s wealthy friends. Much of it was funnelled in by shell groups from undisclosed sources, and mostly by one particular front group called Western Tradition Partnership. This group is currently being prosecuted civilly in the Montana courts for their dirty 2010 campaign activity. Of the estimated million they brought in, none of it was reported nor the sources disclosed. In other words, we still don’t know who, exactly, owns the GOP-controlled Montana Legislature.

I’m told that the same shady GOP Darth Vaders who operated in 2010 were back at work this cycle, trying to buy themselves victories in city races around the state. They came up empty-handed, humiliated. Like John Sinrud, backed by the Montana Realtors, who wants to build high-rise condos and strip malls on farm land in and around Whitefish. Or Chuck Denowh, who is Rick Hill’s chief advisor but apparently took a hiatus to try to work some of the city races in the Flathead and elsewhere.

They were working hard behind the scenes trying to get victories. It hasn’t been calculated yet how many hundreds of thousands of dollars these losers spent on city commission races around Montana, but not a single Tea party candidate won election in Bozeman, Whitefish, Kalispell, Great Falls, Helena, Billings or Missoula last week.

Posted: July 30, 2011 at 9:29 am

Something’s Rotten

The shadow group Western Traditions Partnership’s defense of Exxon after the Yellowstone River oil spill and its adulation for candidates defending the oil giant are raising eyebrows in Montana.

News reports indicate that WTP, which now calls itself American Traditions Partnership after it came to light that it was based in Washington D.C., rather than the west, appears to be coming very close to stumping for Dan Kennedy–something they shouldn’t be doing.

The national newspaper the Washington Independent is reporting that the executive director of WTP earlier this month:

flew to the site of ExxonMobil’s Yellowstone River pipeline spill to praise the cleanup response by the oil and gas giant and to laud the efforts of state Rep. Dan Kennedy.
“State Rep. Dan Kennedy, whose home is at the center of the incident, should be commended for his efforts to coordinate response with the local community and involve local workers in the ongoing cleanup efforts,” ATP Executive Director Donald Ferguson said in a press release. “I am very impressed with ExxonMobil’s response to this [oil pipeline] release.”

Hmmm.  Rep. Dan Kennedy (R-Laurel) comes out for Exxon, and WTP comes in to “laud his efforts.”  Maybe Ferguson was aware at some of how bad this looks, because he put this disclaimer at the end of his laudatory remarks:

“Donald Ferguson has paid for this trip out of his own pocket, and did not come at the request of any official or company.”

I wonder if Fergeson intended this disclaimer to distance his actions from Exxon, or from WTP?

Since WTP won’t disclose their donors, we don’t know if Exxon paid WTP with a secret donation rather than an outright contract.  WTP claims to work on “education” not getting candidates elected, and as to the question of whether WTP is stumping for Fergeson, how much does it matter if he “paid for it out of his own pocket” when he is the director, spokesperson, and figurehead of WTP, from whence he presumably draws his salary?

WTP is the lead plaintiff in the legal challenge to Montana’s ban on corporate spending for candidates.  They tout their organization’s secrecy as a benefit of giving them money and have been under fire for corruption in Montana and other states.  Montana TEA Party legislator Art Wittich (R-TEA Bozeman) is said to be the new local figurehead for the entity.

Posted: July 17, 2011 at 10:29 am

Western Traditions Partnership Electioneering: You Be the Judge

The Billings Gazette is reporting today on the upcoming Sept 21 Montana Supreme Court hearing on the shadow group Western Tradition Partnership (who ditched its tainted name and became American Traditions Partnership under a barrage of bad press). Western TP is claiming that they didn’t break the law because they are involved principally in “educational” activity, not “political” activity.

Tell that to the candidates who had negative mailers from WTP dropped on them last election cycle.

The Commissioner of Political Practices says WTP was electioneering, the Billings Gazette reported  last election cycle that John Sinrud’s so-called “Western Tradition Partnership” broke state law and should have to pay a civil fine because it failed to report its donors and register as a political action committee (PAC)

Unsworth’s office uncovered evidence that Western Tradition Partnership had been involved in 19 Montana legislative races in 2008 and that it had a budget of $660,000.

As the Havre Daily News reported, Unsworth ruled that:

The evidence shows that WTP’s ultimate purpose in Montana in 2008 was not to discuss issues, but to directly influence candidate elections through surreptitious means.

According to Unsworth, the group planned to spend $537,000 on targeted Montana elections in the 2010 cycle.

Here are a couple of examples of what they spent it on.  Would you call this education  or electoral work?

This flyer from Sinrud’s so-called “Western Tradition Partnership” suggests that Democratic legislative candidate Sheila Hogan will stop that darling little princess from becoming a doc, because her Mommy and Daddy will be forced spend all their dough on the utility bill, instead of saving it for her college. I guess this is because Hogan might like to see some effort on renewable energy.

Here is a PDF of another flyer , this time attacking Democratic legislative candidate Will Hammerquist, who ran against Derek Skees and only lost by 80 votes.  (It appears that a moron, possibly John Sinrud who founded WTP and is now active in Flathead politics, designed this mailer. It is silly, over-the-top and largely illiterate, so it probably had little to no effect at all.) Guessing this is the same moron who so wounded and disgraced the name Western Traditions Partnership that it had to change the  name to rid themselves that that association, and then thought that this would work.

Anyway, Western Traditions Partnership American Traditions Partnership and its other GOP counterparts spent $3,000,000 this cycle conservatively and maybe as much as $5,000,000, the overwhelming majority of it being spent on activity designed to influence legislative races. It is virtually all corporate money, the majority of which comes from out of state. At least a million of it, maybe more, is mystery money, about which we will never be able to learn the amounts, the sources, or even the races on which the money was expended.

Unfortunately, as Democratic spokesperson Chris Saeger points out, the most extreme legislature in Montana history was elected because of these election expenditures, laying the blame for this session at the feet of the GOP’s own shadow groups, rather than just the TEA party.