Tagged: worker’s compensation

Posted: June 27, 2012 at 5:02 pm

In the Money Game, It’s Bullock, 7 to 1

Lost amid the hoopla over the Citizens United news yesterday was a small item about the kind of fundraising that does, and should, matter:  Steve Bullock is sitting on a nest egg of campaign cash that is almost seven times greater than that of his opponent.   Bullock has $776,000 in the bank, while his feeble Republican challenger, Rick Hill, has only $118,000

It’s not surprising given that Hill has just emerged from a bruising primary, in which he was assailed by his opponents has having “too much baggage.” He was accused, specifically, of:

- having dodged the Vietnam draft

- having enriched himself with state contracts, from his stint as a congressman

- having cashed in on his wife’s influence when she worked in the Governor’s office

- having screwed up the state work comp system

- having been the victim of a ponzi scheme,

- having been an insurance executive, and

- having porked a cocktail waitress while he was married

That’s quite a resume.  Hill had to spend down his war chest to combat these attacks, while Bullock had no meaningful primary challenge at all.  This has left Hill at a massive disadvantage as we enter the upcoming general election season.  Mind you, this is not corporate money; these are the hard-earned, smaller contributions that candidate’s raise by themselves, in increments from $5 to $600.

Some big, unregulated, out-of-state money will no doubt make its way into this race, more easily now that our sacred campaign corruption laws have been struck down by the five ignoramuses who call themselves “conservative justices.”

But one wonders whether the national GOP, and other national groups with fat corporate wallets, might not simply walk away from the Montana governor’s race, viewing it as an impossible project to rehabilitate a weak and battered candidate who is nearly broke.  Outside groups with large war chests have fifty states in which to spend money.  They rarely waste their time on candidates who do not do a good job raising money of their own.  It’s usually a bad bet.

Democrats out-raised Republicans in all the statewide races. Pam Bucy has raised $162,000 and has $27k in the bank.  Fox has raised $109, 000 and has $22k in the bank.   In the state auditor’s race, Monica Lindeen has $64,000 in bank while TEA Party Republican Derek Skees had about $6,500. For Superintendent of Public Instruction, Juneau has $92,000 in the bank.  Republican Sandy Welch has $20,000. In the Secretary of State race Linda McCulloch has $49,000 on hand while Brad Johnson has $3k.
Democrat Ed Smith has $4,300 left in the bank in his re-election campaign for Clerk of the Supreme Court. He has no opponent, since GOP Executive Director Bowen Greenwood failed in his write-in campaign attempt to garner enough votes to appear on the ballot this fall.

Posted: April 12, 2012 at 8:50 pm

Dave Lewis throws Martz, Hill and Himself Under the Bus

In recent times we’ve seen Republicans fall into a circular firing squad.

When Schweitzer was meeting with the Republican leaders last session, they told him that Rick Hill had made a mess of the Work Comp system when he was in charge of it during the 1990s.  Threw him under the bus.  Neil Livingstone made the same point about Hill a few weeks ago, and Ken Miller has taken on Hill for having spent most of the last twenty years in Palm Desert, California, rather than Montana.  And of course Corey Stapleton’s campaign has already chimed in with the insinuation that Hill has “too many Skeletons in the closet” to become Governor.

Yesterday it continued. State Senator Dave Lewis, a regular Cowgirl blog commenter, admitted that Montana’s current Pension woes, which Schweitzer is now trying to fix, are due largely to his own bill, HB 294, which he carried in 2001 on behalf of Judy Martz and her chief economic policy guru, Rick Hill.  This bill, ordered by the Martz administration as a supposed long-term solution to avoiding an insolvent state pension fund, gave automatic increases (3% a year), to state workers. It assumed that the stock market would go up forever.

Lewis gave an interview in which he said that “in forty years of government, HB 294 was the worst mistake I ever made.”  Some kudos to Dave Lewis for his honesty; this type of confession is rarely heard in politics.

The more important point is that Lewis’s statement closes the book on a very substantial inquiry as to the ineptitude of the Judy Martz administration.  We now have a confession entered into the record, conclusive proof that the Republican administrations of the last 20 years fucked things up, and Schweitzer has had to spend seven years trying to repair the damage.

 

Posted: April 11, 2012 at 6:48 am

The Man Behind Judy Martz’s Economic Plan? Guess Who

Today the Helena IR reminded us of an almost forgotten fact: that the architect of Judy Martz’s economic policy was none other than Rick Hill, who is now the odds-on-favorite to be the next Republican nominee for Governor.

Hill was picked by Martz to lead her economic transition team, and also to prepare an economic blueprint for her administration.  The Martz economic plan consisted of several interesting features.  For one thing, she proposed a sales tax, which is indeed something that Rick Hill has long advocated.  She also ran out of money halfway through her term, and had to call a special session because the state was broke.  (And in addition to being broke, she herself broke into tears when she called the press to announce the special session, one of many bizarre Martz spectacles for those who were lucky enough to witness it.

Why was she crying?  The state was not only broke (Montanans were reading in the news that the Capitol could no longer afford to pay its water bill), but Montana was rated by USA Today as the one of the most reckless state governments in terms of spending (48th out of 50, on the 2003 list of fiscally responsible state governments, ranked from best to worst).  Also at that time, the Work Comp system was quickly spiraling  out of control in terms of the cost of premiums that businesses were being forced to cough up. This, too, grew from under the auspices of Hill who was not only Martz’s chief economic architect but also built that Work Comp system in the Racicot/Martz administration.

Today, having been under Democratic control for some time, Montana is rated among the best fiscally managed states in America, with a record surplus.  So we may postulate that Montanans, if given a choice between the Martz-Hill way of doing things and Schweitzer-Bullock, will likely opt for the latter.

And will Rick Hill try to run on his accomplishments as Martz’s economic guru?  Or will he run for the hills?

Posted: March 20, 2012 at 5:28 am

What Lies Beneath

A new commenter here showed up to defend Neil Livingstone.  S/he said Livingstone’s sex tourism advice made him more electable because it demonstrated his business “savvy.”  Then s/he made another ridiculous statement: that there were more oil rigs in North Dakota because “corporations will choose to do business in a state like North Dakota over a state like Montana due to the corporate tax issue.”

The statement is utterly false, but that hasn’t stopped the GOP candidates from repeating variations on it ad nauseum.  Today, Governor Brian Schweitzer called them out on their lies. Schweitzer said  ”that Republican candidates for governor, who he referred to as ‘jokers,’ are wrong to blame taxes and regulations,” for differing oil development levels in Montana and North Dakota the AP reports.

There are more oil wells North Dakota because there is more oil there to drill.  According to Montana Department of Commerce Energy Production and Development Division statistics, Montana’s taxes related to oil and gas production are 40-50% lower than in North Dakota. Our state also has a faster permitting process than both North Dakota and Wyoming.  Montana permits are out in 60 days on average.  In Wyoming a permit takes ten months.  It takes a year in  North Dakota.

Anyway, there’s some serious backpedaling going on in the article.

One of Rick Hill’s biggest flubs in the piece was arguing that oil development is hindered by the high cost of workers’ compensation insurance in Montana. The current work comp system was crafted while Hill was chair of the workers compensation board.   Hill used to brag about creating the system, until it got out what a disaster it was for businesses.  At that point, Hill tried to scrub his involvement in the debacle from his Wikipedia page.

Regardless, the candidates are all on the record slinging misinformation. You’ll find a list of some of their statements below.

Right now there are more unemployed Montanans looking for work today than there were a year ago. Our unemployment rate has drifted up over the course of this year, not down.”
-Rick Hill, Montana Public Radio, 11/21/11

“If you ask the outside business groups, what they say about Montana is that we are really interested in investing in Montana, they have a great workforce, work ethic, and a lot of natural resources, there is a lot of potential in Montana. But it is an unstable political regulatory and legal environment for us to make a substantial investment.”
-Rick Hill, Hometown Helena, 6/2/11

“The governor has influence, we need to show the rest of the world we are open for business, we need to show the businesses we are not hostile compared to our neighbors.”
-Corey Stapleton, Yellowstone County Young Republican Debate, 2/9/12

“We have got to become friendly to those that create the jobs, Montana has not had a great reputation for that.”
-Ken Miller, Liberate Main Street, Billings Event, 10/31/11

“My only criticism has been to the governor. It has been that here we are that Montana has this reputation of being anti-business, anti-natural resources development, we cannot seem to get our coal developed. We are behind North Dakota and Wyoming, and the first thing is big bad business.”
-Ken Miller, Voices of Montana, Northern Broadcasting 7/14/11

Posted: March 4, 2011 at 12:07 pm

Whitewashing Rick Hill’s Dirty Laundry

Someone on GOP Gubernatorial candidate Rick Hill’s team seems to think his past needed a little bit of a touch up.

Yesterday, after the GOP leadership’s meeting with the Governor yesterday, (during which GOP leadership admitted that the current work comp system, crafted while Hill was chair of the work comp board, is the most expensive in the nation for businesses and a top problem the GOP hears about from constituents), the helpful internet sprites edited Hill’s page to limit his involvement in the matter.  Here’s a screenshot of a list of the edits as of Thursday evening.

Rick Hill’s involvement in crafting the current work comp system had been something the campaign was bragging about, as you can see from a screenshot of Hill’s website. Anyhoo, following yesterday’s meeting the wiki friends downplayed that bit. From the list of edits posted above:

Oh, they were also good enough to alter passages dealing with the whole matter of how expensive the current work comp program is, which you can see are not included in today’s version. Good thinking friends, because how would anyone ever find out about what a disaster the expensive work comp is if it’s not on Wikipedia?

Since November of last year, just days after Rick Hill announced he would run for Governor someone named “C. Denowh” among others, made more than 30 favorable changes to Hill’s Wikipedia page.

This is but the latest incident of the brown shirts editing out portions unflattering to Hill, such as a reference to Hill’s infamous assertion that a woman without children is unfit to hold office because she would have no knowledge of family values which you read about here. He’s done this again too.  Here are the latest before and after screenshots that show someone continues to try to suppress Rick Hill’s own remarks.