Was Senator Max Baucus having an affair with his state director Melodee Hanes, and was that the reason for his divorce with Wanda?  Did Max use his influence to get a cozy job for his mistress?  Tantalizing accusations abound in the comment section of this story published yesterday in the Billings Gazette.

To summarize, the rumor goes that Baucus's was having an extra-marital affiar with his state director Melodee Hanes, who recently left her job in Montana to move to DC at about the same time Max's divorce was finalized.  Apparently Hanes divorced at about the same time.  They're living together in the home Max once shared with Wanda.  Hanes no longer works for Baucus, but was recently appointed to a job in the Obama Department of Justice.

Having an affair with a subordinate and then helping her get a job...that's some pretty interesting stuff.  Wonder if we have any interpid reporters in Montana interested in digging up the truth.  HA!

As a follow up to our last post - the Boston Globe reported yesterday on a CNN/Opinion Research poll that indicates a solid majority of Americans do not want President Obama to appoint a liberal to the Supreme Court.  Thirty-seven percent thought the President should appoint a moderate and 35% thought he should appoint a conservative, or a total of 72% for a conservative or moderate.  Only 27% thought the President should appoint a liberal.

We'd venture to guess that an even smaller minority of Montanans would prefer a liberal appointee to a conservative or moderate.  Let's hope Senator Tester and Senator Baucus represent Montana for once, instead of the liberal special interest groups they usually toe the line for.

It's going to be interesting to watch the Obama court appointment play out, particularly to see how Senator Jon Tester responds to pressure to resist the expected liberal nominee in favor of a more moderate alternative.

The Judicial Confirmation Network has already released pretty strong arguments against what it considers the front runners for Obama's first pick.  And it's pretty obvious that none of these choices are even a near match to the mainstream Montanan.

Yes, 2012 seems like a lifetime away, but we have to expect that Senator Tester is already looking for ways to moderate his liberal record (ala Max Baucus) in preparation for his next bid for the Senate.  After all, many of the moderate promises he made during his last campaign (anyone remember the "no more earmarks" pledge) haven't come to fruition.  Here's a chance for the big man from Big Sandy to tack to the center.

The two Republican Redistricting Commissioners, Jon Bennion and Linda Vaughey, shared with us a letter they sent to the Montana Supreme Court this morning.  Because the two Democrats on the commission refused to compromise on the selection of a fifth-member chairman, the court is responsible for appointing the chair.  Conventional wisdom is the Democrats intentionally stonewalled the chair selection and are working the back channels with the court's Democrat majority to select a chairman that will continue the artificial advantage Democrats achieved in 2000.

In their letter, the Republicans are sking the court to use the following criteria in selecting the chairman:

1) The Chair should be knowledgeable or prepared to become knowledgeable about the redistricting process;

2) The Chair should be respected by people in both political parties;

3) The Chair must be ready to facilitate compromise between parties (more 5-0 votes on commission) and act as a mediator when necessary, ensuring that all members of the commission are able to participate;

4) The Chair must insist on openness and transparency of the process, most particularly in the formulation of proposed plans, determining the genesis of proposed plans, and disallowing plans that utilize to any degree political data and election results; and

5) The Chair can best facilitate compromise if they have a reputation as a non-partisan, neutral person uninvolved in partisan politics; and this would preclude an individual who regularly attends partisan political meetings, donates significantly to candidates of one party, or serves in some capacity in a political party.

It's the same criteria used by Republican commissioners in nominating their four choices for the chairman, which included three highly-respected political science professors and a former Democratic legislator/candidate for Lt. Governor.

Since the first redistricting commission in the early 70s, the court has had to select a chairman three times, and each time they selected a Democrat.  Does that mean this time Republicans are due?  We don't think so, but the very least the court could do is to appoint someone neither side will object to.

It looks like one of President Obama's trademark issues, climate change, could be placed on the back burner instead of being rushed through this summer as originally planned, according to some reports floating around on the Internet. It seems opposition is mounting for a number of reasons, and we hope Senators Baucus and Tester take note.

Without a doubt the main climate change bill, called Waxman-Markey, will drive up energy costs, retard job growth, and increase the prices on most consumer goods--in other words its an economic triple-whammy we can ill afford at this time.  Worse yet, the bill creates a carbon market that will be susceptible to manipulation and wild price fluctuations.

And now to curry votes for the measure, lawmakers are carving out free carbon credit allowances to favored industries, ostensibly to soften the impact of the bill on states heavily reliant on fossil-sourced energy.  From our perspective, the allowances are inviting more quid pro quo corruption to Washington.

If Waxman Markey keeps moving through the process, it could be an even larger serving of special-interest pork than the federal economic stimulus plan; and that's really saying something.

With so many other pressing issues, it seems pretty sensible to put this one to bed now, especially when considering the economic hardship people are already facing.  Our delegation would do well to help kill it.

Kudos to Lee Newspapers reporter Mike Dennison for his analysis today of how the Democrats on the current redistricting commission stonewalled on several fair, nonpartisan nominations for the commission's chairman.  Dennison writes:

The only candidate of-fered up by the Democrats, Holly Kaleczyc, has an established political record as a Democrat. The Republican members of the panel understandably opposed her.

Lamson said Kaleczyc was the only one who had the skills of a "consensus builder."

Really? A long-standing Democratic partisan, rather than nonpartisan political science professors?

Hmmmm.

A more plausible explanation for the Democrats' refusal to accept anyone but their own nominee is that the choice now goes to the Montana Supreme Court, where the chief justice is Mike McGrath, a former Democratic attorney general, and the court majority is moderate-to-liberal.

That's a fair and accurate depiction of the situation facing the current commission.

But then Dennison decided to use the second half of the article to attack Republicans for a supposed partisan advantage during the 1990 commission.  Lamson claims that commission was equally partisan with the travesty that occurred in 2000, and points out that in 1994 (the first year the new districts took effect) Republicans had large gains in the legislature, compared with 2004 and subsequent elections where legislative majorities have been fairly 50-50.

What Dennison ignores is the fact that of the 13 substantive votes taken by the 1990 commission, eleven were unanimous, one was 3-1, and only once did the chairman have to break a tie.  So either the two Democrats on that commission voted to give Republicans an advantage, or some other factor was at work...Could the legislative electoral gains in 1994 have anything to do with a popular Republican Governor?  Or could it have had anything to do with the Newt Gingrich Republican Revolution that took place the same year where Republicans picked up a net of 54 seats in the US House, eight US Senate seats, twelve governorships, and 472 state legislative seats?

Dennison confuses one other point.  The fact that elections since the 2000 commission have resulted in generally 50-50 control of the Montana legislature is meaningless.  The commission's job is not to give political parity to the major political parties.  The commission's job is to create legislative districts that are compact, contiguous, and as equal in population as is practicable.  Manipulating populations, as the Democrats did in 2000, to create an artificial advantage is well outside of what the commission should be doing. 

In 2004, the first year with the new districts, Republican candidates in contested state House races earned 18,201 more votes than their Democratic opponents.  That goes to show that Republican districts were packed with more Republican voters.  Had those Republican voters been spread fairly the result would have likely been four to five additional Republican seats in the legislature that year, ignoring all other factors.

Dennison ignores these facts and in doing so regurgitates the same tired old lies the Democrats have been spouting for years.

However, the point shouldn't be whether Republicans had an advantage in 1990 or the Democrats had an advantage in 2000.  The point is that neither side should be allowed to use political manipulation to give themselves an advantage.  That's what we should really be talking about.

Gov. Schweitzer vetoed three more good bills yesterday.  And in other news, Chuck Johnson of Lee Newspapers continues to push the boundaries of shoddy journalism.

First, let's discuss the bills the Gov. vetoed.  SB 503, the Montana Economic Stimulus Act, was designed to spur economic development by providing targeted capital-gains tax credits.  The Governor's office did not oppose the bill in either the House or Senate committees, and it passed with bi-partisan support from both chambers.

SB 257 would have encouraged new investment in Montana's clean hydroelectric dam facilities by closing a loophole that excluded hydroelectric upgrades from being considered a renewable energy source.  The Governor's office joined a slew of environmental groups in opposing this bill in committee.  The proponents of the bill included representatives from organized labor, Indian tribes, job providers, and energy experts.

SB 403 would have given electrical utilities more flexibility in using renewable energy from small producers, resulting in a better situation for consumers.  The governor's office also joined forces with a host of environmental groups to oppose the bill.

Now for the criticism of Chuck Johnson's coverage, which can be found here.  He does a decent job of giving a fair description of each bill; we have no quarrel with that.  But then he quotes Gov. Schweitzer at length with absolutely no rebuttal or perspective given from the sponsors of these bills or any other supporter.  The Gov may have just as well written this story on his own for all the analysis Chuck Johnson gave it. 

And isn't it the least bit interesting that the Gov vetoed SB 503 (and it's not the first one) after he failed to even show up for the committee hearing on it?  Isn't it the least bit interesting that for all the Gov's bluster about coal and oil development that he's so closely alighed with all these out-in-left-field environmental groups?  This isn't the first time that Mr. Johnson has allowed the Gov to spout off unanswered, and we doubt it will be the last.

Chuck - we know Lee Newspapers is on the financial ropes and things have been cut to the bone, but that's no excuse for doing a poor job on reporting the news.

Montana appears likely on November 4 to pass I-155, the so-called Healthy Montana Kids initiative. Sounds nice, but the devil's always in the detail. Far from being a responsible approach to making sure Montana kids have health care, I-155 is a massive, government-expanding boondoggle that will leave our kids holding the bag for tax hikes over time. It's an incredibly inefficient way to expand health insurance - it takes kids who would otherwise be covered by private health insurance and puts them on the taxpayer's dime in a bureaucrat-heavy, red-tape-ridden government health scheme. And it comes with a tidy price tag - over $9700 per new child when the total cost is divided by the number of uninsured that will be covered. Oh, but there's something for the job-hunting bureaucrats too...I-155 requires 60 new state employees to administer.

The worst part: enrollment in the program is mandatory for kids in families whose income is less than 250 percent of the federal poverty index. Families don't get a choice of whether their kids will be allowed to grow up in a free-market household, they're forced into a collectivist program.

We usually don't re-publish material in full, but this was too good to cut up. A Tim Fox for Attorney General email from yesterday:

Throughout this campaign, I've been very vocal about my plans to get tough on sex predators in Montana. It's an issue that I'm extremely concerned about, and I've recently outlined a three-part plan to modernize Montana's laws to address the growing problem of cyber-predators, increase policing power to track down sexual offenders, and implement a comprehensive education program for kids and parents.

Yesterday my opponent attacked me for my positions on sex predators. They're saying that I'm using scare tactics and that the dangers presented by sexual offenders aren't as serious as I make them out to be. It's incomprehensible to me that they would minimize those dangers; that they would say that it's really not that big of a deal. And it's chilling that Steve Bullock would take that casual attitude with him if he's elected to be our state's next top law enforcement official.

keep hearing reports that some convicted sexual offenders keep track of how aggressive states are with managing their sex offender registries and policing online. I don't want Montana to be a "safe haven" for sex predators.

Steve Bullock just doesn't get it. Sex predators are a big deal, and they present a growing danger to Montana's kids. Every day more and more children are sexually solicited online. Every day kids are abused by sex predators they unwittingly meet on sites like Myspace. Every day we have sexual offenders moving into Montana communities.

Steve Bullock must not read the same news that I read. If he did, there'd be no way that he'd so cavalierly minimize the threats that they pose. Well, Steve, here's a few of the most outrageous articles just from this past month that should start to help you wake up to the seriousness of this issue:

• Forsyth, MT. 9/30/08 - "An Internet-based investigation led to the arrest of a Forsyth man Saturday on suspicion of sexual intercourse without consent... Samuel Casey, 30, met a 14-year-old girl through MySpace, a social networking Web site. He allegedly traveled to Spearfish, S.D., last weekend and brought her back to Forsyth... Casey likely faces additional federal charges for transporting the girl across state lines." Click for full article"

• Indianapolis, IN. 9/29/08 - "A convicted sex offender died Sunday during a struggle with a father who found the naked man in or near his 17-year-old daughter's bedroom... Police said (52-year-old David T.) Meyers was naked except for a mask and latex gloves and had entered the home through a window near the girl's bedroom with rope, condoms and a knife...Police did not anticipate any charges against (the father)." Click for full article.

• Helena, MT. 9/24/08 - "A 37-year-old Helena man who had sex numerous times with a 13-year-old girl and photographed her in a sexual act last year was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to a 196-month prison term... After initially meeting the girl, Dietz tracked her down through her MySpace account online and spoke with her about sexually explicit matters...He used his computer and cell phone to entice the girl into sexual activity, according to federal court documents." Click here for full article.

• Florence, MT . 9/12/08 - "A judge says an 18-year-old sex offender must move out of his grandmother's home next to a Florence school...Jerry Jerome Little's sentence was modified this week to make it clear he cannot live within 1,500 feet of a school or day care center...Little was convicted in 2006 and designated by the state as a sexually violent predator." Click for full article.

• Phoenix, AZ. 9/10/08 - "A sex offender who posed as a boy while enrolling in charter schools has pleaded guilty to seven charges... Authorities don't believe Neil Havens Rodreick II, 30, sexually abused any children at the schools, just attended classes and befriended them...Rodreick was caught on Jan. 17, 2007 after spending a day in the seventh grade at a Chino Valley school posing as a 12-year-old. Authorities said Rodreick powdered his face and shaved his body to look younger." Click for full article.

Go get 'em Tim!

Billings trial lawyer Cliff Edwards contributed $50,000 to the re-election of Jim Nelson to the Montana Supreme Court in 2004.  Two weeks ago, Nelson wrote the majority opinion in a decision that partially reversed a $942,000 judgment against Edwards.

How's an 1884% return on investment sound?

We'll spare you the details of the  case, Corporate Air v. Edwards Jet Center; and we'll spare you our (very-inexpert) opinion on whether or not the justices got the decision right.  The point is the principle of the thing. 

Cliff Edwards circumvented the spirit of the law prohibiting an individual from contributing more than $250 (at that time) to a candidate for the Montana Supreme Court, a law intended to prevent "corruption or the appearance of corruption."  While under current law Edwards has every right to make that sort of contribution, for Nelson to be ruling in cases where Edwards is involved is completely unethical--this latest example is even worse as Edwards is the central figure in the case.

The trial lawyers have this thing figured out--spend big bucks to get their buddies elected and then laugh all the way to the bank when their pals rule in their favor.  Shame on Lee Newspapers for not shining a spotlight on this disgusting display of corruption in the Montana Supreme Court.