Democratic State Senator Steve Gallus (Butte) may have acted improperly as a result of a conflict of interest between his job working for a private corrections company and his position on the Senate Corrections and Public Safety Committee, according to a recent article by the Big Horn County News.  (A pdf version of the story is also included as it appears the BH County News does not archive its stories).  The private corrections company Gallus works for, Community Counseling and Correctional Services Inc. (CCCS), could be a competitor for state contracts with other private corrections companies.

While it is not yet apparent that Gallus may have influenced any contract awards, the Legislative Auditor's Office is investigating the situation. 

Is reporter Rob Harper of the Missoula Independent just new to the political scene or is he really not that good at his job?  That's what we were left wondering this morning after reading his bit about Eric Iverson's dual roles as MT GOP chairman and chief of staff for Congressman Denny Rehberg.  Harper's story centers on MT Democratic Party exec Art Noonan's criticism of Iverson for holding these dual positions; the one glaring thing Harper forgot to mention is that Noonan is doing the exact same thing.

Art Noonan, aka State Representative Art Noonan of House District 73 in Butte, holds dual roles as a paid official of the Montana Democratic Party and a duly-elected, sitting legislator.  You'd think that might be worth mentioning in the story.

This is one of the best parts: "'His volunteering as chair—that’s not unusual,' Noonan says. What concerns him, he says, is 'the intermingling of the political business of the party with government work done for the taxpayers.'"

Pot calling the kettle black?

Usually media bias takes a subtle tone, but in this example Rob Harper lets it all hang out by omitting critical facts.  Shame on him.

The legislative Revenue and Transportation Interim Committee (RATIC) has been a contentious subject ever since the regular legislative session adjourned earlier this year.  Democrats on the committee have been resisting the committee precedent that rotates the chairmanship of this committee between chambers and parties.  They'd prefer to give an additional term to Senator Jim Elliot (D-Trout Creek) instead of allowing House Taxation Committee Chairman Bob Lake (R-Hamilton) to assume the chair according to the traditional rotation schedule.

At the last RATIC meeting the main point of contention for the Democrats was the fact that Lake had written a guest editorial criticial of the administrations aggressive stance against Montana taxpayers.  

Hmm.  So if you write opinions about tax policy in Montana you shouldn't be allowed to serve as the RATIC chairman?  By our count, Senator Elliot wrote exactly 20 opinion peices on tax policy during his term as RATIC chairman.  Some of these opinions were highly critical of Republican tax policy preferences.

But we all know that double-standards are nothing new to the Democrats.

The RATIC committee will meet later today in Helena, and the chairman issue is bound to come up.  Let's just hope that the Republicans stick to their guns and prevent Taxpayer Public Enemy #1 Jim Elliot from weasling his way into the chair once again.

Jim Farrell, the notorious attack machine and now former Executive Director of the Montana Democrat Party quietly announced that he and two of his key staff members would be moving on to new positions on Friday. Farrell is heading to Iowa, where he will work as the Deputy State Director for Bill Richardson, and staffers Jessica Rhodes and Chris Laslovich are leaving for jobs with left-leaning organizations in Montana.

The timing of this is a bit curious. If there was going to be a major staff exodus, you would expect it to occur after the last election, after the legislative session, or right after the Party held their officer elections more than a month ago. This comes as no surprise to political insiders in Helena whom have long been whispering of internal dissatisfaction with Farrell's tact and tactics.  It's no secret that Farrell's support base was limited within the party and that many Democratic lawmakers did not approve of his overly-aggressive demeanor and his habit for stretching the truth.

What's more significant is the wholesale departure of the core of the Democratic Party staff, which points to a house cleaning in favor of a new political shop.   

This seems like the kind of tactic we could see from the Governor, who’s been labeled as a bully for years, even by members of his own party. Or perhaps this comes at the behest of Max Baucus and his political team, who have been long rumored to have issues with Farrell in his stint as Executive Director. Whatever the case, this doesn’t smell like a week when all the key democrat staffers just decided on a new career path. It’s clear the Democrat Party in Montana is in disarray and that there is some behind the scenes feuding within the party that will no doubt impact their performance in the 2008 elections.

An Associated Press story carried by the Bozeman Daily Chronicle today has some interesting spin from the gov's office on who's to blame for spending cuts for fire suppression. The story finishes with this: "(Budget Director Dave) Ewer said he thinks lawmakers should remember that Schweitzer asked to have more money on hand to fight fires, a task that appears to be getting increasingly expensive for the state.  The measure, carried by a Republican, died in the GOP-led House."

The big question is, why are we even pointing fingers?  The legislature has historically not funded fire suppression to the extent needed because it's impossible to forecast exactly how much money will be necessary.  The usual method for funding fire fighting is to "borrow" money out of agency budgets, primarily DNRC, and pay the agency back later through supplemental appropriations.  But this governor smells blood in the water and he just can't resist playing partisan games.

Since he brought it up, let's talk about who cut fire suppression funding.

There were two stand-alone bills to increase funding for fire fighting, both sponsored by Republicans.  The first, HB 66 by Rep. Ray Hawk would have established a fund for fire suppression costs set at $25 million using state and federal money.  The second, HB 150 by Rep. Jack Ross, would have increased the Governor's Emergency fund to $25 million, but it was not earmarked for fires, which is part of why it was killed.

Both these bills found themselves on the scrap pile because House Republicans preferred to fund firefighting costs through the main budget bill, HB 2.  Republican Rep. Rick Ripley amended HB 2 to add $10 million for firefighting costs.  When that bill reached the Senate, Democrat Senator Dave Wanzenried amended out the $10 million for firefighting and reallocated $9.8 million to the Dept. of Revenue and $0.2 million to the Historical Society.  Here's a copy of the Wanzenried amendment.

Again, this whole blame game is pointless in our book, but since Schweitzer started the spin on it and wrongly accused Republicans of cutting fire suppression costs, we thought we'd set the record straight.  What's really going on here is that Gov. Schweitzer is gearing up for a special legislative session to pay the bills for this year's wildfires, and he's trying to set the stage to blame Republicans for not funding fire fighting.  We think there's no blame to spread around in this case since this legislature treated fire funding in the historic method.  We just hope the Montana media gets it right this time and recognizes the gov's blatant partisan attitude for what it is.

Everybody needs to have a catchy tag line.  For the Montana Democratic Party, their current tag line featured on their web site is "Montana's on the move."  That's pretty good.  So good that the Governor's Office of Economic Development has picked it up and is using it on official state documents. 

Now there's nothing wrong with a little copy-catting, but usually public officials try to keep their politicing a little bit more separated from their governing.  Gov. Schweitzer changed all that by turning his administration into the most partisan office since the days of William Andrews Clark.  He got one thing right, it really is a new day in Montana.

As over 500 Montana patriots begin packing their bags, we thank Sen. Tester and Sen. Baucus for their hard work on almost accomplishing the job that Sen. Burns and Congressman Rehberg have managed to defend in recent years on protecting Malmstrom Air Force Base. We're sure that the loss of jobs will be a huge boost for the Great Falls community.

As the President begins to issue a Grant of Executive Clemency.

As Al Gore prepares to spend more money and credibility trying to convince the world that there is a fever. A majority isn't buying it.

As Montana residents and tourists can sleep safely at night knowing that Montana's fires are under control - at least until the 4th.

As we begin to prepare for a festival (not festivus) holiday to honor our independence of this great nation.

Let us not forget what we are celebrating. On this day in history, the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia to vote on Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence from Great Britain. A vote that 12 colonies voted in favor of while one state abstained from voting (NY). While John Adams thought future generations would commemorate their Independence Day on the 2nd of July, it turns out that we celebrate the day that we adopted The Declaration of Independence.

In other news, while Sen. John McCain reported high poll ratings here in Montana, he has a few other issues to worry about.

One can only wonder if Romney will pick up more gains with the amount of money he is raising and with his buddy's support?