Montana's transparent political system in danger (Billings, Missoula: rated, financing, metro area)

[cry_havoc]

IN Montana’s frontier days, we learned a hard lesson about money in politics, one that’s shaped our campaign-finance laws for a century and made our political system one of the country’s most transparent.

Those laws, and our political way of life, are now being threatened by the Supreme Court — which is why I recently signed a petition for a federal constitutional amendment to ban corporate money from all elections.

read more here

[hymnsinger]

For WIW, I agree.

That's as political as I'm going to get!

[Walter Greenspan]

What about banning all money and non-money union contributions?

[flyingcat2k]

Why not ban all out of state contributions in state races rather than do this? Why should John Testor and Denny Rehberg get the majority of their campaign funds from out of state, non party affiliated PACs? Tester is bought and paid for by Californians and his voting record shows it. Granted, all this will do is shove the PAC money to the control of party operative shlubs in Billings (R) and Bozeman/Missoula/Kalispell (D) but at least we don't have the shame of our politicians kowtowing to out of state capitals directly.

This is a stupid idea. So local REAs and the local chambers of commerce have to just sit down, shut up, and take it who knows where because Koch Industries and national unions (not the local) can't behave?

[NYMTman]

Originally Posted by flyingcat2k

Why not ban all out of state contributions in state races rather than do this? Why should John Testor and Denny Rehberg get the majority of their campaign funds from out of state, non party affiliated PACs? Tester is bought and paid for by Californians and his voting record shows it. Granted, all this will do is shove the PAC money to the control of party operative shlubs in Billings (R) and Bozeman/Missoula/Kalispell (D) but at least we don't have the shame of our politicians kowtowing to out of state capitals directly.

This is a stupid idea. So local REAs and the local chambers of commerce have to just sit down, shut up, and take it who knows where because Koch Industries and national unions (not the local) can't behave?

Has less to do with Koch Industries and more to do with the Anaconda Company which used to own state government lock stock and barrel. Which Californians are financing Tester's campaign and what percentage of it is funded by them?

[Geo Roam]

Cry Havoc,

You post on at least 15 radically different forums on city-data. From DC, to Guns, to General US, to West VA to Montana, to Phoenix, to Pittsburgh, on and on and on and most are short political blurbs or polarizing news items. 2,330 posts in a year since you joined??? Wow.

Either you are a "paid poster" (most likely), or someone who really enjoy stirring up chit, or a political "hack".

No offense of course....just an observation.

[cry_havoc]

Originally Posted by Geo Roam

Cry Havoc,

You post on at least 15 radically different forums on city-data. From DC, to Guns, to General US, to West VA to Montana, to Phoenix, to Pittsburgh, on and on and on and most are short political blurbs or polarizing news items. 2,330 posts in a year since you joined??? Wow.

Either you are a "paid poster" (most likely), or someone who really enjoy stirring up chit, or a political "hack".

No offense of course....just an observation.

Most of my post are not political. When I find interesting content that I feel others will enjoy I post it. I like good discussions. I rarely comment on political issues in states I know little about. Montana seems to have a great system but I am not familiar enough to have an opinion.

I wish I was paid to post.

[flyingcat2k]

Originally Posted by NYMTman

Has less to do with Koch Industries and more to do with the Anaconda Company which used to own state government lock stock and barrel. Which Californians are financing Tester's campaign and what percentage of it is funded by them?

Tester's Top 5 metro areas for campaign funds: (25% in state, 75% out of state funds for 2012 cycle)

1: Washington DC (could include Democratic Party funds so this isn't a + or - to me)
2: New York City
3: Missoula, MT
4: San Francisco
5: LA - Long Beach

Combined, the two CA MSAs contribue more than the Missoula MSA. If I eliminate DC and Missoula, which I consider traditional locations for funding, his contributions are very concentrated in NYC and CA as the three listed account for 20.3% (incl DC is 35.7%). MT, NY and CA have been the source of more than 500k this year. Also, his largest contributer is the League of Conservation Voters which is basically the environmentalist lobby.

For comparison, Rehberg's Top 5 metro areas for campaign funds: (21% in state, 79% out of state funds for 2012 cycle)

1: Washington DC
2: Billings, MT
3: New York City
4: Chicago
5: Houston

If I eliminate DC and Billings, which I consider traditional locations for funding, his other top three listed account for 14.6% of all campaign contributions (incl DC is 21.3%). Only MT has been the source of more than 500k this year. His largest contributer is Alliance Resource Partners, a coal company but is a much smaller contribution than the comparable #1 contibuter for Tester. However, the coal/oil companies listed in the top 20 combined are larger than the League of Conservation Voters contributions.

John Tester
Jon Tester: Campaign Finance/Money - Summary - Senator 2012 | OpenSecrets

Denny Rehberg
Denny Rehberg: Campaign Finance/Money - Summary - Representative 2012 | OpenSecrets