Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain should be the motto of the 2025 Montana Legislature and the now eight hundred registered lobbyists in control of our fate. It’s hard to follow and the lobbyists like it that way. Reporters covering the Capital have quite the mess to try to sort out and the average citizen can’t possibly keep up. So we thought we’d take a stab at tying a few things together in light of a document referenced in an article last week that didn’t seem to get the full attention it deserves.  The “Montana 2025 Legislative End Game Bill Tracking Report” was referenced as circulating between lawmakers and lobbyists, and according to reporter Victoria Eavis it was authored in part by Representative Llew Jones of Conrad. Eavis didn’t publish the report or talk in detail, but it certainly explains the very shady bait and switch activities we’ve seen this year. Lobbyist priorities are peppered throughout and it’s time these sorts of documents are published. 

For a person like me who doesn’t have my own lobbyist and I don’t get paid to screw people over, I don’t always pay attention to issues. I’m fortunate enough to have connections with people in Helena who don’t like what’s happening, but they’re not in a place to share these things. Our Legislators would prefer we don’t know about their tradeoffs, when in the past their predecessors would explain why they took a few bad votes to describe what they got in return. I probably didn’t pay too much attention either until I experienced lobbyists and Democratic legislators trying to get me to back off. Some even like to think of Llew Jones as some form of hero.  I disagree entirely on that point, but we should also start looking at what Democrats are trading off to side with Llew and his lobbyists. What was gained in nullifying the Held decision and declaring the Montana Environmental Policy Act essentially meaningless and tossing our Constitutional rights outs the window? After the Montana Public Service Commission simply asked questions about the impact on data centers on Montana ratepayers, why are Democrats joining with Llew and his lobbyists to exempt data centers from PSC regulation? More telling, why would Democrats do the bidding of out of state corporations and eliminate elected PSC commissioners to replace them with corporate appointed shills? Those of us who live in Butte watched our local government roll out the red carpet to sell land to a data center, disregarding questions from Montana’s PSC. Rightwing Kingmaker Lobbyist Mark Taylor represents that data center corporation. Incidentally, Butte-Silver Bow entered a housing arrangement with very few questions at the urging of Taylor and his underling who is a former Democratic legislator from Butte…who has a lobbying contract with Butte-Silver Bow. It’s funny nobody asked what financial interests any of these lobbyists had in these housing contracts, but two of the principal beneficiaries of them employees an army of these lobbyists to leverage contracts with their other clients.

The one thing we can tie to term limits in Montana is it placed lobbyists in charge of our fate. We shouldn’t be shocked to see all these lobbyists wanting the same power nationally by fighting for term limits in Congress to seize the same power. We should all be asking why entities who employ these lobbyists all push for HJ 13 calling for exactly that. What interests do Butte-Silver Bow, the Montana Mining Association, Western Native Voice, Montana Outfitters and Guides Association, Blue Cross-Blue Shield have in giving lobbyists control of our national finances? That’s just a short list, but do their employers know what these lobbyists are doing behind the scenes? They should since I got that short sample from the website of the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices. They could do the same. And further, why are legislators so reluctant to disclose their interactions with lobbyists and more importantly why would a bipartisan group of them want to eliminate the two-year waiting period to cash in on the lobbyist gravy train? The answer is simple…lobbyists are in charge and control everything in Helena. This document from Llew and his lobbyists is just a sliver of the example.  We are being led to believe our legislators are out there “fighting” for us, but in reality the endgame of property tax relief is already baked and closely tied to unaccountable slush funds and token rebates.

First, a little primer on a segment of recent shenanigans to tie things together.

Montanans might recall another recent article by Victoria Eavis describing Representative Llew Jones using his personal email to report to his lobbyist handlers.  Bait and Switch Jones made up excuses why he used his personal email, but most importantly he warned the out-of-state state corporations that HB 528 was becoming the most popular vehicle.

That’s for good reason since HB 528 rectifies the massive tax shift to Montana property tax payers from 2023 that permanently subsidizes corporate shareholders that’s now born by Montana residential property taxpayers. HB 528 is the only bill that follows the process of correcting past and future property value assessments to make sure Montanans aren’t taxed out of their homes. When HB 528 got to the Senate, Jones and Committee Chairman Greg Hertz made sure the plight of the sleazy lobbyists was heard, and refused to allow proponents testify. Sadly, the Democratic vice-chair of the committee sat silent and the Senate co-sponsor Mary Ann Dunwell was rumored to be warned to stand down on raising objection by Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers. Like a lot of Montanans, I was scratching my head why Democratic leadership would be eager to kill the only fair fix to property taxes in play, particularly since this is precisely the fix used by the last two Democratic Governors of Montana and Republicans before them. We should all be asking why the multiplier .76 is so concerning to lawmakers cutting deals with lobbyists and creating new slush funds to skim off for their buddies.  One group pushing hard for the simple and fair fix even caused some Montana Senate members to mention to a reporter about the texts they were getting to support HB 528.  They didn’t however mention the many messages they’re getting from all over Montana from regular people who are being priced out of their homes by these games and favors.

While all this is happening, Victoria Eavis was also reporting on legislators and lobbyists making “progress behind the scenes”.  Yet again, Montanans are wondering who elected these sleazy lobbyists to be crafting legislation and why legislators are doing anything behind the scenes. As predicted, the big corporate shills from the Montana Chamber of Commerce and its allies oppose any cuts to residential taxes that affect the big windfall they secured in 2023 by taxing Montanans out of their homes. Not to be outdone, Great Falls Republican Steve Fitzpatrick, made sure to clarify he prefers to do everything in the hallway and out of public earshot. His father is a longtime former lobbyist for Northwestern Energy and current Montana Legislator, who is still quite active for the South Dakota Corporation. As their lobbyist friends cut deals and favors, Fitzpatrick is leading the charge to strip Montanans of their ability to elect Public Service Commissioners and remove the PSCs oversight over datacenters. And Democrats are going along with the plot for some reason, which could only mean they’re working for lobbyists or cutting bad deals for Montana. And there’s a lot more to talk about, but the backroom deals cooking now couldn’t be worse for Montanans as lobbyists and legislators stab their colleagues in the back.

My connections in the Capital have long talked about a deal being cut between Llew and his lobbyists, the Governor’s staff, and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Flowers. That even includes rule changes to strip Senate President Matt Regier of much say in anything. I have mixed feelings about that since I probably don’t agree with Regier on much, but on the other hand, he’s not a puppet for lobbyists selling out my state left and right. That couldn’t be more evident when most Democrats were protecting the activities of disgraced Senator Jason Ellsworth, a Republican who used unaccountable slush funds to award a no-bid contract to his former business associate. Just last week, Democrats attempted to force through the lobbyist wish list of HB 231 and were surprised to see two Democrats oppose the effort on April 17. Don’t worry lobbyists, horse trading resurrected it on reconsideration on April 18. At the same time, the last-minute surprise of lobbyist puppet Wylie Galt was amended in the House to look like a Montana screwing Frankenstein bill full of gimmicks and protections for corporations. The Montana Free Press wrote a good description of the latest effort to screw elderly people on a fixed income who can’t fill out the forms to beg for relief. 

Meanwhile, HB 528 is a very straightforward and simple fix to protect Montana property taxpayers…all of them…without gimmicks and forms to beg for relief. And the bipartisan games prevent it from getting the yes vote it deserves. And the good news is we don’t have to scratch our heads about how the horse trading is screwing us over this time.

The story omits quite a bit about alleged shifting tax burdens. We’re all now aware of the shady practice of stashing money at the Montana Board of Investments while the Governor’s staff doles out interest earnings from public money that was withheld. Modelling the success of slush fund-backed trusts, Llew and his lobbyists concocted a bigger hold back of our money currently found in the every growing HB 924, which is based on sitting on $1.2 billion of our money through raiding a variety of accounts.

A couple months ago, we discussed a lobbyist strategy document from the misleadingly named Montana Conservation Society, which includes Senator Wylie Galt as a founding board member.  Though the groups referenced repeatedly deny their actual involvement behind the scenes and have even extended to personal attacks, their plans are outlined in Llew’s lobbyists End Game. For example, Trout Unlimited denied any efforts to carve off money from marijuana taxes, despite opposing using those funds for Habitat Montana in 2023. TU claimed their water storage priorities, more aptly referred to as “Dams for Donors” wasn’t sourced in these funds at all, but general fund dollars. The MCS policy document claimed otherwise and TU continues to deny the reprioritization of the funds voters put their desires behind when legalizing marijuana.

Last week, lobbyists managed to amend one marijuana spending bill HB 932 to divert money to Dams for Donors. Unsuspecting supporters of the bill could accept that small diversion, but they’re likely unaware of the real End Game described by Bait and Switch Llew. Observers of the slush fund bill noticed funding allocations for the program and the more trusting members of the Legislature probably still assume their agreement will be honored. The source of funding for what Llew and his lobbyists call “weed for water” is slated to come from HB 932, which is broadly supported in the conservation community.

We can see by nicknames of bills the attitude of Llew and his lobbyists throughout the document.  For instance, SB 537 is referred to as “Raiding Marijuana Revenue”. That narrative fits only in the sense it differs from the deals cut in the back rooms in the capital. HB 932 on Marijuana Redistribution is slated for use as an alternative structure to redistributing revenue and funding Dams for Donors. Imagine my surprise when I hear about Senate Democratic Leadership calling to kill 537 in favor of 932 because the Dams for Donors carveout messages with the Governor’s budget.  Exactly what Llew and the lobbyists outlined in the End Game. 

Moreover, we can see the plan is to completely screw Montanans with planned rebates instead of actual property tax relief. All the smoke and mirrors and votes to keep bad legislation alive by a bipartisan group of deal makers and lobbyists culminates in a plan to try to buy us with rebates of our own money and sitting on more of it to create future slush funds. And just think, if the priority of our elected officials were to give us property tax relief and not sit on our money to dole out to friends, those costs wouldn’t come close to the $1.2 billion of our money they plan on gambling in a volatile market. So much for Governor Gianforte’s statements of how Montanans know better how to spend their money than government. He needs to keep a closer eye on his budget direction who has big spending plans he’s hatching with Llew and his lobbyists.

Today, I was alerted to an amendment to the slush fund bill cosponsored by Democrats cutting their own deals to join in screwing Montanans with the Governor and Llew’s lobbyists. When Representatives Karlen and Tuss aren’t busy building slush funds, they’re sure working tirelessly to appease Llew’s lobbyists on property taxes. Don’t worry, their plan is to keep most of our money for slush funds and give us the chance to beg for a rebate a lot of us don’t qualify for.

Clearly there are some traditional Democrats and Republicans left, but the majority is the party of lobbyists and corporations pulling the strings on their puppets. The Wizard of Conrad sure has the ear of the Cowardly Lion of Bozeman and the Tin Men of Missoula while the rest of the Legislature seems to be skipping down the Yellow Brick Road to screw Montana. We can only hope they find hearts and courage to do the right thing and pass real property tax relief and stop with the slush fund nonsense. Since they’re more concerned in appeasing the flying monkeys on the Governor’s staff, they can balance the budget if they ditch unaccountable slush funds and housing schemes to enrich lobbyists.

We’d all do well to contact our legislators with a couple simple messages. Pass HB 528 to give us property tax relief. Ditch the gimmicks and slush funds with out money.  Start disclosing interactions with sleazy lobbyists. And get the hell out of Helena before Llew’s lobbyists and his merry band of deal makers screw us over worse than they’ve laid out in their End Game document. These deal makers aren’t capable of weighing what they’re giving up to achieve their individual goals, so they can’t see how they’re clearing Montana of Montanans by making it unaffordable to live here. The choice is simple…lobbyists or people. We’ll be watching and making better decisions on the next ballots.