Democratic candidates for the western district House seat try to differentiate themselves from the pack. One area they differ: whether or not to take PAC money. Montana voters may get a chance to change campaign spending laws in the state. And one of the Democratic candidates hopes to channel the campaign success of a former governor.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau.
Sally Mauk Seaborn, the four Democratic candidates running for the western district House seat held a forum in Whitefish and a debate in Butte this past week, and one of the takeaways is how similar they are on many of the major policy issues.
Seaborn Larson Yeah, there's not a lot of daylight between these candidates, Sally, except for their backgrounds. And to move through those quickly, we've got Ryan Busse, an author and former firearms executive who ran an unsuccessful race for governor in '24. Russell Cleveland is a small business owner and a veteran who's very focused on healthcare and insurance after losing his daughter to leukemia. Sam Forstag was a union leader and Forest Service employee, a smoke jumper, and had a former career as a progressive lobbyist in Montana. Fourth, we have Matt Rains, another veteran who traveled the world as a photographer and moved back to Montana a couple of years ago, worked as a lineman before getting back into ranching. So, after that, the differences are pretty nuanced. Most of them pitched some version of universal health care. They opposed selling public lands. They supported guardrails on building data centers and signaled they would vote for government spending programs to solve housing affordability. It's not a hostile primary either for Democrats in this western congressional race. They were all pretty cordial with each other on the stage in Butte.
Sally Mauk One of the areas where they do differ is whether or not to take PAC money in their campaigns. Russell Cleveland is a hard no, but Matt Rains said this:
"PACs are not bad. Unions have PACs. There's some great organizations that have PACs, we cannot turn it toxic because it is what is going to get us across the finish line."
Sally Mauk He's basically saying, Seaborn, that if PAC money helps you win, then go for it.
Seaborn Larson Right. Rains in this race represents one end of this debate, where he seems totally open to PAC money, and he's used some pretty spirited language this week to say that winning the race is the most important thing here. Cleveland, meanwhile, is on the other end of this. Since the beginning of his campaign, he's said he won't take any PAC money only individual contributions. Busse and Forstag, on the other hand, are more in the middle on this. Both campaigns specified to me this week that they're refusing corporate PAC money, say railroads or other corporations that might want to get involved in Montana politics. As well as AIPAC money, and that's a pro-Israel PAC that spends big money in both parties. They will accept, however, PAC money from other groups they align with here in Montana. There are some PACs that do support Democratic causes, and they'd also accept money from congressional PACs. Quarterly reports are due next month, and we'll see how those strategies have played out.
Sally Mauk Well Rob, candidates like Cleveland who swear off PAC money are winning the ethics battle but maybe losing the political war. How do you win a race where your opponent vastly outspends you?
Rob Saldin Well right, that's the difficulty, Sally. Critics of the system are in a bit of a tricky position. If they take the high ground, so to speak, and refuse PAC money, that does risk hurting their chances, as Rains noted in that clip. You can, of course, try to gin up some press coverage about not taking PAC money, but there is a real cost to refusing, no doubt. You get all the incoming, but you're limited in your ability to punch back. Yet, for these critics, if you accept PAC money, you can sometimes get accused of hypocrisy. And that's always struck me as a bit unfair. It's not realistic to expect a candidate to unilaterally disarm. And there's nothing inconsistent about playing by the rules that are in place at any given moment while also making the case that we should alter those rules moving forward.
Now, of course, Sally, not everyone, we should note, sees money in politics as such a scandalous thing. There is an argument to be made that we sometimes blow this out of proportion. The outcome of elections, after all, it matters a lot and therefore it's not altogether surprising that we spend a lot of money in these campaigns. And in fact, efforts to restrict the influence of money are questionable at best and dangerous at worst from this perspective because they effectively place limits on free speech. Beyond that, a lot money that flows into campaigns doesn't necessarily end up buying much because those prominent races that attract the huge dollar figures can easily get saturated and pretty quickly, you run into the diminishing returns problem, right? So the 200th time you see that political ad, it just doesn't pack that much of a punch.
Sally Mauk Democrats aren't the only ones complaining about PAC money. Republican House candidate Al Olszewski, still fuming over Ryan Zinke's last minute dropping out of the race, had this to say recently:
"The powers that be on the East Coast in Washington, D.C., they choose their anointed and selected candidate. Once that person is selected and they know that they can control them, they then provide all the money to support their campaign. They buy them."
Sally Mauk And he's not wrong, Seaborn. A recent article outlined how much more money billionaires, often through PACs, are spending on elections now, and it's a staggering amount.
Seaborn Larson Yeah, the New York Times article is a deep dive on billionaires' spending in elections and how that has translated to greater influence in government. The story had examples in federal, state, and even local politics, including a county school board race in California.
One of the main subjects of this story was Montana freshman Senator Tim Sheehy, not quite a billionaire himself, but certainly one of the wealthiest members of Congress, I believe his net worth is over $100 million. He developed that status after Blackstone began investing in his aerial firefighting company in 2018, well before his 2024 run for the Senate. But Sheehy's eventual personal wealth made him an ideal candidate for Republicans to run against former Senator Jon Tester. Blackstone's chairman, Stephen Schwarzman, contributed $8 million to a PAC that helped Sheehy overcome the incumbent Tester, who, by the way, out-raised Sheehy. So, the Times found at least 64 different billionaires donated directly to Sheehy's campaign, which at the time was seen as crucial in order to flip the Senate to Republican control. The story pointed to Schwarzman's longtime opposition to this effort by Democrats to raise taxes on private equity executives, and it suggests that the payoff for Schwarzman donating to Sheehy's campaign is that Sheehy signed a pledge to vote against raising taxes, and Republicans now control the Senate.
Sally Mauk There may be an initiative on the fall ballot, Seaborn, and it's called the Montana Plan, and it hopes to limit corporate spending on elections, at least in Montana.
Seaborn Larson Right. This week, the ballot initiative began gathering signatures around the state for what's being called Initiative 194. The proposal would block corporations from spending in state elections. The 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision, called Citizens United, took the cap off corporate spending in elections, but this attempts to circumvent that decision by going to the state charter, which grants corporations certain powers and effectively blocks spending through that charter. The campaign running this initiative, Transparent Election Initiative, headed up by a former commissioner of political practices, Jeff Mangan, has had some hiccups. The campaign's first initiative sought to make this change through the Constitution, but the Montana Supreme Court struck that down, finding it touched too many parts of the Constitution for Montanans to cast a fully informed vote. This is called log rolling. So, the campaign submitted a second draft of this proposal in January, this time looking to change state law rather than the Constitution. That resolves the issue at the Supreme Court and the Attorney General this week approved it to begin gathering signatures. They need a bit more than 30,000 signatures from a certain range across the state. Mangan's group has a second initiative that's about to get swamped down in court, but he told MTN News this week that they're moving forward to collect signatures for the approved initiative. Those are due in late June.
Sally Mauk Rob, if the Montana Plan makes it on the ballot and passes, it would almost certainly face legal challenges.
Rob Saldin I think that's almost certainly the case, Sally. That said, it first has to go before the voters. And I think this could go over very well with voters in the fall. Let's assume now, for the moment, that that is what happens. And this thing passes, that would effectively roll back the clock to the pre–Citizens United status quo. And I think the place where it could really have a significant impact isn't so much in say, the high-profile campaign for governor. It'd be in those legislative races, and maybe even more so in the primaries for legislative races. And I'm sure at some point in the coming weeks, we'll talk more about some of the attacks going on in Republican primaries around the state right now. Well, that's the kind of thing where the Montana Plan would potentially really make a meaningful difference. But if either of these versions that are out there right now do get passed, it is almost certain that it'll go before the courts. And while backers of the Montana Plan have their story down about how their initiative effectively sidesteps Citizens United, it's not clear that this court, which of course is now further to the right than it was when it issued Citizens United will see it the same way.
Sally Mauk Lastly, a political name from the recent past came up in the Democrats' debate in Butte when candidate Ryan Busse said this:
"I've run for office. I've been vetted, and we ran a tough race in 2024, but I learned a lot. And a lot like Brian Schweitzer, who called me after that election, he said, 'you don't stop. You take what you've learned, you take what you've built, you put it to work, and you go to work winning the next election.' That's exactly what Brian Schweizer did. That's what I intend to do here."
Sally Mauk And he's right, Rob, in his history that former Governor Brian Schweitzer didn't win his first political race and then, of course, went on to become governor, and I'm guessing Busse is happy to associate himself with the former governor.
Rob Saldin Yeah, sure. The Schweitzer name still means something around here. For Democrats, those were the good old days when the party brand was still running strong. And as you note, Sally, it is a nice model for Busse, because as he noted, Schweitzer lost that Senate race to Conrad Burns in 2000, before he came back to win the 2004 gubernatorial election. And of course, Schweizer went on to have a real moment. Arguably, I think the peak came in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention that year. I think we were both in the hall that night, Sally. Schweitzer gave a short but absolutely riveting speech that was full of his characteristic swagger. The crowd ate it up. He absolutely brought the house down. It was quite a moment. And then just a couple months later, he was reelected by over 30 points. So, all that is to say, there's certainly something for Busse to tap into there. At the same time, Sally, you know, that convention night in Denver was over 17 years ago now and the state's changed. For a lot of voters, that era of Montana politics, it's ancient history. And for a bunch of others, they don't have any memories of it whatsoever.
Sally Mauk I do remember that 2008 convention. Schweitzer was a star at that convention and one that wasn't known all that well nationally until then.
Rob Saldin Yeah, he stole the night, for sure.
Sally Mauk He did. Rob and Seaborn, we're out of time this week. I'll talk to you next week.
Campaign Beat is MTPR's weekly political analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Rob Saldin of the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center and Political Science Department, and Seaborn Larson, Senior Reporter at Lee Newspapers’ Montana State News Bureau.
