James DeHaven
Last year, Gov. Steve Bullock’s office quietly helped rewrite Montana’s political rulebook — contributing edits, reviewing drafts, and nixing proposed changes to controversial regulations meant to implement the state’s divisive Disclose Act.
Hundreds of pages of correspondence obtained through a records request filed by the Independent Record detail two Bullock staffers’ intimate involvement in the fraught rule-making process that followed the act’s passage in April 2015…
“Incidentally, to the extent that some of these regulatory definitions are so preposterously open-ended and impact the definitions of ‘coordination’ and political ‘contributions,’ one could argue with a straight face that the commissioner’s coordination with Governor Bullock on these regulations results in a campaign contribution (that is potentially excessive, prohibited, and/or not lawfully disclosed) from Motl to Governor Bullock,” attorney Eric Wang, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Center for Competitive Politics, wrote in an email Feb. 10.
