Montana Lowdown

The Montana Democratic Party held its Officers and Rules Convention in Helena July 12-13, and journalist Alex Sakariassen and Montana Public Radio capital reporter Corin Cates-Carney were there to cover all the action as the 2020 election season gets underway.

One key takeaway was the party's ambition to reconnect with rural voters in Montana. Another was an emphasis on crafting a message that will appeal to both the party base and independent voters who feel disenfranchised by Donald Trump but are turned off by the so-called liberal resistance.

On this week's episode of the Montana Lowdown, veteran political reporter and broadcast journalist Mike Dennison discusses his new book, "Inside Montana Politics: A Reporter's View from the Trenches."

Dennison has been covering political campaigns, the Legislature, health care, energy, the environment, and other issues for more than three decades.

"Inside Montana Politics" is a fascinating read for anyone with an interest in Montana history, and Dennison brings a cast of notable characters to life by revealing the personalities behind the headlines.

"I like to inject a little humanity in my reporting and think about the people that you're reporting on, and that they're trying to do the right thing, even when they may be doing the wrong thing," Dennison said. "These are people that have husbands and wives and kids and friends. They're not just the demon that their opponents make them out to be.

"What I tried to show in my book and in my reporting is that these people are human, and when they screw up and make mistakes, we'll report on it. But we'll also report that sometimes they have good intentions and sometimes they do the right thing."

Dennison also reflects on some of his more memorable Montana bylines, including stories on deregulation, the rise of former Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the fall of former Sen. Conrad Burns, the exoneration of Cody Marble, and more.

Dennison also weighs in on the current state of journalism:

"We have a proliferation of news outlets that are biased. They start from a point of view, and that's what they adopt. And I think the most bias I see in any journalist is the choice in what you cover. Not how you cover it, but what you cover."

Dennison's new book is available now from local and national retailers, and he continues to report as a broadcast journalist for MTN News.

This week we continue our coverage of the candidates vying for state office in 2020, with our first look at the race for Secretary of State with Missoula Democratic State Sen. Bryce Bennett.

In his five terms in the Legislature, Bennett has sponsored numerous bills focused on voter access and other election laws. He sees clear threats to Montana elections from voter suppression, dark money, disinformation, hacking, and voter apathy, he said.

"There's a lot of opportunities for the Secretary of State just to be a paper-pushing administrator," Bennett said, "but I think that there's a lot of opportunities, if done right, for the Secretary of State to be the chief advocate for voting in Montana."

That's important, Bennett said, at a time when "voter suppression agenda" is discouraging the state's electorate.

"We're seeing limitless dark money flow into our elections; our Secretary of State [Corey Stapleton] is telling people that there's rampant voter fraud everywhere; there's hacking, both foreign and domestic trying to get into our election," he said. "[I] hear from too many people that say 'What's the point? Why participate in an election where I'm not sure that my vote means anything or that it's even going to be counted?' And I think that a major role for the next Secretary of State will be to help people once again believe that their vote matters."

The next Montana Secretary of State will also hold a seat on the five-member State Land Board, which Bennett said would give him the ability to advocate for continued access to public lands: "We've seen big swaths of public land being blocked off by a rim of private land; I want to make sure that every aspect of public land here in Montana is accessible to Montanans."

This is our latest in our series covering the 2020 races for Montana state offices, and our first look at the race for Secretary of State. The Secretary of State holds the office for a four-year term, with a term limit of eight years

Our coverage of the 2020 Montana Attorney General's race continues this week with Democratic candidate for Attorney General Raph Graybill. Currently the Chief Legal Counsel for Governor Steve Bullock, Graybill said he's running on his belief that the Attorney General's job is to serve as a proactive advocate for consumers against the influence of ideological courts and industrial interests. "I want to live in a world where corporations and the powerful can't use courts and the legislature and fine print to dictate our choices," he said. In his role with the governor's office, Graybill has been involved with litigation around dark money and public land access. His experience also includes education at some of the legal field's most revered institutions as well as work with drafting the Affordable Care Act and the USS Cole bombing case. "I see the war on workers and on wages and on the middle class," he also said. "It isn't being waged in the open; it's being waged in fine print. It's being waged through years of work to create ideological structures around certain legal ideas and then putting those people into courts as judges. Well, the framers of the Constitution gave us a solution: They gave us an advocate who's loyal only to the public, and that's the AG." This is our third interview covering the 2020 Montana Attorney General's race. Also profiled so far have been Graybill's Democratic primary opponent, three-term Montana State Representative Kim Dudik, and Republican candidate Deputy Attorney General Jon Bennion.

The Montana Republican Party held its annual convention in Helena last week, and we sent veteran Montana political reporter Charles Johnson and longtime Billings reporter and columnist Ed Kemmick to the convention hall to take the pulse on the state GOP as the party gears up for the 2020 elections.

With vacancies in nearly every major office, some party leaders are opting to abandon posts they've recently won in hopes of staking out new claims to power. It's becoming clear that the party has a unique challenge of balancing party unity with the personal ambitions of party leaders.

And while the fractures we saw in the 2019 legislative session between conservative and moderate Republicans are far from healed, the party seems to be taking initial steps towards identifying a messaging remedy in President Donald Trump.

Deputy Attorney General Jon Benion is no stranger to Montana politics.

He worked on Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg's campaigns in 2000 and 2002, and in 2004 he published a "Big Sky Politics," a detailed book on post-war politics in Montana. After earning his law degree from the University of Montana, Bennion clerked for a district court judge in Billings, and then in 2006 he went to work in Helena as the top lobbyist for the Montana Chamber of Commerce.

For the past six-and-a-half years Bennion has served as Attorney General Tim Fox's chief deputy, an experience he says makes him uniquely qualified to take over when Fox is termed out in 2020.

"We need a leader that's going to continue to focus on critical public safety issues and provide leadership and the right priorities in that realm," Bennion said. "We need a leader that's going to continue to fight government overreach to that extent that either Washington, D.C., or another state, is trying to impact Montana from outside its borders. We also need somebody that's going to protect our most vulnerable citizens.

Bennion is up against former House Speaker and current Roosevelt County Attorney Austin Knudsen for the Republican nomination for attorney general, and Bennion had some strong words for his primary opponent.

"I think he's bored with being County Attorney after four months on the job, and that's unfortunate," Bennion said. "He really wanted to be attorney general. It shouldn't be some kind of stepping stone to get to somewhere else. And I think that's what sets me apart from my opponent."

On this week's podcast, Jon Bennion discusses how his career at the nexus of law and politics, and his role as a husband and father, would serve him well as Montana's next Attorney General.

From healthcare to Federal overreach, from climate change to the economics of coal, and more, Bennion shares his views on some of the most important issues voters will be grappling with in 2020.

In a provocative essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, author James D'Angelo, founder of the Congressional Research Institute, argues that more transparency in the legislative process leads to more corruption.

At the heart of D'Angelo's seemingly counterintuitive argument is the notion that recording and making public every procedural vote lawmakers take empowers special interest groups and lobbyists at the expense of the public interest.

Hear D'Angelo's case for less transparency.

Four-term Montana Rep. Kimberly Dudik was the first Democrat to throw her hat into the ring to replace outgoing Republican Attorney General Tim Fox, who is termed out of office in 2020.

Dudik, a Missoula attorney, announced her candidacy just weeks before the 2019 Legislature convened, even though some people advised her that doing so could hamper her legislative priorities.

"I chose not to believe that false narrative, and I did it anyway," Dudik said. "I filed... the week before Christmas, and then a couple of weeks later we're in the session running hard and getting things done over the next 90 days."

Dudik sponsored 31 bills during the 2019 Legislature, passing more than a third of them, including bills ranging from abolishing premarital blood test for women, to cracking down on child sex trafficking.

Dudik says she now wants to bring her experience working to protect Montanans to the office of the state's top attorney.

"I think that people want somebody who's has proven results and who have shown that they aren't going to put politics over people, but instead will put people over politics and do what's right for Montana," Dudik said.

Literary performer and educator, Regie Gibson, has lectured and performed in the U.S., Cuba and Europe. Representing the U.S., Regie competed for and received the Absolute Poetry Award in Monfalcone, Italy and the Europa en Verse Prize in Lagauardia di Como, Italy.

He and his work appear in "love jones": a feature film based on events in his life. He has served as a think-tank member and consultant for both the National Endowment for the Arts "How Art Works" initiative and for the "Mere Distinction of Color", an exhibit at Montpelier, the historic home of President James Madison examining the legacy of slavery and the U.S. Constitution. He is a former National Poetry Slam Champion, was featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, On Point, Radio Boston, and various other NPR programs. Regie has performed at several TEDx events and has been nominated for a Boston Emmy.

In an interview recorded March 30 at the 2019 Unrig Summit in Nashville, Regie and John Adams talk about the powerful role art and words can play in a democratic society.

House Majority Whip Rep. Derek Skees is among the group of conservative Republicans — the self-described "38 specials" — who resisted efforts by 20 or so members of the so-called Solutions Caucus to pass major legislation during the 2019 legislative session.

"I honestly think we suffered more losses than we did gains," Skees said in a wide-ranging Montana Lowdown podcast interview. "It was summed up perfectly in the minority leader's speech on the House Floor: Democrats got everything they wanted."

From Medicaid expansion to infrastructure bonding to the state budget the Solutions Caucus, along with minority Democrats, managed to override the House Republican leaders in 2019.

"It's the arrogant attitude of these people, behind the scenes, treating us with disdain...that pissed off everybody on my side of the group," Skees said.