Honesty and disclosure wanted

Nancy Keenan

In Montana, we expect honesty from our elected officials. However, Greg Gianforte refuses to be forthcoming about whether he’s running for governor in an attempt to skirt the rules and avoid disclosing information that the public has a right to know about its candidates for office.

Just this week, Gianforte told the Montana Standard that he was giving “serious consideration” to a run for governor as he kicked off his 30-city, whistle-stop tour across the state to tout an agenda, rub elbows with the business community and talk to the press, which not many people do if they aren’t running for office.

But Gianforte is making this 30-stop tour under the protective shield of a 5-month-old company called Better Montana Jobs. Gianforte is using this shell game of a business to avoid publicly reporting who is paying for his tour.

It’s time Greg Gianforte provided answers to Montanans, so below is a list of questions that journalists should consider asking, if given the opportunity to help Montanans seek the truth behind this mysterious operation.

1.Why is Greg Gianforte not being forthcoming about his intentions to run for governor?

2.Why is Greg Gianforte refusing to reveal who is funding his current statewide tour or the group behind it, Better Montana Jobs?

3.If this group has nothing to do with Gianforte’s potential bid for governor, why was Better Montana Jobs only incorporated in January?

4.Gianforte has hired experienced political operatives to run Better Montana Jobs. What is their background in telecommuting policy? Are there other staffers?

5.If Greg Gianforte does run for governor, will he disclose how this tour was funded?

Montana Commissioner of Political Practices, Jonathan Motl, agrees that Gianforte should proactively disclose as much information as possible.  Motl even told the Montana Standard this week, “Anybody running for office is well-served if they take the highest road they can. I would think that it would seem to be in the public interest — and Gianforte’s — right out of the box, to report, disclose, make the information available to the public, whether it’s required by law or not.”

The bottom line is that Gianforte is behaving very much like someone running for statewide office and if he talks like a candidate, tours like a candidate, and acts like a candidate, chances are he is a candidate and should have to play by the same rules as any other candidate.

Gianforte is also getting national media attention. Most recently, the Huffington Post ran a front-page story on his belief that people shouldn’t retire because Noah was working at 600 years of age and because retirement isn’t in the bible.  This fringe belief is just another pillar in Gianforte’s narrow agenda that he’s spent millions advocating for in Montana.

That agenda includes protecting dark money, privatizing public schools, and promoting job-killing, pro-discrimination policies.

Montanans deserve to know where Gianforte stands – whether that’s who is funding his statewide tour, where he is on the issues that matter to Montanans, or even whether he’s running for governor.