Tutvedt files complaint against ATP and others

Two Republican legislators have filed complaints with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices claiming the conservative political group American Tradition Partnership and several other groups violated state election laws.

In his Dec. 3 complaint, Flathead Valley farmer and state senator Bruce Tutvedt, who was defeated in his bid for the Montana Senate Majority Leader position in November, claims the violations took place during this year’s primary election. Rep. John Esp, of Big Timber, also filed a complaint.

Tutvedt claims his primary opponent, Rollan Roberts II, and three organizations that supported Roberts, including ATP, Taypayers For Liberty, and the National Association For Gun Rights, violated state law by failing to state in political ads who paid for the ads; by coordinating campaign expenses in support of one candidate and against another; and by not following the requirements of the Clean Campaign Act.

The Senate District 3 primary election was described at the time as the most expensive legislative race in Montana.

Tutvedt provided 53 pages of documentation to support his claims, including an e-mail from Allison LeFer, the owner of Direct Mail and Communications, a Bozeman company that prints campaign literature and has been linked to ATP by the Commissioner of Political Practices and reporters from PBS Frontline and ProPublica.

In the e-mail LeFer sent to “my clients and friends,” she cited the “crazy allegations” made in PBS Frontline’s Oct. 30 television documentary about documents discovered in a Colorado meth house in late 2010 allegedly linking ATP with LeFer, her husband Christian LeFer and numerous Montana legislative candidates.

In her e-mail, LeFer said the Commissioner of Political Practices had for two years “failed to file charges, but secretly shared these documents with the left-wing media to do an ‘October Surprise.’”

Tutvedt’s Nov. 2 response to the person who forwarded LeFer’s e-mail was, “Are you kidding me? I have not responded.”

Other documents provided in Tutvedt’s complaint to the Commissioner of Political Practices include a check for $35 he sent to ATP in February 2010; sales orders totaling $5,467 for radio ads on Kalispell stations KJJR-AM and KDBR-FM; survey questionnaires mailed to voters with questions targeting Tutvedt followed by donation requests from the Roberts campaign; and four form letters mailed to voters with Roberts’ signature making claims against Tutvedt on taxes, abortion, gun rights and government waste.

Also included were election postcards from ATP, Taxpayers For Liberty, and the National Association For Gun Rights claiming Tutvedt spoke on the senate floor against a proposed “smokeless powder” manufacturing plant in the Flathead Valley; that he voted against tax relief and in favor of construction regulations; that he supported Obamacare; that he voted in support of energy companies seeking to seize land for a new transmission line; and that his company received $643,063 in government subsidies.

Tutvedt has publicly denied many of these claims, and on Nov. 12 he called for an investigation of ATP and other groups that use what he recently described as “dark money.”