Rosendale using 'tricks'

If there’s one thing Montanans care about, it’s honesty. We like being able to take folks at their word. When those who represent us sneak around behind our backs, it raises red flags. Matt Rosendale is using dirty accounting tricks to allow his out-of-state, wealthy friends to contribute more to his campaign than legally allowed.

Senate candidate Rosendale was recently caught exploiting a campaign finance loophole to get more cash out of his out-of-state millionaire donors. When his donors had contributed the legal limit to his 2018 campaign, Rosendale started having them cut checks to pay him back for his debt from his 2014 campaign. Which would be fine — if Rosendale didn’t then immediately give his 2018 campaign a loan for the exact same amount of the check his donors just cut.

Although technically legal, he is finding a workaround to campaign finance limits that Montanans approved. Montanans don’t want more money in politics —w e want less!

Rosendale is deliberately going behind Montanans’ backs to try and pump more cash into his campaign, and to me, it stinks. I would never vote for someone who so clearly doesn’t understand that transparency is a Montana value.

­­— Edd Blackler, Bigfork