Imagine if you will Conrad Burns or Monica Lindeen received a $100,000.00 direct donation to their campaign from the "I want to give a 100K club".  Mr. Burns or Ms. Lindeen then used the $100K to campaign to promote amending the US constitution.  When you asked who gave the 100K, they say the "100K Club".  Would you be satisfied with that response?  I seriously doubt it. Why, then, is it OK for those who are attempting to amend the Montana Constitution do we say its not necessary? 

The money is flowing through a group called Montanans in Action, which is an “incidental committee.” Campaign laws do not require it to reveal its donors.

Let me simply frame the issue one more time:  The process will amend the Constitution of the State of Montana

This should scare the heck out of anyone.  Our constitution is the most precious document we have in this state. This is what it has come to, Montanans for Action hiring gatherers from San Jose, Phoenix, and Green Spring to gather signatures to revise our constitution, and they won't say whos paying for it (while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars).  Its our constitution for goodness sake, we should have access to that type of information.

Montanans expect transparency and disclosure with our candidates for local, state and federal offices.  Montana will be asking for expansion of lobbyist and ethics statutes. Legislators, who also can propose to amend the constitution, cannot accept money from business. Each and every meeting a local or state agency convenes is subject to the open meeting law. You have the opportunity to discuss any issue within the scope of the meeting at any meeting. You apparently don't, however, have access to specific financial information that would change the Montana constitution.   

Now before you run off and say that Jeff Mangan doesn't want a good conservative measure in front of us, think again.  The left knows I'd be saying the same thing if they were trying to place environmental protections in the constitution for the grouse and received a 100K from "envirogrouse 07".  If you want to stop spending or save grouse, gather signatures the old fashioned way, give us all the information to make a reasoned choice, and tell us who's paying for it. 

One person, one vote, I understand.  I've been down that road before and accept the legal process that the earlier attempted revisions underwent. That doesn't mean the system is off-limits to reasonable improvements that provide transparency and disclosure to the citizen.  Here is what we can require that will not affect 1 person, 1 vote:

• Require disclosure of all individual donors and amounts on Constitutional Initiative (CI) petition drives, including those donations through organizations or political committees
• Ban paid signature gatherers
  
• Consider donation limits
  

Will this effect the grassroots ability to participate in our constitutional process?  Absolutely not.  The recent success of grass root campaigns and the internet prove that, unless we have a number of "paid volunteers" in our midst. Certainly, the notion of paid signature gatherers is repugnant to those who truly meant to have the initiative system at the fingertips of an ordinary Montanan.

For those who say it would make the process harder.  It is hard work, if you have a solid issue with reasonable facts and data, it may be easier, but still a difficult task. Bottom line, it wasn't designed to be easy.