cowboy politics

5
Volume six number one, two thousand ten |  spring Wade’s Drive-In Café: Passing Time in Harlowton Fiction by Pete Fromm Cowboy Politics and the Montana Stockgrowers Tracing Parks Reece’s Artistic Roots Predicting T rouble in Avalanche Country

Upload: scooterm

Post on 30-May-2018

225 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Cowboy Politics

8/9/2019 Cowboy Politics

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cowboy-politics 1/5

V o l u m e s i x n u m b e r o n e , t w o t h o u s a n d t e n |   spr ing

Cowboy Politics and the Montana Stockgrower

Tracing Parks Reece’s Artistic Root

Predicting Troublin Avalanche Country

Page 2: Cowboy Politics

8/9/2019 Cowboy Politics

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cowboy-politics 2/5

he Montana Stockgrowers Association

organized itself on April 20, 1884, in Miles

City. By the Fourth of July, a posse of asso-

ciation men had hanged its first rustler —a whiskey peddler who had branched out

into stolen horseflesh — at the mouth of the

Musselshell River.

Four days later and 15 miles to the south, the association’s

vigilantes surrounded a cabin full of armed men and ordered

them to surrender. The rustlers, facing a rope,

answered with gunfire. So the Stockgrowers

burned the place to the ground, killing

11 men.

Granville Stuart, a prominent

merchant fairly new to the cattle

business, lead the attacks.

Like other cattle men,

he was vexed beyond

frustration at wide-

spread rustling

From vigilante days to the cyber age,

the Montana Stockgrowers Association remains a big player

in state politics, with a little help from Uncle Sam

BY SCOTT MCMILLION

Cowboy

Politics

8

t

PHOTOGRAPHY

BY THOMAS LEE

Page 3: Cowboy Politics

8/9/2019 Cowboy Politics

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cowboy-politics 3/5

and the inability or unwillingness of the territorial government

to do anything about it. So the Stockgrowers Association took

the law into its own hands and the vigilantes became known as

Stuart’s Stranglers.

By the time the stranglers had finished their grim work, at

least 30 men, maybe a lot more, died at their hands. No trials. No

lawyers. Future President Theodore Roosevelt, then a rancher 

along the North Dakota line and an association member, cheered

them on at t he time, though he later expressed some doubts.

In his memoirs, Roosevelt wrote that as many as 60 men

were killed. Most were guilty, he said. Some probably weren’t.

Justified or not, the lynchings were effective, and rustling

slowed to a trickle. None of the association men were prosecuted

and some went on to great prominence. Stuart became so influ-ential in the state that some people called him “Mr. Montana.”

Roosevelt went on to become president of the United States.

And the Stockgrowers Association is still around. While its

members haven’t tossed a rope around anybody’s neck for well

over a century, they remain one of the state’s most powerful and

effective political lobbies. They play hardball and they play to

win. They usually win.

And that’s why, when they issued a public apology to Gov.

Brian Schweitzer last October, it came as such a surprise. That

kind of thing doesn’t happen often in politics, and it made head-

lines across the state.

“I am deeply pained by the distressed relationship that our 

organization has chosen to maintain with you throughout your 

term of office,” association president Tom Hougen wrote. “I am

not excusing our errors of the past, but I am asking you to consider 

our apology and to consider making amends.”

So who are these guys, and what are they sorry for?

MENDING FENCES

Hougen, interviewed at his Melstone ranch, wouldn’t specify

any specific transgressions. But he acknowledged the group

hasn’t gotten along with the governor, that the disagreements

have been bitter. Though the gover-

nor plays political hardball, too, the

apology came from the association, not

from Schweitzer. The intention, Hougen

said, was to open doors. The ranching

industry is in a tough spot, he said, and

it needs friends where it can find them.

He wants to move forward.

The association bills itself as the

voice of Montana ranchers. It has about

2,000 members, Hougen said, though

some are “supporting” or “allied indus-

try” members that don’t own a cow but

sell things to ranchers. Its members own

about 320,000 cattle, about 13 percent

of all the beeves in the state. There are

other ranch organizations around, but

the association is the most prominent

and the best-funded, in part because it

takes a lot of taxpayer money from the

federal government.

Ranching faces lots of vexing prob-

lems. Some of them are old: taxes on

both the living and the dead, weather,

water rights, fickle markets and govern-

Tom Hougen, president of the Montana

Stockgrowers Association, stands outside

his ranch in Melstone. Hougen says, “the

major concern of ranch families in Montana

is, ‘How am I going to pass this on to the

next generation?’“

ment regulations have rankled for decades.

But new issues arise all the time. People blame cows for 

global warming, denuding landscapes, polluting streams, displac-

ing wildlife, spreading disease and expanding t he national waist-

line. Whether these perceptions are true or not, they cannot be

ignored.

That’s why the association exists: to protect the interests

of its members and earn them money. Its stated purpose is “to

protect and enhance the business climate for family ranching in

Montana.”

It runs publicity campaigns that extol ranching,

it files lawsuits to push wild bison out of the state, it

publishes a newsletter and a Web site, and it helps

members market their cattle. And it lobbies heavily.John Bloomquist, the association’s Helena

lobbyist for the past 17 years, estimated he’s been

successful 90 to 95 percent of the time, whether 

he’s supporting a bill or opposing one.

And for the past several years, the association

has been heavily funded by the federal government,

with congressional earmarks originated by former 

Sen. Conrad Burns, an enthusiastic supporter of t he

association.

Between 2004 and 2008, the last years for which records

were available, the association accepted more than $2 mill ion in

federal earmark money. That means taxpayer money comprised

40 percent of its budget for those years. Government gave the

association more money than its own members did. (The asso-

ciation also raises money by selling ads in its publications and

vendor space at its conventions.)

Other agricultural groups with strong lobbies, like the

Montana Wool Growers Association and the Montana Grain

Growers Association, take federal money, too, but it’s a frac-

tion of what the Stockgrowers Association takes. The Montana

Cattlemen’s Association, which competes with it for members,

takes no taxpayer money.

The Stockgrowers Association often opposes Montana

environmental groups on issues ranging from stream access to

Yellowstone National Park bison. Those groups have to raise

their own money without congressional help.

The Montana Wildlife Federation, the Greater Yellowstone

Coalition, the Montana Environmental Information Council, t he

Northern Plains Resource Council, and the Alliance for the Wild

Rockies all report no payments from the federal government.

Montana Trout Unlimited has taken federal money in recent

years: a $17,000 grant.

Association officials make no apology for their heavy reli-

ance on federal money.

“We’re proud we could secure some federal funds to bringback to Montana ranch families in order to improve their bottom

line, to make their business m

association’s executive vice p

“Everybody has had these sorts

has seized on the opportunities

The federal money did n

dedicated to two programs: On

Stewardship, which helps ranc

tices to make their land bette

bottom line. It also helps them

has earmarked $5.5 million fo

money went to Montana State Un

work of analyzing rangeland an

A little more than $900,0

association’s job was to recru

program. Over the years, more

dozen ranches have been “certi

Undaunted Stewardship

community.

“My feeling is they’ve dev

would like to have,” said Bill

and community activist who o

Bozeman. “It’s good for the lan

for the country.”

He notes that Undaunted S

grazing practices on vast landsc

an acre. That translates into be

water, which is a hard thing to m

The second federally fund

Beef Network, is a little easier t

That one, another partner

culture department, provides to

price for their cattle. Also funde

a way for ranchers to certify th

ments of specific markets. For in

under 20 months old. Europe

hormones. The American “natuno hormones or antibiotics.

People blame cows fo

denuding landscapes,displacing wildlife

and expanding the

Whether these perc

not, they [

Page 4: Cowboy Politics

8/9/2019 Cowboy Politics

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cowboy-politics 4/5

12

The Montana Beef Network certifies that buyers get what

they’ve ordered. Doing so costs the rancher about $3 an animal,

according to John Paterson, who runs MSU-Bozeman’s part of 

the program, but it fetches them an average of an extra $10 per 

animal at market.

“The goal was to add value to a guy’s calves,” Paterson said.

Plus, buyers could see the records, and the program would stand

behind them. A primary goal was to establish credibility for the

certification program.

But it’s hard to describe the program as cost effective.

It ran from 1999 to 2009 and cost about $600,000 a year,

for a total of more than $6 million. Paterson said he can docu-

ment that ranchers earned an extra $3 million by selling calvesthrough the Montana Beef Network.

MSU did most of the lab and field work. The association

did most of the marketing and outreach to ranchers. It was paid

between $100,000 and $445,000 a year for that work.

Neither program is getting any more federal money. When

Burns lost the 2006 election, the Undaunted Stewardship

earmark ended, though some dollars remain in t he account.

For the Montana Beef Network, former MSU-Bozeman

president Geoff Gamble told the association last August he was

ending the program.

The program was never intended to last forever, university

spokesman Tracy Ellig said.

But it still might put money in the association’s pockets.

Running the program called for sophisticated software,

databases and monitoring. Aware that ear mark money was about

to run dry, the association spent $445,000 in federal money on

the program in 2008, prepari ng to transform it into a private busi-

ness, Rice said. It is now a joint venture between Stockgrowers,

Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of the association, and Watts and

Associates, a Billings consulting firm.

Though the program was financed mostly with public money,any future profits will go to those two private entities.

A rankled governor

Schweitzer finds something foul in this arr angement.

“They’re using earmarks from Congress to keep themselves

in business,” he said. “They’re able to pay a large number of 

Gov. Brian Schweitzer takes a phone call in his office in Helena.

lobbyists and lawyers wit h taxpayer money.”

The association listed five lobbyists on its disclosure form

in the 2009 Legislature. Three of them are full-time, year-round

association employees.

Like most federal contracts and grants, the earmarked

money allowed the association to pay some of its overhead. For 

example, the federal money compensated the association for 25

percent of Rice’s salary.

The governor and the association have butted heads over a

number of issues: public access to streams, coal bed methaneregulations, taxation, school-funding formulas, appointments to

the Montana Department of Livestock, the list goes on, and at its

top you find one of the state’s most vexing issues: brucellosis and

Yellowstone National Park’s wandering bison (more on this later).

Schweitzer, elected in 2004 as Montana’s first Democratic

governor since 1988, maintains the association — which is proudly

conservative — lets its politics get in t he way of good policy for ranch-

ers. (Its competing group, the Montana Cattlemen’s Association, was

until recently run by Dennis McDonald, a Democrat

now trying to unseat Republican U.S. Representative

Dennis Rehberg.)

“Let’s be realistic,” said Schweitzer, himself a

former rancher and farmer. “Ninety-seven percent of 

the Stockgrowers Association aren’t Democrats. And

they’ve made it more important to be partisan than to

build their industry.”

And it rankles him that the association is sodeeply funded by federal tax dollars. Many of its

members also graze cattle on federal land, paying

a fraction of what they’d pay to lease private land.

(

r

g

hS

b

i

f

g

a

p

owned grass, Schweitzer said.

“And they criticize everyb

babies,” he said.

Waning in

While many association mem

disputed Schweitzer’s assertion

main priority.“We’ve done a lot more tha

said. Ranching grows more com

Modern finances dictate an

have a harder time. Working

machines, which burn a lot of f

profits can be elusive.

“We’re part of the general

the general economy is,” Houg

E

v

S

[

The governor

have butted head

issues: public acce

 bed methane re

school funding

ments to the MonLivestock

Page 5: Cowboy Politics

8/9/2019 Cowboy Politics

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cowboy-politics 5/5

14

majority of Montana ranchers didn’t make any money last year.”

Regulations continue to pile up. Both imports and exports

alter the markets. Some consumer advocates assail the indus-

try over food safety and the way animals are treated. Bizarre

diseases pop up occasionally. The association works on all these

issues and more.Plus, ranchers are losing political clout.

In 1989, 51 of Montana’s 150 legislators farmed or ranched. In

2009, the number shrank to 17. (You can look at this trend a couple

different ways: 66 percent of Montana is in farms and ranches, but

less than 5 percent of the state’s population works that land.)

Bloomquist said when he started lobbying for the associa-

tion, he could talk to 20 or 30 key lawmakers and be confident of 

support.

“Now,” he said. “You have to do a lot more.”

Which brings us back to that apology letter.

Shortly after it was issued, Bloomquist resigned as lobbyist.

“It undermined my ability to promote their policy, in partic-

ular if it’s at odds with the governor,” he said.

Bloomquist had been a lead player in the association’s legal

and legislative efforts — successful so far — to keep Yellowstone

bison from wandering more than a few miles from the park. The

main concern is brucellosis, a tough disease to address in wild-

life, but there are other concerns.

“It’s more than just competition for grass,” Rice said. “It’s

fear of being removed from the land. Can successful (bison) resto-

ration be done without removing the rancher?”

It’s a thoughtful question, and one that has been batted

around for years.

But for the first time, the association is sending signals that

it’s willing to give an inch on bison and brucellosis. In essence,

they have agreed, at least in principle, to back a federal plan thatcalls for a special surveillance district near the park. That means

ranchers in that area will face extra work, expense and hassle to

make sure their animals are f ree of brucellosis, a disease carried

by many of the park’s elk and bison.

It’s similar to a plan Schweitzer proposed several years ago.

The association’s position really irked some of the affected

ranchers, many of whom want the disease tackled inside the park.

“It feels like they abandoned us,” said Alan Redfield, an

association member who ranches south of Livingston. “They’re

trying to get along with whoever, instead of standing for the prin-

ciples they’ve been standing for.”

Such criticisms are not lost on the association’s leadership,

Hougen insisted. But he also pointed out that reality must be

faced.

“I think we have to move forward,” he said. “Change does

happen. The conclusion we’ve come to is that we’ve got to reach

out a little bit. We’ve got to look at not only how we do things, but

how the public perceives those t hings.”

Reaching out to Schweitzer was part of a process, he said.

He wants to lead the association into a new spirit of collabora-

Bison with ear

tags weather

the winter

behind several

layers of fence

at the quaran-

tine facility near

Corwin Springs,

 just north of

Yellowstone

National Park.

SALES DEPT. HOURS Mon.-Fri. 8-6 | S

PARTS & SERVICE HOURS Mon.-Fri.

Bozeman AudiMONTANA’SEXCLUSIVE AUDI DEALER

1800 W. Main | (406) 586-1772

bozemanaudi.com

CAR and DRIVER hails Audi as best in class.

No Appointment Neces

for SeAll Makes and Models Welc

tion, particularly with environmentalists, traditional opponents

on many issues. He talks about building a “trust factor.”

The association has some catching up to do.

“They’ve been pretty aggressive against the conserva-

tion community,” said Craig Sharpe, executive director of the

Montana Wildlife Federation. He said his group has reached out

to them many ti mes, seeking “handshake” deals.

“It seems like any time we do, we get our fingertips burned,”

he said.

Though he took an aggressive position when he addressed

the association’s annual convention in December, Schweitzer said

he respects its leadership for “coming to me and saying we want

to work with you. Looking for all ies to help them stay competitive

shouldn’t surprise anyone.”

When Burns lost to Sen. Jon Tester, the association lost a

key ally, one with a critical seat on the Senate Appropriations

Committee. Shortly afterward, i

been financing much of its oper

But the association isn’t goi

126 years, since before Montana

vigilantes were not just accept

taking heat f rom members over b

taking heat from animal rights

It’s enduring skepticism from en

figures. It’s trying to figure a pa

either leery of or ignorant about

In the past, it’s faced world

ing government, calamitous w

survived all of that.

“We’ve always found a wa

Rice said. “And we’re certainly

changed.”

But the association isn’t going anywhere. It

for 126 years, since before Montana was a s

time when vigilantes were not just accepte