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MFPE alleges property tax cap advocates defied court order, collected signatures – Daily Montanan

['Keith Schubert', 'More From Author', '- January']

Date: 2022-01-25 00:00:00

A coalition of union groups and private citizens are alleging that defendants in a lawsuit over a constitutional ballot initiative that would cap residential property tax increases defied a judge’s temporary order halting signature gathering.

“[Matthew] Monforton and the other Defendants were aware of the (temporary restraining order), yet continued to solicit signatures in support of placing CI-121 on the ballot. Such action clearly violates the TRO,” the plaintiffs in the lawsuit wrote in a Tuesday filing asking the court to invalidate any signatures gathered between Jan. 13 and Tuesday.

Defendants in the case are the State of Montana, Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, current auditor Troy Downing and Monforton. Plaintiffs include MFPE, the Montana Farmers Union as well as a private farmer and business owner.

On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Abbott reversed that order and declined to issue a preliminary injunction on signature gathering while the case is decided.

The plaintiffs argue in the contempt filing that the “Cap Montana Property Taxes Committee” continued to solicit signatures in support of the ballot initiative through the committee’s website.

“Monforton is knowingly using his website to gather signatures in violation of this Court’s temporary restraining order,” Tuesday’s filing read.

The filing also mentions comments made by Monforton during a Revenue Interim Committee meeting last Friday where the ballot initiative was discussed. Plaintiffs say in the brief that Monforton told the committee “hundreds of Montanans in just in the last few weeks have downloaded petitions, copies of the petition form from our website” and testified that people are “hitting the doors, they’re hitting the streets, to gather signatures.”

The Bozeman lawyer and former Republican lawmaker acknowledged the comments in a phone call with the Daily Montanan Tuesday night.

“The TRO did not apply to 1.1 million Montanans. It only applied to me and Troy Downing and neither of us collected any signatures whatsoever,” he said in defense of his comments during Friday’s meeting.

Responding to the contempt brief as a whole, Monforton said, “It’s completely frivolous we put notices in saying we cannot gather signatures at this time all we did is distribute petitions to people, the order barred us from gathering signatures not from distributing.”

He also pointed to a Jan. 15 post on the “Cap Montana Property Taxes Committee” Facebook page that read “please continue registering with our website and downloading petitions. We’ll let you know when we are allowed to resume gathering and collecting them.”

The plaintiffs’ filing comes just hours after Abbott rejected their request for a preliminary injunction. In its original lawsuit filed on Jan. 12, MFPE argued Knudsen and Jacobsen broke the law by not following a newly passed law that amended the process of examining ballot initiatives before approving signature gathering for Constitutional Initiative 121. The new law required the attorney general to review ballot initiatives to determine if they will cause “significant material harm” to one or more business interests in Montana. The new law also stipulates that the secretary of state should send a copy of any approved ballot initiatives to the executive director of the Legislative Services Division, who must then provide the information to the appropriate interim committee for review.

MFPE also announced Tuesday evening that Montana Cattlemen’s Association is joining the lawsuit.

“CI-121 is all about greed and arrogance. Wealthy out-of-staters are buying property and homes in the ‘Last Best Place,’ but seek to not pay their fair share of taxes to keep our children in school, maintain our roads, or pay our peace officers. Should they succeed in passing CI-121 they will shift the tax burden even more onto the backs of farmers and ranchers,” the association’s president, Gilles Stockton, said in a press release.

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