(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Gianforte has got secrets ... and he doesn't want you to see them – Daily Montanan [1] ['More From Author', 'February', 'Darrell Ehrlick'] Date: 2024-02-01 I can understand the frustration of moving from the private sector to the public: Things don’t work the same way. Committees and groupthink are legendarily slow and cumbersome, and so when I hear politicians talking about “running government like a business,” I sigh. Running a business is fine. For a business. But a government funded by the people, serving the people, and chosen by the people, demands a lot of oversight — by those same people. That’s why I cannot understand the clandestine, secretive nature of Gov. Greg Gianforte, who seems surprised or vexed by the need for transparency and communication as the state’s chief executive. It’s not as if someone forced him to run. It’s not like he was unfamiliar with government, having now run for public office of all sorts. His decision to seek office is voluntary, and that’s what makes his philosophy of “executive privilege” so galling. For years now, the governor has been engaged in a lawsuit in which he claims that documents that outline his position on legislation by state lawmakers is off-limits to the public. Gianforte has claimed he has “executive privilege” — a decidedly un-Montanan term — to withhold documents that demonstrate where his administration stands on a number of bills from taxation to abortion to wildlife. Or at least that’s what we believe those documents contain, because Gianforte has steadfastly refused to disclose them, barely acknowledging for the courts that they exist. However, a judge has faithfully applied both the Montana Constitution and case law and determined that not only does Montana not have executive privilege, but that Gianforte must disclose those documents because the public has the right to see documents that pertain to policy affecting the state. We also have the right to understand the rationale of the decision-making process by our leaders, who are making laws on our behalf. Your right to know isn’t just a matter of clever sounding words, it’s enshrined in the state’s venerable constitution. So assured of his position, Gianforte has chosen to appeal the district court’s decision to the Montana Supreme Court, which will ultimately decide if Montana has an executive privilege that has never been recognized, and has been sitting there just waiting to be discovered. If he’s successful, it means that he can decide which documents to share and which documents he doesn’t want the public to see. At that point, transparency becomes an act of executive mercy and benevolence, rather than a legal requirement. Even as that court process has played out during the course of almost his entire tenure in the governor’s office, before the courts have even decided the issue, Gianforte is beginning to expand the power of executive privilege beyond his office. Recently, Upper Seven Law filed a suit against Gianforte for information regarding communications between him and the head of the state’s largest agency, Charlie Brereton of the Department of Public Health and Human Services. You may remember Brereton because he wouldn’t even give Montana lawmakers information they needed recently. Gianforte now says that executive privilege doesn’t just apply to him, but it encompasses communications of his top administrators. The danger, of course, is that by extending Gianforte’s logic — if such a word can be used — executive privilege just keeps on covering more and more of the business of the executive branch to where everything is presumed closed via executive privilege rather than open because it’s the public’s business. What’s truly extraordinary about such a tactic is that he’s employing and expanding the so-called privilege even as the concept is being challenged at the highest court. Whether that is chutzpah or folly is up to the Supreme Court to decide. It’s made even worse though because Gianforte remains one of the most secretive, opaque leaders in Montana’s history. What he thinks about certain controversial issues and his rationale seem to be more of a guessing game than anything. And that’s why having documents, including email, notes and other communications, is so important. For example, why does Gianforte seem so opposed to the LGBTQ+ community? Is he concerned about the poor performance of the DPHHS as it reimburses providers? And how did he believe that Montana residents wouldn’t be up in arms over a massive property tax hike? We don’t know, but maybe those documents will give citizens insights into what their governor is thinking. If Gianforte gets his way, we may never know because this is not a governor who routinely grants press interviews or has open press conferences that dive into the intricacies of policy. For a man who has touted his experience of working in customer service, and who voluntarily chose to run for public office repeatedly, Gianforte’s administrative approach is puzzling. It most closely resembles the “Wizard of Oz,” a man who hides behind a curtain of secrecy, only appearing at carefully planned and scripted events. Clearly, there are things that Montana’s governor doesn’t want you to see, and constructing a novel, unsupported legal theory is nothing more than a delay or distraction. Still, the question remains: Why’s he trying so hard to hide them? [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/02/01/gianfortes-got-secrets-and-he-doesnt-want-you-to-see-them/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/