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his probation. Prosecutors allege he killed the Giannonattis and traveled to Missoula without the permission of his probation o cer to sell the stolen silver. He was ordered held without bail on the probation violation as well.
HELENA
4. New Campaign Finance Rules
Take E ect in Montana
Campaign nance rules took e ect on Jan. 8 that will require candidates and political committees to disclose more information more often, as Montana attempts to shed light on dark money spent to in uence elections since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.
The regulations for a law passed by the Montana Legislature last year aim to make campaigns more transparent after the Citizens United decision that allowed corporations and unions to spend unlim- ited amounts of money in elections. That ruling has given rise to independent expenditures made by social welfare groups that don’t report their donors or spending.
Now, groups registered as social wel- fare or issue advocacy organizations will have to make those disclosures if they produce advertisements or other elec- tioneering communications that men- tion an election or a candidate, or use a candidate’s image, Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl said.
The rules also require state candidates and committees to le reports 35 days from the primary and general elections, in addition to the previous 12-day dead- line. Reporting must now be done elec- tronically, and the data will be immedi- ately available to the public.
“If all we have left after Citizens United is transparency, reporting and disclosure, then I think society’s got an obligation to make that transparency real,” Motl said. “These regulations take us signi cantly down that path.”
He pointed to the Montana Growth Network as an example of an issue-ad- vocacy organization that his o ce found spent money in the 2012 elections that illegally advocated for or against can- didates. That organization, which was funded by 14 large donors that included investment broker Charles Schwab and media mogul James Cox Kennedy, would not have been allowed to make those expenditures prior to the Citizens United ruling, Motl said.
HELENA
5. Fox Says New Licenses Aren’t
Meant to Comply with Real ID
Enhanced security measures included in Montana’s new driver’s licenses are not meant to comply with federal stan- dards that threaten to create an “Orwel- lian national ID system,” Attorney Gen- eral Tim Fox said last week.
Fox told reporters it is a coincidence that the security upgrades included in the new licenses and identi cation cards announcedbyhisdepartmentWednes- day bring the state closer to conformity with the federal Real ID Act.
“Americans have always resisted an
Orwellian national ID system,” Fox said. “Montanans have good reason to oppose what could easily become a de factor national information database and a national identi cation system.”
The Republican attorney general appeared with U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, to call for the repeal of the federal Real ID Act. Daines said he plans to introduce a bill this week to repeal the 2005 law.
GREAT FALLS
6. Montana’s Average 2015 Temp
Ties Warmest on Record
Montana tied its warmest average overall temperature in 2015, according to weather data.
Statewide, the average temperature last year was 44.9 degrees, which was 3.8 degrees above the 20th century average, according to year-end data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
The 44.9 degrees tied the warmest average temperature set in 1934, Jake Crouch, a climate scientist with the NCEI, said.
The warm temperatures, combined with limited winter snowpack, contrib- uted to summer drought and a severe wild re season last year, Crouch said.
Southwestern Montana was partic- ularly warm and dry in 2015, said Dave Bernhardt, a National Weather Service Meteorologist in Great Falls.
Dillon in Beaverhead County aver- aged 46 degrees in 2015, the warmest on record for that city, according to the Weather Service.
The community’s previous warm- est average temperature was 45.2 set in 2012.Dillonalsohaditssecondwarmest winter on record.
Average temperatures for the year in Helena (48.2) and Bozeman (45) were the second warmest on record.
BILLINGS
7. Deal Averts Montana Coal Mine
Shutdown
A central Montana coal mine reached an agreement Jan. 11 with environ- mentalists and state regulators that is intended to avoid a major shutdown as a declining coal market leaves the future of some mining companies in doubt.
The deal comes after a state review panel rejected an expansion permit granted to the Bull Mountain Mine in 2013, threatening to halt most operations if the dispute could not be resolved.
The panel said a Montana agency failed to consider the mine’s long-term potential to contaminate nearby water supplies. The agreement gives state reg- ulators six months to look again at the e ects from the underground mine.
Mine owner Signal Peak Energy cut about 20 percent of its workforce last month, citing a poor market that is ham- mering companies across the United States, including in the nation’s largest coal-producing region. Montana and Wyoming combined produce almost half the coal in the U.S.
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