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Watchdog Group Seeks Sen. Fielder’s Emails on
Land Transfers
Thompson Falls Republican says eight-month delay in ful lling records request is due to lack of time
BY TRISTAN SCOTT OF THE BEACON
A government watchdog group has asked Montana’s senate president to intervene in a records request aimed at determin- ing whether Republican Sen. Jennifer Fielder misused state resources to promote the platform of the American Lands Council, an organization leading the charge for western states to take over federal lands.
Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, was named CEO of the Ameri- can Lands Council (ALC) in February and is seeking re-elec- tion this month to her post in Senate District 7, which she has held since 2013.
She denies using her state legislative email account or other public resources to conduct ALC business or advocate on its behalf, and says she hasn’t had time to ful ll the records request, which she called politically motivated.
Prior to accepting the position at the helm of the Utah-based ALC, which lobbies for the transfer of federal lands to the states, Fielder emerged as a leading proponent of the land-transfer movement, a controversial subject in western states and a sharp point of contention this election cycle.
The same month Fielder took the reins at ALC, the Wash- ington, D.C.-based Campaign for Accountability (CfA) led a public records request with Montana’s Legislative Services Division, asking for copies of all correspondence from Fielder’s legislative o ce related to, among other topics, federal lands and the American Lands Council.
The reason for the request, CfA states, is “to inform and edu- cate the public about how Sen. Fielder has performed her func- tions as a state legislator and the extent to which she has used the resources and powers of her o ce to pursue interests that extend beyond her o cial duties.”
As of Oct. 31, the group’s request had not been fully pro- cessed, and in an Aug. 26 letter to Montana Senate President Debby Barrett asking for her intervention, CfA Executive Director Anne Weismann said the nearly nine-month delay appears to suggest Fielder is stalling until after the Nov. 8 election.
“Sen. Fielder seems intent on delaying disclosure until or close to her upcoming election on November 8, suggesting she seeks to deprive the voters of Montana of information that may prove useful in casting their ballots for state senator,” accord- ing to the organization’s letter to Barrett. “If true, all of this would be a gross violation of the meaning and intent of Mon- tana’s public records law.”
Barrett did not respond to CfA’s appeal that she direct the Legislative Services Division to immediately produce all of the requested records, according to the group.
The CfA bills itself as a private, nonpro t and nonpartisan watchdog group. The organization includes advisory board member Louis Mayberg, who co-founded Citizens for Respon- sibility and Ethics in Washington, D.C., or CREW, as well as Weismann, who served as chief legal counsel for CREW for a decade, and communications manager Dan Stevens, CREW’s former senior researcher.
Montana legislative rules prohibit the use of the state com- munication system to pursue interests that extend beyond o - cial legislative duties.
To ful ll the CfA’s request, Legislative Services Division Executive Director Susan Fox said her independent, impartial agency sent Fielder an Adobe PDF le of as many as 800 emails culled from her state legislative account in late July, as well as a 19-page spreadsheet cataloging the correspondence, but the agency has yet to disclose any of them to CfA.
“Now that I have this document I will get through it as soon
State Sen. Jennifer Fielder and Rep. Ed Lieser debate the future of public lands at Flathead Valley Community College during an event hosted by Montanan’s For Multiple Use in 2014. BEACON FILE PHOTO
as I am able, although it is nearly 400 pages and I will have to work on it when I can nd free time,” Fielder wrote in an email to Fox. “With work, senate duties, church, civic commit- ments, campaigning, and family I have a quite full schedule. As I understand it there is no speci c time frame in which it must be completed but I will try to get it done before the election.”
Fox said it’s unclear whether a statutory timeframe exists requiring the Legislative Services Division to release the emails to CfA, but added that Fielder does have privacy rights.
“I don’t have guidelines on when I need to release them,” Fox said. “We have rarely had any requests that are this extensive, and I thought that we took a long time to ful ll our part, but I can’t really comment on Senator Fielder. And I can’t revoke her right to privacy.”
In an interview with the Beacon, Fielder said she hasn’t had time to comply with the group’s sprawling request, or to deter- mine which of the emails constitute public record and which fall under the purview of her privacy rights.
Fielder characterized the group’s tactics as being straight out of the left-wing playbook, and accused them of conducting a “witch hunt.”
“This Washington, D.C. hit-squad cast a wide net because they are looking for anything that might damage my credibil- ity,” Fielder said. “Of course they aren’t going to nd anything problematic. That legislative email account has never been used to promote the American Lands Council. But I don’t have time to respond to Obama’s dirty-ops crews. I am not going to use up my personal time to jump through their hoops and respond to them.”
Since it was founded in 2012, ALC has weathered ethics com- plaints in several states, including Montana.
In March 2015, an aide to Fielder resigned for ethics viola- tions after registering as a lobbyist for ALC, which legislative leaders said violated rules that prohibit legislative sta from lobbying.
Earlier this year, CfA led a complaint with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes citing an alleged string of emails from Utah Rep. Ken Ivory’s public legislative account used to con- duct business on behalf of ALC, which Ivory co-founded and led as president prior to Fielder.
CfA asserted Ivory lied to investigators about not using his state email account to further the business of ALC.
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Dan Burton, spokesman for the Utah Attorney General, said the complaint and its allegations were reviewed, but the o ce declined to prosecute Ivory and has since closed the case.
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