This story is excerpted from Capitolized, a weekly newsletter featuring expert reporting, analysis and insight from the reporters and editors of Montana Free Press. Want to see Capitolized in your inbox every Thursday? Sign up here.
In the second half of 2023, a secretive political action committee began running television ads against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy. There were no details about who was funding Last Best Place PAC, how much money it had to spend, or who was working for the committee.
The secrecy continued into the first quarter of this year when the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission about Last Best Place PAC’s lack of disclosure.
In July, the Federal Elections Commission voted 2 to 4 against finding that Last Best PAC and treasurer Dave Lewis needed to meet the 48-hour reporting requirement. The majority of the commission concluded that the PAC didn’t expressly advocate for Sheehy’s defeat, which would have triggered the two-day reporting requirement.
On Monday, CLC followed that ruling by filing suit against the PAC in federal court, arguing its disclosures don’t conform with federal election law. Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign watchdog located in Washington D.C., has a record of challenging political players in Montana elections.
If CLC prevails in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the FEC will have to conform with the court ruling within 30 days.
From September 2023 through February, Last Best Place PAC treated its independent expenditures related to media buys targeting Sheehy as operating expenses. Operating expenses get reported quarterly, meaning they can stay off campaign reports for months. Independent expenditures must be reported within 48 hours.
CLC alleges that Last Best Place PAC spent $2 million on ads targeting Sheehy from September 2023 through the end of the year without disclosing those expenditures properly.
The origins of the group’s finances remain murky. Last Best Place PAC has raised $12.5 million since September 2023 and spent $12.8 million opposing Sheehy through July.
As mentioned in the Montana Free Press report on PAC spending in Montana’s Senate race, the only person identified on Last Best Place PAC’s statement of organization is its treasurer, Dave Lewis of Helena. It isn’t uncommon for treasurers to be the only person named in statements of organization.
Montanans may recognize Lewis as the state budget director of former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot and a former Republican state senator. Lewis’ giving has not been constrained to party lines.
The PAC’s only contributor is Majority Forward, a dark money nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors.
However, tax filings for Majority Forward show that the nonprofit’s president in 2019, the most recent filing available, was J.B. Poersch, and its board was populated by former staffers for Harry Reid, the Nevada senator who led a Democratic Senate majority for eight years ending in 2015.
Tax records show Majority Forward has also supported other players in Montana elections, including VoteVets, which also has a Sheehy opposition campaign, and Montana Native Vote, an Indigenous voter participation group.
Poersch is also president of Senate Majority PAC, an independently operated political action committee founded “to win Senate races.” There is no “Senate Majority PAC” registered with the Federal Election Commission. Officially, the PAC is registered as SMP, but its treasurer, Rebecca Lambe, signs off its SMP communications with the FEC as “Senate Majority PAC.”
Lambe is also Majority Forward’s treasurer and a former Reid staffer. Majority Forward has donated millions exclusively to Senate Majority PAC and Last Best Place PAC this election cycle.
Poersch is a confidante of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, of New York, according to The Hill. In 2010, Poersch directed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
This story was updated Sept. 13, 2024, to include more detail about the status of the lawsuit.
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