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Blair Miller
(Daily Montanan) Legislators on the nominating committee met Wednesday to interview five candidates for Montana’s next political practices commissioner and decide whether any should be referred to Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for appointment and confirmation from the Senate.
The five candidates interviewed Wednesday were Chris J. Gallus, Brad Johnson, Lane Kertamus, Megan Martin, and Debbie White-Goetze. Legislative offices sent The Daily Montanan their resumes and supplemental materials if candidates provided them to the committee to clarify their qualifications before the meeting.
The Commissioner of Political Practices is nonpartisan and oversees and enforces Montana campaign finance laws, investigates campaign finance and lobbying complaints, and monitors ethical standards for legislators, state officials, and public officials.
Jeff Mangan is the outgoing commissioner, whose term expires at the end of the month. He currently makes $80,000 a year in that position. He was appointed in May 2017 by Democratic Governor Steve Bullock. Political Practices Commissioners serve a single six-year term after being confirmed by the Senate and cannot be reappointed by governors.
Among other issues, the new commissioner will likely be the one to decide whether to pursue a complaint filed by the Montana Democratic Party alleging Lt. Gov. Kristen Yuras lived rent-free in a home near the Capitol owned by Montana Family Foundation.
To qualify for appointment by the governor, candidates for the position cannot, within the past two years, have raised funds for a candidate for public office, served on a political party or political committee, or managed a campaign for a candidate for public office.
After the interviews are completed, the committee will be required to present at least two of the candidates to the governor for consideration, but they may present all five candidates. Governor Gianforte will then appoint one of the nominees to the commissioner position, which will then have to be confirmed by the Senate with a Republican majority.
But if a majority of the committee fails to submit at least two names, Gianforte will be able to appoint “anyone who meets the qualifications for the position,” according to the Montana Legislature.
The governor’s office did not respond to an email Friday asking if it had reached out to any of the candidates who applied.
Only five candidates applied for the position, according to Legislative Services. They are as follows:
Chris Gallus
Chris Gallus is a licensed attorney based in Helena who has practiced law in Montana since 1996. According to his resume, he has spent the past 22 years in his own private practice representing clients in government relations, elections and business organization, financing campaigns, elections, voting, lobbying laws and regulations – mostly on behalf of private businesses and trade associations. During this time he was also a lobbyist working on behalf of law firms and the Montana Tavern Association.
In the late 1990s, he was legal counsel and director of government relations for the Montana Chamber of Commerce. He worked in lobbying and economic development with the Montana Energy Research and Development Institute in the early 1990s. From 1989-1992, he was director of the Butte-Silver Bow Business Development Center.
“As an attorney practicing law in Montana for 26 years and my involvement in Montana’s political and legislative process since 1987, I understand how vital the Office of Political Practice is to our system of government and the citizens of Montana,” Gallus wrote to the review committee. “It will be my pleasure to serve in this capacity.”
In July 2021, Gallus was to file a petition with the Montana Supreme Court for active reinstatement to the Montana State Bar for failure to comply with the Continuing Legal Education Rules for the previous reporting year. But he met the CLE requirement and was activated two weeks later. He received no public punishment, according to disciplinary records.
He said in a letter to the committee that he has years of experience and skill in litigation, government relations, lobbying and state and federal campaign finance law.
“Although I have litigated certain matters, I generally advise trial lawyers on strategy and am more regularly involved in what I characterize as statutory interpretation, briefing and legal research, and legal actions based on appeal or hearing, such as disputes over legal issues before agencies and judges,” he wrote to the committee.
Gallus also told them that he was a registered lobbyist for a client during the 2021 session but “had no bills that required lobbying or committee appearances” and that he volunteered for a veterans organization that supported one bill on session time.
Gallus received a BA in political science from Carroll College in 1987 and a JD from the University of Montana School of Law in 1996.
Bradley (Brad) Johnson
Brad Johnson is currently the Vice President of the Public Service Commission, whose term expires on January 2. He has been a commissioner of the PSC since 2015, and previously served as president of the commission. He also served as Montana Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009 before losing re-election in 2008.
Johnson has some experience with COPP. He was fined $3,000 by Mangan in 2017 after Mangan, COPP at the time, discovered he had written a letter to the editor about PSC District 3 candidate Karen Cooper on his PSC computer, had PSC legal counsel review it, then sent it to several newspapers using his government email address.
Commissioner Mangan found that the letter constituted a “call to oppose Ms. Cooper” that, as drafted, reviewed and sent, violated the Montana Code of Ethics for the use of “time, facilities, equipment, supplies, personnel or funds.”
“To be clear, if Mr. Johnson had performed the same activity using his personal resources, the commissioner would have dismissed the complaint as frivolous on its face,” Mangan wrote. “… Public employment and service are imbued with public trust. The public trust requires proper use of state resources by all public officials for the good of all Montanans.”
A May 2021 Legislative Audit Office report on the PSC’s financial compliance in fiscal years 2019 and 2020, when Johnson served as PSC president, said auditors could not obtain “reliable management representations regarding financial activities’ and auditors are said to have concerns about the integrity and competence of department staff and their ability to provide ‘reliable performance’.
“Our integrity and competence concerns stem from an attempt to provide us with falsified documentation, a potential waste of state resources, and a disregard for state and internal policies, including the override of control by management,” the auditors wrote in the report, which did not directly name commissioners or others , about which they had concerns.
At least one item auditors raised as problematic directly involved Johnson, the purchase of a “comfort class” plane ticket to Washington, D.C.
The report also found indications of an “unhealthy organizational culture and ineffective leadership” that commissioners were ignoring state travel and other policies and potentially wasting state resources.
Roger Koopman, another now-former PSC commissioner, alleged in a February 2020 column in the Great Falls Tribune that Johnson and another commissioner improperly obtained his emails, which he claimed constituted “spying.”
Johnson lost in the 2012 race for secretary of state, then won election to the PSC in 2014. He ran for governor in 2016, but dropped out early. Johnson won re-election to the PSC in 2018, then ran for secretary of state again in 2020, but placed third in the Republican primary.
In a letter to the committee, Johnson wrote that working at the PSC made him “extremely experienced in leading a quasi-judicial regulatory agency” and said his experience as secretary of state “provides me with a truly unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities associated with the COPP office.’
In Johnson’s letter to the Nominating Committee, he wrote: “I sincerely believe that the breadth and depth of my [sic] relevant experience makes me uniquely qualified to fulfill the duties of Political Practices Commissioner.’
Johnson received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Illinois in 1974 and a master’s degree in agriculture from the same university in 1976.
Lane Kerthamus
Layne Kertamus is an executive who runs his own consulting business based in Salt Lake City, who also teaches at Utah Valley University. From 2003 to 2008, he worked as the deputy chairman of the insurance business at DF Montana.
He also previously served as vice president of insurance at the Utah Workers’ Compensation Fund and another business consulting company.
“I am interested in the important work of protecting ethical and legal campaign practices in Montana through a consistent nonpartisan approach,” he wrote in a letter to the Nominating Committee. “I have served in appointed nonpartisan public office and understand the importance of the public interest in our democracy. … I effectively lead people and processes to achieve organizational expectations in accordance with law and values.”
Kertamus said in his resume that he has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Claremont McKenna College and a master’s degree in intercultural communication from California State University.
Megan Martin
Megan Martin is based in Helena and has experience as an auditor and analyst with the Montana Crime Control Board and the Montana Department of Transportation, with previous experience as a Montana Highway Patrol dispatcher and a US Army military police officer.
Martin has been a compliance auditor for the Criminal Justice Information Network, an internal auditor for the Department of Transportation, and since August, according to her resume, has worked as a data integrity analyst for the Montana Crime Control Board.
She said she has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice administration, but did not provide more information on her resume.
Debbie White-Goetze
Debbie White-Goetze is based in Cascade and currently runs her own consulting business. She was commissioner of Great Falls International Airport from 2011 to 2013, and before that held several management and marketing jobs in Alaska aviation, railroads and resorts, according to her resume.
She manages airport parking and transportation services, does sales and marketing for the state of Alaska, works for AAA in Alaska, and works with the military on aircraft operations in Montana, Alaska and Hawaii.
She holds an associate degree from Pioneer Christian College in business administration and a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from the University of Alaska – Anchorage.
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