7 January 2020 — 1936 mst

Whitney Williams raised most of her money outside Montana

Democratic candidate for governor Whitney Williams, who has spent most of her adult life outside Montana, raised approximately $430k in the last quarter of 2019. Three quarters of that came from donors outside Montana, but she had slightly more donors in Montana.

My preliminary analysis indicates an average in-state donation of ≈ $210, and an average out-of-state donation of ≈ $390. The maximum contribution to a candidate for governor is $710 per election.

Her 2019 fourth quarter haul is impressive, but she’ll need to do better to win the general election if she wins the nomination. I think the Democratic candidate will need at least $4 million to be competitive, and more, much more, would be better.

The likely Republican nominee, Greg Gianforte, has very deep pockets, and his party, hungry for the governorship, and sensing the voters may be ready for a change after 16 years of Democratic governors Schweitzer and Bullock, will be able to raise millions.

Incidentally, the campaign finance database at Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices, remains as user hostile and kludgey as usual. The CSV files I downloaded last night used “|” as delimiters, not commas. That may, as Mike Miller contends, be consistent with RFC 4180 (I disagree with Mike on that), but it’s not good practice by any reasonable standard.No one — especially the good people at COPP — likes the system, which needs to be replaced with something more user friendly.

Nancy, it’s time to send the impeachment papers to Mitch

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi refuses to deliver to the U.S. Senate a formal notice that President Donald Trump has been impeached, saying she’ll do so when she’s satisfied that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will conduct the trial of Trump as she wishes.

It’s a bluff — Trump was impeached when the articles of impeachment were approved, the Constitution does not forbid trying an impeached official until the House delivers impeachment papers to the Senate, and only the Senate has the power to decide how to conduct an impeachment trial — but it’s served to smoke out McConnell’s determination to conduct a trial with as little evidence as possible.

Well, he’s smoked-out. And he has the votes to impose his version of an impeachment trial. There’s no further point in Pelosi’s continuing to play a hand that’s been exposed as empty. She should deliver the articles of impeachment to McConnell, appoint her impeachment managers, and let the Senate carry out — or not carry out — an impeachment trial that puts the nation first.

Witnesses should be called, but if they are not, Harold Koh, writing in today’s New York Times, proposes a remedy:

Finally, if all else fails, once House managers are appointed, they should seek an order from the presiding judge, Chief Justice John Roberts, directing these witnesses to testify. If they defy his order, he is entitled to rule that their defiance at Mr. Trump’s direction constitutes evidence that the testimony they are withholding would have supported the impeachment charges, abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

McConnell probably has the votes to overturn such a ruling. But come November, the voters get to decide whether to reward or punish McConnell and his cronies for their efforts to nullify Constitutional accountability for a President.