Dose Of Politics

Volume five number three, two thousand nine

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The Price of Gold: Mine Reclamation at the Top of the World Max Baucus and the Glare of National Health Care Land Snorkeling with Artist Clyde Aspevig

Cheap Drinks and Lousy Food at the Stoneville Saloon Burton K. Wheeler: Montana’s Independent Thinker

After a decades-long political career, Montana’s powerful Senator Max Baucus has the eyes of the nation on him, awaiting a health care bill that will make everyone feel better. Or worse.

A DOSE OF POLITICS By Scott McMillion

SEAN SPERRY/ BOZEMAN DAILY CHRONICLE

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ontana Senator Max Baucus is in a position

to shape health care reform for the entire nation. As chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, his decisions will help mold the country — and affect millions of lives — for decades.

So, is he in the catbird seat? Or is he the bone in the middle of a dogfight? Baucus laughed at those questions in a late July interview, as the debate over America’s health care policies was throwing ever thicker smoke, ever hotter fire. Both the left and the right were tossing bombs at him. Conservatives fretted that he would impose some sort of “socialism” — and new taxes — into medical care. Liberals accused him of selling out to the medical and insurance industries, which ship him buckets of campaign money. E-mails and phone calls were pouring into his office. The national media was parsing his every word, and pressure came from above and below. At the bottom, anonymous bloggers contorted his name into a profanity and accused him of “screwing over the American people.” Protestors dogged his movements, demanding a “single payer” nationalized health care program. At the other end of the power pyramid, President Barack Obama, who had made national health care reform his top domestic policy item, was talking with Baucus every day, applying a very different kind of pressure to pass a bill through his committee. Baucus, who has spent more than half his life in Congress, took a sanguine approach. M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R LY

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“Sometimes he’s been very good for Montana and sometimes not very good at all,” said Pat Williams, a Montana Democrat who served nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and worked with Baucus on many issues. For instance, the Bush tax cuts left Montana in 48th place in terms of benefits, Williams said, and Baucus endorsed Medicare changes that sweetened the pot for drug companies instead of Montanans. But working with Bush on the tax cuts provided Baucus with a huge asset: It allowed him to trumpet his connections to the president during the 2002 elections, when Bush still had incredible support in Montana and the nation. He won that race by a two-to-one margin. And if there’s one thing Baucus does well, it’s win elections. He’s made a career of it.

and he’s probably shaken more hands in Montana than anybody alive. Yet he has lived in Montana for only three years of his adult life, and much of that was spent with an eye on a position in D.C. Plus, most of his campaign money comes from out of state. And he’s aggressive about squeezing funds from deep pockets. He hosts tony fundraisers — $10,000-a-plate dinners in San Francisco, $2,500 fishing and golf weekends at Big Sky Resort — and he isn’t shy about going right to the source and saying, “Gimme.” On Jan. 31, 2005, he assembled 50 lobbyists in a swank Washington restaurant and told them he expected each of them to raise $100,000 for his campaign war chest. CNN reported on the event. Two lobbyists, which the network did not name, said, “They’ve

“It’s kind of fun, actually,” the six term Democrat said from his office in Washington, D.C. Never in his long career, he said, had he tackled an issue as difficult as national health care reform. “I’ve never faced a challenge as great as this one,” he said. “Nothing comes close to it. But I relish it.” THE SWEET SPOT The Senate Finance Committee is arguably the most powerful committee in Congress because it wields jurisdiction over such a wide variety of programs, from Medicare and Medicaid to international trade to the tax policies of the Internal Revenue Service. As chairman, Baucus sets the agenda. Since he is the longest serving Democrat on the committee, he becomes chairman whenever his party holds a majority in the Senate. Since 2001, he’s put in three shifts at the helm. But never before has Baucus had such a high national profile. Not even in 1991 when his name was briefly — very briefly — mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. That’s because health care reform is such a hot-button issue. Medical care constitutes a sixth of the nation’s economy and affects everybody’s health and peace of mind. It’s a matter of life and death. But it’s also a matter of intense politics, misinformation 18

Baucus, second from left, sits beside President Barack Obama during a meeting at the White House among Senate Democrats to discuss health care. Baucus is the Senate Finance Committee Chairman.

campaigns and vast sums of money. Baucus said he’s aiming for a “sweet spot” where good policy, realistic politics and good timing all coincide. So far, it’s proven elusive. Congress missed a July deadline for passing a bill and has scheduled more work for September. And whatever bill Congress passes — or fails to pass — Max Baucus will be in the middle of things. And the middle is where he likes to dwell. Here’s an example: At the 2007 Cat-Griz football game — possibly the most partisan event in Montana, an occasion where almost everybody chooses a side — Baucus didn’t pick a team. He showed up wearing a Carroll College hat. Baucus resides on the conservative end of the Democratic Party, but his politics can be hard to pigeonhole. He’s endorsed by abortion rights groups as well as the National Rifle Association. He played a key role in passing President George W. Bush’s controversial tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001, but he also played a key role in sinking Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. The American Civil Liberties Union and U.S. Chamber of Commerce give him so-so ratings. Environmentalists like him sometimes, blast him at others, citing a mixed record.

After growing up in Helena, a descendant of the Sieben family, a wealthy ranching clan, he earned degrees in economics and law at Stanford University. He worked in D.C. as a federal lawyer for a few years, then returned to Montana in 1971, hung up a lawyer’s shingle in Missoula and set about getting himself elected and sent back to Washington. Three years later, at the age of 32, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, campaigning while walking from Gardiner to Yaak. (At the age of 67, he still runs marathons.) He spanked a Republican challenger in 1976, then moved up to the Senate in 1978. Since then, he’s had only one close race: the 1996 faceoff with Denny Rehberg, now a congressman. By 2008, when Baucus sought a sixth term — unprecedented in Montana — Republicans seemingly threw in the towel. In the five-person primary of unknowns, the party faithful chose Bob Kelleher, an 83-year-old perennial candidate from Butte who usually runs as a Democrat or a Green. But Baucus took the race seriously and raised $11 million for that campaign, about $23 for every voter in the state, and 90 percent of it came from out-of-state donors. Whose senator is he? Like most politicians, Baucus can be adept at dodging questions. Ask his opinion on a given issue, and a standard response is, “Whatever’s best for Montana.” A plaque on his desk in Washington reads, “Montana comes first.” He can point with justification to public buildings, water plants and freeway exits all over the state and say he put them there. He’s arranged financing for huge land purchases and conservation deals. He unabashedly brings home the bacon, MANUEL BALCE CENETA /AP

HARAZ N. GHANBARI/AP

MADE IN MONTANA?

Baucus talks with reporters after a closed-door committee meeting on financing an overhaul of the health care system, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

never gotten such an aggressive pitch from a senator.” “This sounds like a raw, audacious and inappropriate way to raise money in Washington,” Fred Wertheimer, president of a widely praised group that advocates campaign finance reform, said at the time. Lobbyists are always looking for ways to give money to influential lawmakers, he said, “But when you take it to the approach of systematizing it to raise very large sums of money from lobbyists who you know are looking for favors and influence, that’s a very dangerous situation.” And a dangerous situation is exactly what Baucus’ leftleaning critics see. In the 2008 election cycle, he took $3.4 million from the health care and insurance industries. Plus, M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R LY

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PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

Baucus leads President Obama and AARP Chief Executive Officer Barry Rand into the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House before Obama speaks about lower drug costs.

five of his former staffers are now lobbyists for health care or insurance companies. Then, when it came time to hammer out a health care plan, those industries were invited to the polished table, while advocates of single-payer, fully-nationalized health care were standing in the rain. Baucus is dismissive about any single-payer plan. “Not for the near term,” he said, noting that nobody in the Senate has offered a bill that endorses such a plan. Some type of health care reform is desperately needed, he said. Fifty million Americans are uninsured and many who have insurance are happy with their coverage, but only until something serious happens. “A lot of people are just getting shafted,” he said. He wants a plan that reduces the cost spiral for medical care, focuses on quality of treatment rather than quantity, and doesn’t let insurance companies deny people coverage. “We have to have a uniquely American solution,” he said. “Other countries build on existing institutions and make them better. That’s what we need to do.” If nothing is done, he said, disaster looms. “In nine or 10 years, 45 percent of American families will be spending half of their income on premiums alone” if the system isn’t reformed, he said.

Critics fear that bad reform will be worse than no reform. And they’re irked that they’ve been shut out of the room. So they’ve started a campaign to “buy back Baucus.” With tongue only slightly in cheek, protestors said they’re trying to raise enough money to buy themselves a seat at the table, too. Baucus repeatedly insists that campaign donations do not influence his decisions. “I pay no attention to it,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t have time. I don’t even know about them.” But he keeps taking the money. NOT MUCH SCANDAL Baucus has encountered little scandal in his long career. Former chief of staff Christine Niedermeier accused him of sexual harassment in 1999, but the charges went nowhere. After divorcing his first wife in 1982, he lost a long court fight with her over the amount of alimony and child support he owed. His second wife brought some attention, particularly when she was charged with assaulting another woman in a parking lot. Wags enjoyed the incident, threatening to “open up a can of Wanda Baucus,” but it didn’t have legs. That union ended in divorce this year after 25 years, and Baucus is again a single

man, in a position of great power in a city that thrives on power. Eyebrows raised in the 1990s over his family’s ownership of mineral rights for the proposed 7 Up Pete mine, near Lincoln, but environmentalists praised his actions on mining policy and the mine was never built. And he hasn’t used his Senate seat to enrich himself. His financial disclosure form in 2007 listed a maximum net worth of $265,000, ranking him 96th of 100 senators in terms of wealth. So what motivates him? “Max enjoys the power and authority of it,” said Williams, who served in Congress with him for 18 years. “But he hasn’t been caught up in the glitter.” But he’s definitely caught up in Washington. His job there is guaranteed until 2014, when he’ll be 73 years old. That will give him 40 years of D.C. tenure. “I don’t know how you quantify how much somebody has been co-opted by the system” in Washington, said Gary Marbut, head of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, which blasted Baucus for years over a pair of 1994 votes in favor of limited gun control. “My guess is more so rather than less so with Max.” Co-opted or not, Baucus is a major player in Washington. The pressure is on. The nation awaits a health care bill. The spotlight glares. Will he blink?

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