Volume five number three, two thousand nine | fa l l

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

M
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
SEAN SPERRY/ BOZEMAN DAILY CHRONICLE

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.

16 M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R LY 17

HARAZ N. GHANBARI/AP
“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 power-
ful 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 every-
body’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.
“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 incred-
ible 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.
MADE IN MONTANA?
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.
MANUEL BALCE CENETA /AP
Since then, he’s had only one close race: the
1996 faceoff with Denny Rehberg, now a congress-
man.
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 faith-
ful 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 ques-
tions. 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,
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
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 influ-
ential lawmakers, he said, “But when you take it to the approach
of systematizing it to raise very large sums of money from lobby-
ists who you know are looking for favors and influence, that’s a
very dangerous situation.”
And a dangerous situation is exactly what Baucus’ left-
leaning 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 19
 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.
PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP
“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
Baucus leads President Obama and AARP Chief Executive Officer Barry
Rand into the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House before spending half of their income on premiums alone” if the system
Obama speaks about lower drug costs. isn’t reformed, he said.
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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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M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R LY 21