Jon Tester Said It’s ‘Not Right’ for Senators To Hire Lobbyists as Staff. He Just Hired a Lobbyist To Run His Campaign.

Montana Democrat” couldn’t be happier” to hire a former climate lobbyist to lead the campaign.

Montana Democrat Jon Tester criticized politicians who employ activists during his first go for the Senate, saying that” the rotating door is going to start with me.” Years ago, Tester is running for reelection to the upper chamber under the leadership of a previous lawyer.

On April 4, Tester stated that he” couldn’t be prouder” to appoint former lobbyist Shelbi Dantic as his campaign manager. According to Washington Free Beacon show-reviewed statements, Dantic lobbied for Montana Conservation Voters, a weather volunteer that works to shift the U.S. business” aside from oil and gas ,” from 2015 to 2017. Just hours after Tester made his announcement, Dantic’s’s former employer praised the move, saying it was” DELIGHTED” to see him” pleading the way to reelect” the tester.

The language that helped Tester enter the Senate in the first place is in conflict with his choice to use a former legislator to pass his reelection campaign. Tester criticized his Republican opponent for using activists during his first Senate campaign of 2006, calling it” neither right.” Tester actually made a self-imposed ethical commitment, promising that any former legislator on his staff would be barred from working for their former employer. Tester stated at the time,” We have a mess up in Washington, D.C., right now because we don’t have honest and ethical persons it.” ” I’m’m going to stop with that rotating door.” I present an ethics system that states,” Little more.”

Dantic, meanwhile, will almost certainly collaborate with Montana Conservation Voters in his capacity as Tester’s’s system manager. The League of Conservation Voters, the organization’s’s national online, constantly contributes tens of thousands of dollars to the Democrat system. The team supported Tester in 2012 and 2018. Tester, however, served as the event’s’s keynote speaker at the Montana Conservation Voters’ Annual Member Celebration last month, where he lavished compliment on the environmental organization. The Democrat declared,” I’m’m proud to support MCV in the struggle to keep our state the Last Best Place.” ” We can usually rely on them to act in the Treasure State’s’s best interests.”

This is by no means the first time Tester has violated his private ethical commitment; his campaign did not respond to a request for comment. At least six previous activists were hired by Tester during his first ten years in the Senate, and 15 of his employees left his office to work for advocacy companies. According to a National Review report from 2018, nine of those 15 staff members lobbied in favor of regulations that Tester sponsored or cosponsored. Only Pennsylvania Democratic senator Bob Casey Jr. topped Tester’s’s total of more than$ 600,000 from lobbyists that year.

Tester continues to present himself as an outsider who challenges the D.C. status quo more than 15 days after he first joined the Senate. Tester has long insisted that he would rather cook with ingredients from his Montana farm than enjoy D. C. ‘ s many fine dining establishments. His official website, for instance, refers to the Democrat as a” tireless defender of rural America and the Montana way of life.”

However, Tester’s’s strategy investing does not reflect his portrayal of the average man. The Free Beacon reported in March that since 2006, the Democrat’s’s leading PAC and battle have lost more than a million bucks at upscale eateries. One of Tester’s’s friends, Bistro Bis, a French eatery on Capitol Hill, is known for its” ambiance and luxury” as well as its reputation as bringing together” senators, congressmen, entertainers, and power brokers.”

However, Tester shouldn’t have any trouble paying for those extravagant expenses. The Democrat raised thousands of dollars from technology business owners and environmental activists at a large-ticket fundraiser he held in Silicon Valley in March.

Tester is a top Democrat opponent as the event aims to take over the Senate in 2024 as Democrats have struggled in Montana in recent years. Republicans won a supermajority in the state government two years later, and Republicans Steve Daines and Greg Gianforte both cruised to double-digit victories in their particular 2020 plans for senator and government.