Big Sky Times

It’s against the law for a Montana state employee to use publicly owned facilities and equipment for personal use.

Doing so when you’re supposed to be working is even worse. But all state workers know that, right?

Apparently not.

The Democratic candidate for governor Montana was willing to violate this law April 13, and as Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney runs to become the top state employee, his ethical lapse has come back to haunt him.

Cooney participated in a Democratic Governors Association call from his Capitol office in Helena on April 13. The DGA assists candidates running for governor, and Cooney seeks follow Gov. Steve Bullock, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat. 

On July 8 the Office of the Commissioner of Political Practices ruled that Cooney had violated the state’s ethics law.

“Mr. Cooney improperly used state facilities, specifically the lieutenant governor’s Capitol office, to participate in political Democratic Governors Association conference call in support of his candidacy for public office in violation of Montana Code. Ann. § 2-2-121(3)(a),” the ethics office stated.

The Montana Republican Party, which filed an ethics complaint, issued a statement that said Cooney knew the law and willfully broke it.

“As a career politician with 44 years in government, Lt, Gov. Mike Cooney should understand the obligations of public office better than anyone. Instead, he is now facing the maximum penalty for the illegal use of government property to advance his own political career,” executive director Spenser Merwin said. “When Lt. Gov. Cooney was supposed to be working for the people of Montana, he was using taxpayer resources to strategize with the out-of-state liberals that are bankrolling his campaign. The lieutenant governor simply cannot be trusted to put the interests of Montanans ahead of his own.”

RGA Right Direction PAC, which is backed by the Republican Governors Association (RGA), released a TV ad July 9 spotlighting Cooney’s ethical violation. He is running against Rep. Greg Gianforte, who also sought the governor’s office in 2016. He lost to Bullock, but then won Montana’s only U.S. House seat in 2018.

Cooney’s campaign claimed the reason he took part in the call from his office, using his own laptop, was because he was busy focusing on COVID-19 cases in the state.

Montana had 394 confirmed COVID-19 cases on April 13, with seven deaths.

However, on July 22, as Cooney held campaign events, the state reported an increase in COVID-19 cases, with 2,853 people having been infected and 42 deaths.

Cooney did not respond to emails seeking comment, but after the fine was announced, his campaign issued a statement.

"He holds himself to the highest ethical standards — and this is a small price to pay for leadership, for being on the job working with Gov. [Steve] Bullock in an unprecedented crisis,” said campaign spokeswoman Ronja Abel.

It’s not the first time Cooney has run afoul of ethics laws.

In 2002, as he was departing after 12 years as Montana’s secretary of state, a news release from his 2000 gubernatorial campaign and a list of campaign donors from the 1980s and ‘90s was discovered on computers left behind. Cooney said he had no idea how they had landed on the computers and labeled it “an unfortunate mistake.” He was not charged in the incident.

This time he wasn’t so lucky.