Who is Montana’s Chuck Denowh?

Currently Chuck Denowh is “one of the greatest assets of the Montana Group,” the group says on its website.
 
This is the group that hopes I-185 fails, and that cigarette prices don’t go up by $2 a pack.
 
Denowh specializes in “grassroots organization, public relations, fundraising, and campaign management” for the Group.
 
I think it’s time we look into this player of Montana’s backroom political scene.
 
 

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Chuck Denowh was born in Sidney to a ranching family. His family currently has a hand in the Gartner-Denowh Angus Ranch, which has been operating since 1957.
 
I’d say Chuck was born around 1980 or 1981.
 
I don’t know the correct birth year, but I feel it’s close as he first went to college in the year 2000.
 
I called up Denowh in Helena today to get that information, but I just got the machine.
 
A few minutes later, however, one of his colleagues called me back, saying he’s on the road a lot and could probably answer any questions via email.
 
It’s also hard to figure out when Denowh first got into politics. We know he was serving as chief policy advisor to the Republic caucus in the Montana House of Representatives, and it’s likely this was during his time at UM, or perhaps even before.
 
We know he got a BA in political science from UM in 2003 and immediately upon graduation went to work for the Montana Republican Party as its executive director. During his tenure he “grew the party from three employees to twenty, and tripled fundraising.”
 
This was a win for Denowh.
 
 
That job lasted nearly 4 years before Denowh decided it was time to go back to school. It was 2006, and that was also the year Denowh joined the Helena-based Montana Group.
 
The Montana Group specializes in grassroots campaigning, political initiative development and subsequent campaigning, lobbying and government affairs, as well as candidate campaigns.
 
Denowh headed back to Missoula and got a Master of Public Administration degree in 2007.
 
 
For a short time in 2008, Denowah served as the Montana campaign director for Mitt Romney’s presidential bid. Romney dropped out of the race in February of that year, however.
 
 
A couple months later, Denowh began serving as campaign manager for Tim Fox as he made a run for attorney general. Fox lost to Steve Bullock that year, 53% to 47%, even though he’d raised over $330,000. Bullock had raised over $440,000.
 
This was a loss for Denowh.
 
 
In 2010, Denowh got behind CI-105, called the Montana New Property Tax Elimination Amendment. This initiative would have gotten rid of real estate or realty transfer taxes, or taxes that are paid when a property changes ownership.
 
No such tax existed at the time, but the Montana Association of Realtors was the main group pushing to ensure there never would be such a tax. The former president of the Montana Association of Realtors, Dennis Iverson, worked point on this one. He’s one of the three employees that the Montana Group has on staff.
 
Despite Eric Feaver and MEA-MFT opposing the initiative, it passed that November with 73% support.
 
This was a win for Denowh and the people that paid him.
 
 
Immediately after that success, Denowh went to work for Rick Hill. It was November 2010 and the former U.S. Representative had decided to run for the open governor’s seat coming up two years later.
 
For two years Denowh toiled for Hill and set a new GOP gubernatorial fundraising record in the process. Hill raised $2.3 million to Bullock’s $1.8 million. Still, Bullock won the race, 49% to Hill’s 47%.
 
This was a loss for Denowh.
 
It was while working for Hill that Denowh decided to go back to school for a third time. He started at the University of North Dakota in 2011 and by 2013 had received a MS in applied economics.
 
The schooling coupled with the Hill loss created a bit of a political time-out for Denowh. He didn’t work at all in 2013 and wasn’t hired for a political job again until 2014.
 
 
In March 2014, Denowh became the spokesman for the Big Sky Broadband Coalition for Lower Taxation, a group that supported I-172, an initiative pushed by Charter Communications.
 
The initiative would have prohibited the state from instituting a 300%, retroactive tax on Charter for unpaid/disputed taxes stemming from 2010-2013.
 
The Supreme Court had ruled six months earlier that this needed to happen. In effect, Charter wanted to reclassify cable television property so it was taxed at a much lower rate than other property while the state wanted what it felt it was owed.
 
Eric Feaver and MEA-MFT sued to keep the initiative off the ballot, wanting that money for his teachers and schools. The Supreme Court didn’t agree with them and ruled to keep the initiative on the ballot.
 
The initiative never made it to the ballot, as Charter and the Montana Department of Revenue came up with a deal that allowed Charter to keep $9 million of the disputed $34 million in tax payments.
 
This was a win for Denowh and the people that paid him.
 
 
Around this time, I do believe that Denowh served as the state finance director for Senator Daines for a short time, but I can’t confirm this.
 
 
By 2015 Denowh was with the group Count on Coal Montana, which played a part in convincing the Supreme Court to rule against Obama-era rules limiting the toxic emissions coming from power plants.
 
Six months later, in early-2016, Denowh was complaining about Obama’s moratorium on major new coal leases on federal land. He said this put Montana’s biennial $40 million to $50 million in coal royalties at risk.
 
After another six months, however, Denowh found a friend in Governor Bullock, who said on the campaign trail that Montana needed to keep coal and find ways to make it cleaner.
 
“The governor has been responding to the political winds out there right now,” Denowah said on the fears of coal country’s future.
 
This was a win for Denowh.
 
 
That fall, Denowh was working as the director of Marsy’s Law of Montana.
 
“People accused of even the most heinous crimes rightly have important rights,” Denowh said, “but victims in Montana don’t have those same types of constitutional rights.”
 
Even fellow Republicans were against Marsy’s Law, like Brad Tschida, who said Marsy’s Law as “a solution in search of a problem,” and Denowh admitted the law was “intentionally broad.”
 
Even Russell Fagg said “at least one provision of the law is unconstitutional.”
 
Voters didn’t agree, and Marsy’s Law passed with 66% of the vote the following month. A year later, however, the Montana Supreme Court overturned the law on a vote of 5 to 2, saying the initiative should have been broken up into separate pieces to address each constitutional provision it meant to alter.
 
This win turned into a loss for Denowh.
 
 
Now it’s 2018 and Denowh is the man behind the effort to block I-185, which would raise the price of cigarettes by $2 a pack.
 
Denowh is the one that is pushing the “unfunded mandate” idea that Montana will have a $34 million budget deficit if this passes, which will require Montana taxpayers to pony up the difference.
 
 

 
 
Conclusion
 
Denowh is not active on social media. I couldn’t find a Facebook page for him, and he hasn’t sent out a tweet in nearly two years.
 
He does most of his work behind the scenes, and he’s good at it.
 
In the nearly 20 years that he’s been involved in Montana politics, Denowh has experienced 4 wins and 3 losses…though his most recent loss was a win before it was a loss (follow me?).
 
So the guy is pretty good at what he does.
 
And my is he hated for it.
 
Chuck Denowh is a pariah in Montana. Many people deride him for caring more about corporations than his own state.
 
While there may be a bit of truth in that, I don’t think it’s the whole story.
 
When he was pushing an initiative for Charter, Denowh said that “affordable broadband is a key ingredient of the vibrant technology community that a lot of Montanans would like to see grow.”
 
Denowh was working for a huge corporation, but he was framing the issue in a way that made it seem like he was trying to help regular Montanans. And in a way, he was trying to help them.
 
He also tries to help property owners with lower taxes, and smokers with lower prices.
 
At one point in 2008, Denowh even applauded Romney-Care. Montana Cowgirl wondered if Denowh wasn’t “a liberal at heart” because of that.
 
Sure, a lot of those things also help corporations…and that may be where Denowh’s true loyalties lie.
 
Either way, he’s part of Montana politics and isn’t going away anytime soon.
 

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Notes
 
Bermes, Whitney. “Montana Supreme Court strikes down Marsy’s Law.” Bozeman Daily Chronicle. 1 November 2017. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/crime/montana-supreme-court-strikes-down-marsy-s-law/article_8e039131-f08c-5d3b-9025-b863cd892c64.html
 
Cates-Carney, Corin. “Bullock’s Energy Plan To Develop All Montana’s Energy Resources.” Montana Public Radio. 21 June 2016. http://www.mtpr.org/post/bullocks-energy-plan-develop-all-montanas-energy-resources
 
“Charles Denowh.” LinkedIn. Retrieved 4 October 2018. https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-denowh-4009b322
 
“Chuck Denowh.” Twitter. Retrieved 4 October 2018. https://twitter.com/ChuckDenowh/with_replies?lang=en
 
Johnson, Charles S. “Montana Supreme Court rejects union’s attempt to block I-172.” Billings Gazette. 27 May 2014. https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/montana-supreme-court-rejects-union-s-attempt-to-block-i/article_f95a3c33-615e-5415-82d5-4fb55d8a55db.html
 
O’Brien, Edward. “What The Supreme Court’s Power Plant Emission Ruling Means for Montana.” Montana Public Radio. 29 June 2015. http://www.mtpr.org/post/what-supreme-courts-power-plant-emission-ruling-means-montana
 
O’Brien, Edward. “Montana Reactions To The President’s Coal Leas Moratorium.” Montana Public Radio. 15 January 2016. http://www.mtpr.org/post/montana-reactions-presidents-coal-lease-moratorium
 
“Montana Cable Company Property Tax Initiative (2014).” Ballotpedia. Retrieved 4 October 2018. https://ballotpedia.org/Montana_Cable_Company_Property_Tax_Initiative_(2014)
 
“Montana New Property Tax Elimination, CI-105 (2010).” Ballotpedia. Retrieved 4 October 2018. https://ballotpedia.org/Montana_New_Property_Tax_Elimination,_CI-105_(2010)
 
“Rick Hill (Montana).” Ballotpedia. Retrieved 4 October 2018. https://ballotpedia.org/Rick_Hill_(Montana)
 
“Rick Hill’s Campaign Manager Fought for Romney-care.” MT Cowgirl. 13 June 2011. http://mtcowgirl.com/2011/06/13/rick-hill%E2%80%99s-campaign-manager-fought-for-romney-care/
 
“Steve Bullock/Campaign Finance.” Ballotpedia. Retrieved 4 October 2018. https://ballotpedia.org/Steve_Bullock/Campaign_finance
 
“The Team.” The Montana Group. Retrieved 4 October 2018. http://www.montanagroup.net/
 
Volz, Matt. “Tobacco-funded group starts Montana anti-initiative ad blitz.” The Spokesman-Review. 24 August 2018. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/aug/24/tobacco-funded-group-starts-montana-anti-initiativ/