As we reported back in May, Lieutenant Governor and Democrat gubernatorial candidate, Mike Cooney (D-MT) was busted for making campaign fundraising calls from his official office in the state capitol.

Now, Cooney has been slapped with the "maximum penalty" by the state Commissioner of Political Practices.

As the Associated Press reports:

Montana's Commissioner of Political Practices has fined Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney $1,000 for violating state ethics laws by participating in a campaign-related conference call from his office at the state Capitol this spring.

In a report by the Montana Television Network, The Montana Republican Party slammed Cooney for using his official office for campaign calls:

"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.”


Here's my reaction to the news. Using taxpayer resources to promote their campaign- why would that be a surprise? Cooney works for a liberal governor who used the state-owned airplane to fly to a Paul McCartney rock concert in Missoula. Liberal Gov. Steve Bullock also wasted more than $300,000 in taxpayer dollars during his presidential run that never really took flight.

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