John Adams

And, you know, interestingly, Dark Money is, you know, it was a national documentary.

It aired on PBS stations all over the country.

It had a big national theatrical release.

And certainly the audience for it is is a national audience, but it really is local reporting in a large part.

It's it's it's one of those stories that sort of kind of drives home how, you know, the powers and the influence of, you know, at the national level can really impact, you know, local communities and local communities.

public policy.

And that's what Dark Money was about.

And I was a reporter for the Great Falls Tribune.

I was the Capitol Bureau chief for the Great Falls Tribune, which was, you know, at the time, if not the most, definitely one of the most prominent and widely read newspapers.

That was Gannett.

It was the only Gannett-owned property in Montana, still is.

Lee newspapers, Lee sort of famously liberated five of the largest state dailies from the Copper Collar, which was ownership by the Anaconda Company, which alludes back to that history you talked about with the Copper Barons.

And that 100-year-old history of corruption and big money interest trying to buy our politics

at the local you know the legislative level uh and and and on up um is a fight that we've been just steeped in here in montana forever and in 1972 montanans got together and called a constitutional convention um we just celebrated the 50th anniversary a couple years ago the passage of the uh of the new constitution but um

that new constitution was really aimed at limiting the role of outside corporate influence in our politics.

It had strict limits on campaign finance.

And what we saw in 2013, 2015 and beyond was, you know, my reporting had started to reveal like how this dark money was really infiltrating these local legislative elections, primarily- Super local, it was a stunning-

Yeah.

I mean, candidates were coming out of nowhere and just getting enormous support through, you know, mostly through postcards.

Right.