Rosendale vows changes in auditor's office

State Senate Majority Leader Matt Rosendale, R-Glendive, came to Havre Friday to tout his record in the race for state auditor.

The candidate shared his views with a gathering of attendees at the Pachyderm Club meeting in the Duck Inn's Vineyard Room.

Rosendale does not have a primary challenger. He will face Democrat Jesse Laslovich, a former state legislator who is now the chief legal counsel in the auditor's office. Incumbent Monica Lindeen, a Democrat, is unable to seek re-election due to term limits and is instead running for secretary of state.

Initially, Rosendale said he was planning to run for re-election to his Senate District 18 seat this year, but was encouraged by his party to mount a bid for state auditor.

"I'm a team player, and if the team says this is where we feel you can be the most effective, then, by golly, you put your helmet on and you go on the field," Rosendale said.

Rosendale was born and raised in a rural area on the eastern Maryland shore.

"It was a place where you had your gun rack in the back window with a gun in it and you didn't lock your vehicle," Rosendale said.

His family owned a weekly newspaper, that covered issues and figures in local, state and national office. That, he said, helped spark his interest in politics.

Rosendale worked and operated a real estate firm, which he said he helped take from a four-agent firm with one office, to a multimillion dollar company with 65 agents and four offices. He also worked in buying, developing and managing properties.

In the early 1990s, Rosendale said he started coming out to Montana with his wife and three sons during summers and going to the county fairs. He would then return in the fall to go hunting.

In 2001, he purchased a ranch between Glendive and Sidney and the following year moved with his family to Montana.

"Really at that point, I thought I would be riding riding horses and chasing cows for the rest of my life," Rosendale said.

Then in 2010, he was approached by people in his community to run for the Montana House of Representatives in District 38. He served one term, before running and winning a race for the Montana State Senate in 2012.

In 2014, in a crowded field he mounted a bid for the state's lone seat in the U.S House of Representatives, best known for an ad that featured the candidate shooting down a drone with a rifle. He went on to lose that race, coming in third in a five candidate field.

In the 2015 legislative session, he was elected Senate majority leader by his party, where he led his party on the floor.

Rosendale said his experience in both public office and working in real estate provide him with the skill set needed to effectively manage the auditor's office.

He said that the auditor's office must strike the proper balance between protecting cunsumers and creating a regulatory environment that dissuades companies that sell insurance and securities from doing business in Montana.

"I know where the sweet spot is," Rosendale said. "I have conducted private business for 35 years, and so I know how to get into that spot."

Rosendale said that his background of bringing various parties together in real estate and in the legislature is in sharp contrast to Laslovich, whose background as an attorney is one where it is often a zero sum game, a winner and a loser.

He said during Laslovich's time working in the office and under Lindeen's leadership, costs in health and automobile insurance have jumped, and that the office is not functioning properly.

He said the Affordable Care Act, often known as Obamacare, may have provided people with health insurance, but that coverage has forced some people off of plans they were satisfied with because the plans don't meet the standards put in place under the Affordable Care Act.

Rosendale said the legislation has led to higher premiums and deductibles for consumers and did away with Insure Montana, a state program that helped small businesses provide health insurance to about 600 people.

Mandates, he said, such as bans on policies that charge male and female drivers different rates, don't exist in other states. This, he said, either dissuades insurance companies from doing business in Montana altogether or makes it more expensive, with companies adding a second premium of 20 percent on top of the initial premium.

He said the state's regulatory environment must become more like those in other states, so consumers will be afforded more choices.

Rosendale said he would seek to work with the governor and auditors from nearby states to make Montana's regulations more in line with other states.

During the 2015 legislative session, Rosendale said he pushed a bill that would have allowed physicians to provide a list of services they provide along with a list of prices for such services. A consumer he said would then be able to get those services for a monthly or annual fee. That would allow a consumer to go out and buy a catastrophic policy for other events, such as major injuries.

He said such agreements should be handled by the Attorney General's office and not the state auditor.

If elected, as auditor Rosendale would also sit on the Montana Board of Land Commissioners. The board, which includes the state auditor, governor, secretary of state, attorney general and superintendent of school, oversees the state's public trust lands. Revenue from the use or sales is then used as a source of revenue for the state.

With background as a rancher and in real estate, Rosendale said he would bring experience buying, selling, managing and developing commercial and real estate property to the board.

"The folks that are on there when the information is presented to them by the (Department of Natural Resources and Conservation), they don't even know what questions to ask, but they are stuck in a position just rubber stamping things because they don't even know what questions to ask."

Rosendale said throughout his career as a legislator, it is the facts and not what he calls "coffee house rumors" or rhetoric that have guided him.

He said such rhetoric might allow people to talk about the problem and express frustration but it does little to address an issue in a substantive way.

"Talking about something doesn't get it done, getting it done gets it done." Rosendale said.