Lindeen talks scams, stumps in Havre campaign visit

Montana State Auditor and Democratic candidate for Secretary of State Monica Lindeen was in Havre Tuesday, one of 28 stops across the state where she screened a movie and discussed investor fraud with the public.

Those at the screening of "Gold Diggers: Investor Fraud in the Treasure State" at the Eagles Club, were also treated to a free prime rib dinner.

Lindeen's office said the tour and events were paid for through a grant from the Investor Protection Trust, a nonprofit organization which aims to educate the public about measures to take to protect themselves against investor fraud.

In recent days, she said she has hosted similar events in communities in the northwestern part of the state. Most recently she was in Conrad and Shelby Monday and Chester earlier in the day. She was scheduled to appear in Malta this morning.

Lindeen said she would then resume the tour in two weeks after a brief respite with events in rural eastern Montana.

She also briefly met with Hill County Democrats after the film.

Lindeen, a Democrat, is a candidate for secretary of state.

While she was in Havre, Lindeen sat down with the Havre Daily News Editorial Board for a wide-ranging discussion on her work as auditor, investor fraud, air ambulances, health insurance rates and her latest bid for secretary of state.

Investor fraud

"Gold Diggers" looks at two headline grabbing cases of investor fraud in Montana that the State Auditor's Office which is in charge of securities and insurance regulation prosecuted during Lindeen's time in office.

The first involved Art Heffelfinger, a broker who orchestrated a Ponzi scheme out of Montana City. Heffelfinger stole more than $2 million from his clients. He was prosecuted and later sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The second case involved Anne Marie Schlenker, a financial adviser based in Bozeman who was sentenced to 27 months in prison for wire fraud.

"So the purpose is to educate folks about how to protect themselves from financial fraud, financial embezzlement," Lindeen said about touring the movie around the state.

She said the State Auditor's Office frequently receives reports of such schemes and investigates them.

Lindeen said that through the tour she seeks to educate investors about how the auditor's office can be help them and the importance of investors doing their research before investing. She said the office serves to answer questions about investor protections, as well as investigate, prosecute and seek restitution in cases where wrongdoing has occurred.

Lindeen said people are often surprised by the prevalence of investor fraud and find the documentary informative.

Though it falls under the purview not of her office but that of the state attorney general, Lindeen said that in her travels, she has heard people say they have been receiving calls from individuals claiming to be with the IRS telling them they owe money to the government.

The callers often request the credit card and financial information of those they call.

"I mean, it's just awful," Lindeen said.

Campaign secretary of state

Earlier this year, Lindeen turned talk about her next step in her political career into action when she filed to run for Montana Secretary of State.

She is unopposed in the primary and will face former state Sen. Corey Stapleton, R-Billings, and Libertarian Roger Root of Hamilton this fall.

Incumbent Secretary of State Linda McCulloch is ineligible to run for re-election due to term limits.

Lindeen said she is running for Montana Secretary of State because she wants to ensure that all voters have the opportunity to weigh in through the electoral process.

Lindeen said she wants to make it easier.

"The way we get good policy passed in this state is by having good people elected, and to get good people elected you need a majority participating, as opposed to a minority," she said.

Lindeen touts her experience as an educator, business owner, legislator and in heading the State Auditor's Office.

She brought many of those same attributes to her current office, she said, where she has been able to make the auditor's office more efficient and streamline its functions.

"I intend to look at the secretary of state's office when I get there as well and say, 'What can we do better and how can we do things better?'" Lindeen said.

She said she favors greater access to mail-in balloting, but does not want to go as far as Oregon where voting in all elections is done entirely by mail.

"It's not as efficient for everyone to utilize the mail-in ballot, especially in some rural areas."

She does embrace one idea Oregon has taken up: comprehensive voter registration, whereby at the age of 18 legal residents are automatically registered to vote.

"If you are going to make it easier to vote, (the best way) is to make sure I am automatically registered to vote," Lindeen said.

Lindeen said Montana's seven Indian reservations should all be equipped with permanent satellite election offices for early and absentee balloting services.

She said she understands many counties are unable to provide such services to those who reside on reservations and other sparsely populated frontier areas because of a lack of funding, as well as the cost of multi-location balloting machines and election office staff.

In many cases, she said, counties are unable to simultaneously operate both their county office and a reservation office.

The absence of such offices is "a resources problem," Lindeen said, adding that she hopes that if she is elected, a funding source can be identified which would enable counties to establish such offices.

When satellite offices are opened on reservations, the lack of manpower and technology that enables ballots to be counted from more than one location at the same time force county election offices to close down and move their resources to reservations.

Lindeen said she is confident that, if elected, she can build on McCulloch's success of getting general election night results out faster than in the past.

Having run an Internet-based company and upgraded the technology of the auditor's office, Lindeen said she is confident she can do the same for the Secretary of State's Office.

Health insurance

State Senate Majority Leader Matthew Rosendale, R-Glendive, is hoping to succeed Lindeen as the next state auditor.

In March Rosendale spoke before a gathering of the Havre Pachyderms Club. At the meeting, he cited the climbing cost of health care and automobile insurance during Lindeen's eight years at the helm of the auditor's office.

Lindeen largely shrugged off the criticism, saying Rosendale "doesn't know what he is talking about."

"He should ask more questions about health insurance before he starts spouting off what I've done wrong," Lindeen said.

She said that she cannot recall one question Rosendale has asked her during her time as auditor about health care.

Lindeen said she would have to ask around her office, but she hasn't heard of any calls he has made to the office.

She said that for the past six years, there has been upheaval in the health insurance market, brought on by a series of things. These include the use and cost of health care services.

"It's a much more complicated discussion in terms of why insurance prices are what they are, why health care prices are what they are," she said.

She said causes include increases in people using health care services as well as their cost.

During the transition, Lindeen said, under her leadership she has aimed to protect the market and consumers in the state of Montana.

She said her office was successful in keeping the individual market rates down, but acknowledges there have been some double-digit increases.

Lindeen said these increases have occurred for consumers who purchase health care on their own. It does not take into account those who get insurance through large markets or employers.

"I mean, we're not talking the whole market place. We are talking a small portion of the market place, and that does not even include medicaid expansion and anybody who is on any other type of program."

She said that, under state law, the auditor's office might be able to review and try to negotiate with insurance companies to pare down the price but cannot refuse those rates.

The type of authority the state auditor has varies from state to state.

Lindeen said since she entered office eight years ago she has streamlined "every single process in that office" and reduced the legal backlog of the office.

Lindeen said that while Republicans might try to use her support for the Affordable Care Act as a political albatross, they were unsuccessful in doing so when she routed her rival in 2012 in her bid for a second term.

Lindeen said she has fought to allow states to continue regulating insurance companies.

Many Republicans in Congress, such as presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Donald Trump have called for allowing companies to compete across state lines.

Supporters said this would afford consumers more choices and, by injecting competition into the marketplace, lower all rates.

Lindeen disagreed.

"We know that states and state insurance commissioners are closer to their marketplaces. We understand those marketplaces and the last thing we want is the federal government regulating all of that for us," she said.

She said that "crossover" in the individual insurance marketplace due to the Affordable Healthcare Act has been a source of stress between the states and the federal government.

"The biggest problem is that Republicans have played politics with this issue from day one," Lindeen said.