Hilltop Public Solutions, which has refused to answer questions about its ties to a number of liberal political groups, will hire Aaron Murphy, a long-time Tester staffer and his 2012 campaign’s communications director, according to an emailed statement from Hilltop partner Barrett Kaiser.

“Murphy was a top adviser to Tester for nearly seven years as the senator’s communications director, chief spokesman and speechwriter,” Kaiser’s email said. “In 2011 and 2012, Murphy oversaw communications, press and social media on Tester’s successful and highly regarded U.S. Senate campaign.”

Kaiser is Hilltop’s director of western operations, and works out of the firm’s Billings, Mont., office. He is a former staffer for Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), and consulted for Tester’s 2006 campaign.

The move deepens the consultancy’s ties to the sitting Montana senator. Hilltop actively engaged in Tester’s reelection fight through a handful of AstroTurf groups. Kaiser himself filed Federal Election Commission paperwork for Montana Hunters and Anglers Action!, the activist arm of a group credited with tipping the race in Tester’s favor by backing a spoiler Libertarian candidate.

Montana Hunters and Anglers, the group’s affiliated political action committee, listed Hilltop associate Joe Splinter as its treasurer.

The group ran at least two television ads hitting Rep. Denny Rehberg, Tester’s 2012 opponent, for supporting legislation that would give the Department of Homeland Security some authority over public land in the state.

Hilltop partner Jeremy Van Ess is listed as an officer of another group that was active in the Montana Senate race: the Citizens for Strength and Security Fund. That group ran at least three television ads and two radio ads attacking Rehberg.

Tester’s campaign echoed many of the attacks from both the Hunters and Anglers and Citizens for Strength and Security Fund ads, including charges that Rehberg violated a pledge to refuse pay raises, voted to give the Department of Homeland Security control over Montana land, and voted for the Patriot Act and Real ID immigration legislation.

Murphy did not respond to requests for comment.

Kaiser’s full email:

Aaron Murphy, the former communications director for U.S. Senator Jon Tester, joins Hilltop Public Solutions this week, bringing years of experience in politics and journalism to the national strategic firm.

Murphy will join the Hilltop team on February 1 as a principal, serving clients out of the company’s office in Billings, Mont.

Murphy was a top adviser to Tester for nearly seven years as the senator’s communications director, chief spokesman and speechwriter.  In 2011 and 2012, Murphy oversaw communications, press and social media on Tester’s successful and highly regarded U.S. Senate campaign.

“Senator Jon Tester expects and inspires hard work, accountability and integrity from the people who work for him and after years of serving Montanans in his office and on his campaigns, I look forward to this new chapter with Hilltop’s world-class team,” Murphy said.

Prior to his political career, Murphy was executive producer at KTVQ-TV in Billings, Mont., and a producer at KGW-TV in Portland, Ore.  A native of Wyoming, he is also a former Yellowstone Park Ranger.

Murphy is a graduate of the University of Montana and its School of Journalism.  With two top-tier U.S. Senate campaigns and years of Capitol Hill work under his belt, he is an experienced political strategist with an emphasis is in media and communications.

Hilltop Public Solutions is a public affairs firm specializing in campaign management, coalition building, grasstops organizing and strategic communications.  Since opening its doors in 2006, the firm team has earned a reputation for managing high-stakes public affairs campaigns.

The Hilltop team consists of veterans of politics and government. Hilltop’s partners and principals have managed presidential campaigns, communicated on behalf of Senators, designed massive mobilization efforts and overseen some of the largest issue campaigns in recent history.

“We are thrilled to have Aaron join the Hilltop team,” said Barrett Kaiser, the firm’s director of western operations. “There are few people with the smarts, talent, and political acumen as Aaron Murphy. He brings a tremendous amount of experience and skill to our team.”

On Monday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington – CREW for short – asked the Flathead County sheriff’s office to disclose documents pertaining to a 2009 Flathead Lake boat crash that injured Rehberg and a handful of others. …

CREW alleged in the statement released Monday that [State Sen. Greg] Barkus and Rehberg essentially lied to police investigators about why the boat ended up on the rocky bank of Flathead Lake. “Further, it seems Sen. Barkus and Rep. Rehberg may not have been honest when questioned by investigators,” CREW executive director Melanie Sloan wrote. …

CREW operates as a nonprofit, but refuses to reveal its donors. The group has acknowledged, however, it has received at least $100,000 from mega-liberal George Soros, the left’s sugar daddy.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has also funded the group in the past. SEIU is currently backing Rehberg’s opponent, incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.) through the outside group Patriotic Majority.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) recently moved its “primary banking relationship” from Bank of America to Amalgamated Bank, which is owned by the SEIU.

Tester has raised $10 million in 2011 and 2012—nearly double that of his Republican challenger, Rep. Denny Rehberg. He has overcome the pratfalls of seeking office in a sparsely populated, rural state by raising money from the industries he oversees on the Appropriations and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committees.

Tester raised nearly $1.8 million for his campaign and political action committee from bankers, financiers, and lobbyists for the 2012 cycle, making him the top recipient of lobbying cash in the U.S. Senate and number two fundraiser from commercial banks, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The cash came in 2011, after Tester reversed his early support for a cap on debit card fees. He unsuccessfully attempted to scrap Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s amendment to lower bank fees on debit card transactions from an average of 44 cents to 12 cents. The massive fee decrease is expected to put a large dent in the $17 billion banks and credit card companies earned from the fees in 2009.

Those fees drive up costs for business owners and merchants, leading to higher prices for consumers, according to Ronna Alexander, state executive of The Montana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, a group of small businesses seeking fees that better reflect the 4 cents it costs banks to process cards.

“His decision to support banks and oppose debit and credit card reforms have harmed merchants and working families but helped him build his campaign war chest with hundreds of thousands of dollars from the financial services industry,” she said.

“Sen. Tester had the opportunity to help consumers and small business keep costs down during a time of economic hardship, and he chose to align himself with the banks.”

Reformers, Alexander among them, are now driving to impose the same type of limitations on credit card transaction fees, making Tester’s presence on the banking committee even more crucial to bankers. Prices are set by Visa and MasterCard, a practice that has given the U.S. the highest average credit card fees in the industrial world.

Tester’s evolving position on predatory banking practices runs counter to the homegrown farmer image that carried him to victory in 2006.

“You’ve got to have somebody who will go to Washington, D.C. and fight for you … I won’t sell you down the road by cutting deals with K Street lobbyists,” he said in 2006. “[Montanans] need the greatest representation not encumbered by high dollared lobbyists.”

Alexander said that Washington has changed Tester’s priorities, leading him to work on behalf of big business, rather than his constituents.

“Sen. Tester wants to keep the status quo, which means no competition and billions of dollars in profits for banks at the expense of consumers,” Alexander said.

Tester has received tens of thousands of dollars from the largest banks and credit card companies in the country. Eight of his top 20 donors come from the financial services industry. Visa, which together with MasterCard controls 80 percent of the credit market, is his third-largest contributor, pumping more than $47,000 into the campaign.

Tester’s office did not return emails seeking comment.

The DNC is also marred by absenteeism. Plenty of Democrats, many from the Midwest and Rust Belt, have said they would not attend the convention. Most of them say they are skipping the event to focus on their campaigns.

However, a more likely reason may be that these candidates are afraid they will be tainted by their association with President Obama, his unpopular policies, and an aggressive and ideological national Democratic Party.

Below are five prominent Democrats who won’t be attending this year’s DNC.

1. Claire McCaskill

Claire McCaskill / AP

The Missouri Democratic Senator, locked in a tight race with GOP congressman Todd “legitimate rape” Akin, announced in June that she would not attend the DNC.

2. Jon Tester

Jon Tester / Wikimedia Commons

The Montana Democratic Senator, who won election in his independent-heavy state by a narrow margin in 2006, is fighting GOP congressman Danny Rehberg. He also said he would skip the DNC in June.

3. Richard Carmona

Richard Carmona / AP

The former U.S. Surgeon General under President George W. Bush is running against congressman Jeff Flake in the race to replace Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona.

4. Joe Manchin

Joe Manchin / AP

The popular West Virginia senator won office in 2010 after running an ad showing him literally shooting the Waxman-Markey cap and trade energy bill. Manchin has routinely criticized Obama policies despite his Democratic Party affiliation—raising speculation in Beltway circles that this maverick could be tempted to switch parties one day.

5. Heidi Heitkamp 

Heidi Heitkamp / AP

The former North Dakota attorney general is running as the Democratic candidate to replace retiring U.S. senator Kent Conrad, who is also a Democrat. Her opponent is Republican congressman Rick Berg, who was elected with 55 percent of the vote in 2010.

The race is close. The natural gas boom has blessed North Dakota with a 3 percent unemployment rate, the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Heitkamp, like Manchin, has distanced herself from the Obama administration’s anti-carbon energy policies. Will skipping the convention work for Heitkamp and her fellow truants? We’ll see November 6.

The group known as VoteVets.org has spent $100,000 on an ad falsely claiming that Republican nominee Rep. Denny Rehberg opposed funding for prosthetics for wounded veterans. The group, it turns out, is funded by a slew of liberal special interests that have nothing to do with the military.

Documents reviewed by Montana Watchdog show that VoteVets.org is funded by Patriot Majority, itself a front for the 2.1-million-member Service Employees International Union. SEIU’s $750,000 in contributions to VoteVets.org this election cycle make it one of the group’s top donors.

Other contributors included the environmental group Sierra Club (which gave the veterans front group $670,000) and the United Steelworkers, a 1.2 million-member union ($50,000).

Veterans could be a decisive voting bloc in November. U.S. Census Bureau data shows more than 100,000 Montanans, about 10 percent of the state’s population, are military veterans. The national average is about 7 percent.

Rehberg is running neck-in-neck with Democratic incumbent Jon Tester.

Read the full story at Montana Watchdog.

Both Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) will skip their parties’ upcoming national conventions, their campaigns told The Hill on Monday, in order to concentrate on their Senate race. …

While most vulnerable Republicans have shown less eagerness than Democrats to distance themselves from their party, the moves are a sign both men see utility in touting their independence from their national parties in the Republican-leaning but fiercely conservative state.

The Hill rates this race a ”toss-up.”

Obama held a 32 percent approval rating in Montana in November 2011.

Democrats running for reelection, such as Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), have declined to endorse their leadership’s call for a tax increase on wealthy families.

Instead, they want Congress to pass a broad package that would cut spending and reform the tax code, which they argue would inject new confidence into the private sector. …

“I’m totally for the Bowles-Simpson [plan] and will continue to work for Bowles-Simpson. We need to revamp the system and I think Bowles-Simpson is the pragmatic way to do it,” [said Manchin.]

The blueprint crafted by former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) would achieve $4 trillion in savings over 10 years through spending cuts and tax code reform.

A bipartisan contingent of senators is scheduled to be briefed by Bowles and former Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) this week “on the need for a broad deficit-reduction package.”

After the debate, a handful of witnesses tell us they saw an altercation between Mrs. [Jan] Rehberg and an attendee, in which the attendee pushed Mrs. Rehberg. Rehberg’s campaign confirmed the incident and say the Rehbergs left immediately afterwards.

Dustin Hurst of Watchdog.org reports that local Democrat Rachel Vaughn, who had “openly and loudly called Rehberg a liar a few times” during the debate, screamed profanities at him and tried to slap his phone out of his hands as he asked her questions.

Montana Democrats may have reason to be feeling desperate. A Rasmussen poll taken in May 2012 has Rehberg leading Tester by double digits.

Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.) received nearly $300,000 from lobbyists in 2012, making him the top recipient of K Street dollars, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Tester has denied the fact on multiple occasions, saying it is “not true.”

But a Washington Free Beacon review of campaign contributions reveals that Tester leads all Senators in lobbying cash. He is also flush in contributions from Wall Street firms and big banks, ranking second in the Senate for commercial bank donations, third for credit card companies, and tenth for investment banks.

Tester has received nearly $875,000 from the banking and real estate industries in 2012, despite his promise to “end the era of ‘too big to fail’ once and for all.” The influx in donations came after he led a failed fight against regulations that would have stopped banks from charging retailers exorbitant fees for debit card transactions—fees that drive up costs for consumers.

In June, Tester fell six votes short of blocking the Durbin Amendment, which would have capped the fees at 12 cents, down from the industry average of 44 cents—a practice that netted $17 billion for banks in 2009.

Tester won his seat during the 2006 Democratic wave by promising a more ethical government. His opponent, incumbent Conrad Burns, was linked to the Jack Abramoff scandal. Burns was the largest congressional recipient of campaign funds from Abramoff’s lobbying clients.

Tester campaigned as an outsider and championed lobbying reform in the Senate. In 2006, he signed a restrictive ethics pledge that forbid him from accepting lobbying gifts or meeting with former staffers who become lobbyists.

That has not stopped Jason Rosenberg, Tester’s former point man to the Senate banking committee, from securing lucrative lobbying contracts from banks and credit card companies as vice president at K Street’s Glover Park Group.

Rosenberg’s clients are nearly all banking and financial firms and include some of Tester’s biggest fundraisers.

Rosenberg and his lobbying team earned over $1.1 million lobbying for the financial industry, including $130,000 JP Morgan. The bank is also Tester’s second largest donor, pumping nearly $50,000 into his campaign. Visa, another Rosenberg client, ranks fifth with $33,500 in contributions. Rosenberg’s biggest client, the American Bankers Association, is his former boss’s eighth biggest donor.

Several banking industry lobbyists have also opened up their wallets to Tester. More than a dozen lobbyists representing financial firms have contributed $24,400 to the campaign. Patton Boggs, K Street’s largest firm, has contributed nearly $20,000 to the campaign and also represents a number of banking interests.

Tester did not respond to calls for comment.

Tester also pledged to conduct annual ethics audits using an independent judge following his election. He has since reneged on the pledge, shifting to bi-annual audits citing logistical complications. Tester’s internal audits have not uncovered any ethical lapses; however, he will not conduct another examination before the November election.

“You’ve got to have somebody who will go to Washington, D.C. and fight for you. … I won’t sell you down the road by cutting deals with K Street lobbyists,” he said in 2006. “[Montanans] need the greatest representation not encumbered by high dollared lobbyists.”

Republicans say Tester’s campaign donations cast doubt on his populist image.

“Jon Tester is very good at telling the people of Montana one thing and then doing another when in Washington D.C.,” National Republican Senate Committee spokesman Lance Trover said. “He is now the number one recipient of lobbyist dollars, which helps explain why he supported President Obama’s massive spending proposals and government takeover of health care.”

Democratic senators comprise 13 of the top 15 recipients of lobbyist cash in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Congressional staffers would leave the Hill, join friendly lobbying firms, and then funnel personal and PAC contributions to GOP legislators.

Democrats claimed to be sickened by this so-called “culture of corruption.”

“Professional lobbyists have become a virtual ‘back office’ for Congress and Congressmen, [serving] as travel agents, employment agencies, and authors of legislation,” said then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel on the House floor in 2005.

“The K Street Project, proudly promoted by Mr. DeLay and Sen. Santorum and the Republican leadership, in which quid pro quo was the blatantly articulated standard of conduct, is the most flagrant example of the aptly named ‘culture of corruption,” said then-Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland in 2006.

A spokesman for then-minority leader Nancy Pelosi told the Hill in April of that year: “Every single Republican is responsible for enabling and benefiting from a K Street Project that puts their cronies ahead of the American people.”

“I Won’t Sell Montana Down The Road By Cutting Deals With K Street Lobbyists,” said Montana Democratic candidate Jon Tester.

That was then.

Now, Tester is the number one recipient of lobbyist contributions so far in this cycle. And as they scramble to protect their imperiled Senate majority, powerful Democrats are relying heavily on their own network of former staffers representing special interests with business before Congress.

The Senate Democrats’ point man in this struggle is Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the influential Finance Committee. In recent weeks, according to a Thursday article in Politico, Baucus allies have been telling corporate lobbyists that the senator considers any donation to Rep. Denny Rehberg (R., Mont.), who is challenging incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.), to be a donation against him.

The network of former Baucus aides on K Street is extensive: At least 19 of the senator’s former staffers are currently registered as federal lobbyists, according to public records. They represent companies in the health care and energy industries, among others, and are paid handsomely.

In addition to guiding corporate campaign contributions to their former bosses—and warning them away from potential opponents—these lobbyists set aside a substantial portion of their earnings to donate to Democrats.

One former staffer, Catharine Ransom, who was Baucus’ senior adviser on climate and the environment from Mar. 30, 2009, to Feb. 24, 2011, is a lobbyist for the well-connected Glover Park Group.

According to public records, Ransom earned $20,000 in 2011 for lobbying on behalf of Solyndra, the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer that has caused political problems for the Obama administration. Since 2007 she has donated at least $5,000 to Democrats, including $500 to Tester.

Patrick Bousliman earned at least $1,127,271 during his stint as Baucus’s natural resources adviser from January 1, 2001 to April 8, 2011. He now works as a lobbyist at Holland & Knight, where in 2011 he represented NextEra Energy Resources, one of the largest green companies in the United States.

NextEra Energy Resources is behind the Genesis Solar Project outside Los Angeles, which has come under fire from environmental and American Indian groups in recent weeks.

Environmentalists worry that Genesis endangers the at-risk population of kit foxes. American Indians say Genesis should be halted because construction may imperil prehistoric ruins that were recently discovered on the project site.

Bousliman was paid $50,000 for his work with NextEra. He has contributed at least $1,000 to his former boss and $1,950 to Tester so far this election cycle.

The Baucus clique also has far-reaching ties to the mortgage and health care industries. Baucus was instrumental in the passage of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Jeff Forbes worked for the senator for roughly three years, serving as chief of staff and staff director on the Finance Committee. Shortly after leaving Capitol Hill, Forbes joined the lobbying firm Cauthen Forbes & Williams, where he represented Fannie Mae until the housing giant was nationalized in the fall of 2008.

In all, the firm made more than $400,000 from Fannie Mae. The average American’s share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s losses is $1,300, according to Jack Hough of Smartmoney.com.

Forbes is currently registered to lobby for a variety of health care companies. His fees are impressive: $60,000 per quarter from United Health Care, $60,000 per quarter from Allergan, $60,000 per quarter from Amgen, $80,000 per quarter from PhRMA, $60,000 per quarter from HCR ManorCare, $50,000 per quarter from the Advanced Medical Technology Association, $50,000 per quarter from the ASC Advocacy Committee, $50,000 per quarter from Genentech, $40,000 per quarter from Merck, $30,000 per quarter from Edwards LifeSciences, and $30,000 per quarter from Northport Health Services.

Median household income in the United States is $51,914 per year, not per quarter.

Forbes’s contributions to Democrats over the years include at least $19,000 to Baucus, $32,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and $4,600 to Pelosi, according to a database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Another former Baucus chief of staff, David Castagnetti, is a primary at the firm Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti. He is currently registered to lobby for Humana for $80,000 per quarter, America’s Health Insurance Plans association for $70,000 per quarter, the American Association for HomeCare for $60,000 per quarter, the American Osteopathic Association for $50,000 per quarter, the American Society for Radiation Oncology for $50,000 per quarter, Biogen for $50,000 per quarter, Harden Healthcare for $50,000 per quarter, the Mayo Clinic for $50,000 per quarter, the Medicare Cost Contractors Alliance for $50,000 per quarter, Merck for $50,000 per quarter, MDVIP for $40,000 per quarter, and Ascension Health for $30,000 per quarter.

Castegnetti is also one of the most generous former Baucus staffers, donating at least $11,250 to the senator, $32,000 to the DCCC, $95,8000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and $3,500 to Tester over the years.

Baucus’s office did not return requests for comment.

The report of Baucus’s threat against donors to Rehberg, and the deep pockets of his former staffers turned lobbyists, suggests that the K Street Project is alive and well. Now it has a “D” after its name.