Green Party ballot access case still in legal limbo

This morning, the Montana Green Party tried, and failed, to move the ballot access case from Montana District Court to Federal District Court. The federal judge denied the motion on the grounds that the issue was a state, not federal, matter. As a consequence, arguments in Judge Seeley’s court were postponed. When they resume — no date had been set as of Monday afternoon — Seeley said the case probably would continue under a new judge.

It now seems certain that primary ballots for the Green Party will be printed, and that voters will have the option of choosing the ballot for the Green Party.

Late Monday afternoon, the Green Party issued the following statement:

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Montana Green Party ballot access case update

Arguments in the Montana Democratic Party’s lawsuit to kick the Green Party off the ballot in Montana resume today in Judge Seeley’s court in Helena. Last week, there were three parties to the argument: the MDP, the GP, and Montana’s Secretary of State. Today there may be four, as the Montana Republican Party asked to intervene in the case.

At The Montana Post, Pete Talbot has a good summary of the attorneys trying the case, Green Party ballot status gets hinkier and hinkier.

And SecST Corey Stapleton used his newsletter to defend his agency’s employees (his full statement is below).

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Flathead needs fewer prisoners, not more jail cells

They’re at it again, our county commissioners and law enforcement types, promoting spending tens of millions of dollars for a bigger Flathead County jail. Yesterday, architects from Idaho told the commissioners that a new 260-bed slammer could cost $53 to $73 million.

That’s money that never can be spent for education, medical care, housing, safe roads, or the things that law abiding citizens need.

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News from today’s Green Party ballot access lawsuit hearing

The hearing will reconvene on Montana, 30 April, report KXLH’s Mike Dennison and the Missoulian’s Holly Michels. Because no decision is expected before the 5 June 2018 primary election, and many ballots have been printed, there will be a Green Party primary ballot with one contested election: the nomination for U.S. Senator between Steve Kelly, a bonafide Green, and Tim Adams, a Greenie-come-lately that not everyone is sure is a genuine Green.

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Montana’s Green Party and the ballot

At 1330 today, lawyers for the Montana Democratic Party go before Montana District Judge Kathy Seeley to argue that the Green Party should be removed from Montana’s ballots for 2018. I’ve divided this post into three sections:

1. The Democrats’ lawsuit.
2. How Green has Montana voted?
3. Would a Green Party candidate steal Democratic votes?

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A theme song for Initiative 185

Merle Travis, with help from Tex Williams, wrote Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (lyrics) in 1947, but Williams, whose inimitable talking blues style was perfectly suited for the song, made it famous. Here’s Williams toward the end of his career, wearing a costume that could melt dark glasses, effortlessly performing Smoke! in a concert hall. Travis is better known for writing Dark as a Dungeon and Sixteen Tons, and for his style playing a guitar that's still known as Travis Picking.

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healthymontana.org needs to document its claims on I-185

healthymontana.org, the minimalist website promoting I-185, the initiative to raise Montana’s taxes on tobacco makes many claims. For example:

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Montana Green Party asks supporters to attend
24 April court hearing on ballot access

Update, 1755 MDT. The Montana Green Party has secured Quentin M. Rhoads as its attorney in the ballot access case. According to the GP, the Montana Democratic Party is represented both by local counsel Mike Meloy and “international legal behemoth” Perkins & Coie, which advertises political law as a specialty.

1318 MDT. Montana’s Green Party is urging voters who signed petitions to put the party on the ballot to show up for the district court hearing on the Montana Democratic Party’s lawsuit asking the court to remove the Green Party from the 2018 ballot.

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Computer maintenance stand down

We’re standing down today to resolve issues with our computer.

Follow-up on Initiative 185

The signature drive was announced today at a rally in Helena. The committee supporting it was registered with Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices as Healthy Montana for I-185 on 8 April 2018.

The committee’s treasurer is Dr. Steven Bailey, of Helena. The Deputy Treasurer is Tara Veazey, also of Helena, and an attorney who worked on health care in Gov. Bullock’s administration. The initiative is backed primarily, I believe, by hospitals who want the money from expanded Medicaid to keep flowing, and supported by the Democratic Party and its allies, who long ago abandoned all hope of winning a legislative majority. They’re confident, for reasons beyond my ken, that if voters approve I-185, the Republican controlled 2019 legislature will authorize spending the state’s share of expanded Medicaid.

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The tobacco tax poll behind I-185

Later today, reports Mike Dennison at KXLH, the people behind I-185, the tobacco tax increase and expanded Medicaid extension citizens initiative, will announce the organization that’s been formed to run the signature gathering campaign, and if the initiative makes the ballot, the electoral campaign.

Montana’s hospitals, working through the Montana Hospital Association, are behind the initiative. And their campaign is based in part on a poll of 500 Montanans taken in mid-December, 2016, by Moore Information. The poll’s 21 March 2017 summary begins on page 38 of the 102-page, 13 MB, MHA Board Meeting Materials dated 16–17 August 2017.

When asked which taxes they would be willing to increase, Montanans identified just two: tobacco and alcohol: Here’s a screenshot of the results.

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Bill Clinton’s first big mistake was putting
Hillary in charge of his health care task force

Hillary’s chairing the task force wasn’t a government job. She was a volunteer, accountable only to her husband, the President. All criticism of her performance as task force chair was also criticism of the President’s wife — and Bubba didn’t take kindly to criticism of his wife.

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Take your shoes off, Moses

Here’s Texas singer Courtney Patton with a toe tappin’, hand clappin’, performance of J.D. Jarvis’ Take your shoes off, Moses. The video features a modified, desaturated, color pallet that creates an old time atmosphere.

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Keeping secret the legal justification
for bombing Syria undermines democracy

Yesterday, The Intercept reported that President Trump’s decision to order air strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure is based on some kind of legal justification that’s being withheld from Congress:

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After Taxes — There goes the shirt right off my back

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Saturday updates

More on John Melcher. At the Montana Free Press, Charles Johnson, the dean of Montana’s political reporters, has an excellent remembrance of former Sen. John Melcher, who died Thursday.

Pro-firearms rally in Kalispell. It begins at noon today in Depot Park. Don’t expect a counter-demonstration. Instead, critics of the rally have been urged to avoid downtown Kalispell during the gunpowder hour, a safety precaution that may not be necessary and that could mean less business for downtown merchants. One speaker at the high school student led rally will be 18-year-old Joey Chester, a Columbia Falls High graduate now enrolled at Montana State University. Chester is running as a Republican against incumbent Democrat Zach Brown in Bozeman’s heavily Democratic House District 63.

Morning Consult poll has good news for Jon Tester. His approval numbers are way up:

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Remembering Melcher’s cows

Former Sen. John Melcher, a Democrat from the midwest who sought his fortune in Montana after graduating from veterinary school, and one of the best friends farmers had in the U.S. Senate, died yesterday. He was 93.

In 1982, Melcher revived his faltering campaign with his quirky talking cows TV ads, but a reprise of the ads wasn’t enough to overcome Conrad Burns in 1988. Melcher’s wilderness bill, which Reagan vetoed to help Burns, was not popular with conservationists, who at the 1988 convention of the Montana Wilderness Association gently satirized him in a skit featuring the talking cows in the photograph below.

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Wednesday roundup

Notes on Kathleen Williams and healthcare, possible National Park Service misconduct, Flathead electricity rates, and a mean-spirited school board.

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GOP U.S. Senate hopeful Olszewski endorsed by teenaged gun rally leader

Columbia Falls High School senior Braxton Shewalter loves life, God, and guns — and State Senator Al Olszewski (R-Kalispell, SD-6). The endorsement screenshot at left (after the jump) is from Braxton’s Twitter account, and he repeats the endorsement on his Rally4Rights website, which advertises the pro Second Amendment rally he hopes to hold in Kalispell’s Depot Park at noon on Saturday, 14 April.

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New publication schedule for Flathead Memo

Flathead Memo is standing down today. Beginning tomorrow, we will post on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with occasional supplemental posts as circumstances require and permit. — James Conner

The MDP’s attempt to strike the Green Party
from the ballot will alienate some voters forever

The Montana Democrat Party will pay a price at the polls whether or not it succeeds in removing the Green Party from the 2018 ballot.

At Big Sky Words, Greg Strandberg, who filed as a Green for SD-49, a Missoula district now represented by Democrat Diane Sands, observed:

He’s right about the probable fallout. Angry Greens are not likely to switch their votes to Jon Tester if they’re deprived of the opportunity to vote for Steve Kelly or Tim Adams. Some may be angry enough to retaliate by voting for the Republican (probably Matt Rosendale).

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Montana Green Party ballot access update

Yesterday, the Montana Democratic Party, and three of its leaders, asked a Montana District Court in Helena to boot the Green Part off the ballot, alleging that Montana’s county clerks and Secretary of State Corey Stapleton certified signatures that do not meet Montana’s legal requirements for ballot access petitions. The MDT is suing the county clerks and SecST Stapleton, not the Green Party.

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Sperry Chalet belongs on a postcard, not in Glacier National Park

Tomorrow is the last day to submit comments to the National Park Service on Glacier National Park’s “…proposed restoration of the Sperry Chalet experience in Glacier National Park.” The combustible parts of the building burned to ashes last summer during the Sprague Fire, but the stone walls still stand, shored-up by heavy timbers hauled in by helicopters last fall. Heavy hitters who love the chalet want it rebuilt, pronto, and there’s tremendous pressure on the NPS to get on with the job immediately.

Therefore, tearing down the scorched stone walls and removing ancillary building, is not among the options being considered. But because that’s a reasonable option, omitting it is a violation of the National Environmental Protection Act. I would consider filing a NEPA challenge if a razzing alternative is not honestly considered.

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