Bipartisanship produced a shameful, mean-spirited
expanded Medicaid bill Democrats should not praise

Progressives should not be too proud of the 2019 session of the Montana Legislature. It wasn’t an utter disaster, but neither was it a vindication of the virtues of bipartisanship that some are alleging. Ultimately, it was another reminder that Democrats must win working majorities in both house of the legislature if they want to pass truly progressive legislation.

In his latest post, Let’s not all start singing Kumbaya, Montana legislators, The Montana Post’s Pete Talbot, offers faint praise:

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Here’s Harry Chapin’s Circle to start our daily round

Folksinger and humanitarian Harry Chapin died in an automobile accident in 1981. A year later, the Kingston Trio led Judy Collins, Tom Paxton, the Brothers Four, and others, in a performance of Chapin’s Circle. Glenn Yarbrough, erstwhile lead singer of the Limeliters, perhaps best known for Baby, the Rain Must Fall, delivered a brief solo that reminds one he had an extraordinarily melodious tenor voice.

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Standing down today, analyzing tomorrow

Flathead Memo is standing down today. Tomorrow, I’ll begin analyzing the session of the Montana Legislature that adjourned sine die yesterday. Although the legislators closed shop and skedaddled home, the fate of many bills must yet be decided by Gov. Bullock, who may need an extra barrel of ink to keep his veto pen filled.

Old Joe, The Last Hurrah, and Frankenstein legislation

Old Joe Biden announced — to no one’s surprise — that he’s running for President. Again. It will be his last hurrah.

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Sports betting should be prosecuted in Montana — not legalized

But that’s not likely to happen. Two bills — SB-330 and HB-725 — legalizing sports betting have passed the legislature by wide margins and are headed for Gov. Bullock’s desk. He should veto them, but I expect he’ll let them become law.

Both bills take advantage of the fact that a drunk and his money are soon parted.

Here’s what will happen if SB-330, sponsored by Sen. Mark Blasdel (R-Kalispell, SD-4), becomes law:

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It’s Earth Day — don’t drink the water, don’t breath the air

Mathematician Tom Lehrer has the environment’s number, and has for many years. His Pollution is a fitting way to welcome Earth Day 2019. We’re making progress on some green issues, partly because of the attention called to them by his songs.

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Happy Easter!

It looks to be a warm, sunny, Sunday, a rarity in the Flathead, and I’m standing down from blogging to enjoy the day. If you’re interested in how the date of Easter is determined, I recommend my post from 5 April 2015, Calculating the date of Easter.

— James Conner

Bill that bans school lunch shaming remains
bottled-up in MT Senate’s education committee

As I reported on 10 April, HB-414 passed the MT House 67–32 on 27 February. On 25 March, it was heard by the MT Senate’s education and cultural resources committee:

• Proponents: Emily Dean, Montana School Boards Association; Marco Ferro, Montana Federation of Public Employees; Patricia Spencer, a parent representing herself.


• Opponents: none.


• Informational witness: Christine Emerson, Montana Office of Public Instruction.

Despite the support and the lack of opposition, the committee tabled the bill on 29 March.

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Did Montana’s Democrats sell Northwestern Energy’s
ratepayers down the river for money to build a museum?

Something dirty went down in Helena yesterday. The Billings Gazette’s fine reporter, Tom Lutey, has the story. It’s a must read.

Late Tuesday, SB-331, Sen.Tom Richmond’s sweetheart bill for Northwestern Energy, was killed on its third reading in the MT House. Yesterday, the MT House rejected the MT Senate’s amendments to HB-597, a bill addressing utility regulation. That vote sent HB-597 to a conference committee, opening the possibility that the conferees will exhume parts of SB-331 and, Frankenstein fashion, insert them in HB-597.

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Tents, tools, cathedrals, and humility

What ignited the fire that destroyed the Notre Dame cathedral’s roof, attic, and spire? Various news outlets now report that officials think an electrical short, possibly from a temporary elevator, may have started the blaze. Other causes are possible, of course, including arson, and at this point, nothing is being ruled out.

I find myself wondering whether the artisans performing the repairs that required the scaffolding and elevators were contractually obligated to use non-sparking and anti-static tools and equipment, and required to observe special protocols for using torches and heaters. The tinder dry, highly flammable, environment certainly demanded such precautions, especially since the wooden structure was not protected with a sprinkler system.

Meanwhile, Catholics who attended church there need a new place to pray:

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MT House creates opportunity to sneak
defeated SB-331 into another bill

More Colstrip and Northwestern mischief — skullduggery might be a better word — is afoot. An hour ago, the MT House voted 52–48 not to concur in the MT Senate’s amendments to HB-597, a bill that revises utility regulation. That sends the bill to a conference committee, where the conferees may incorporate the gist of defeated SB-331, Sen. Tom Richmond’s sweetheart bill for Northwestern Energy.

One has the sense that deals may have been cut — deals that only can be bad for progressive regulation and Northwestern’s ratepayers.

Both the Republican and Democratic caucuses split their votes on HB-597. The tallies for that vote, and for the House’s third reading on SB-331 are below. You can download the table as an Excel spreadsheet.

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Mueller Report, Medicaid, & possible Colstrip jiggery-pokery

The Mueller Report will be released today — redacted to an extent yet unknown, and only after Attorney General Barr briefs the White House and delivers a speech to spin public opinion. Democrats are in high dudgeon over that sequence, not without good reason, but once the report is out, the questions will begin, the truth will emerge, slowly but inexorably, and the effects of Barr’s dog and pony show will fade rather quickly.

The effects of Barr’s redactions may linger longer.

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How the Montana House voted on SB-331,
Tom Richmond’s sweetheart bill for Northwestern Energy

The MT House decisively rejected SB-331, Sen. Tom Richmond’s sweetheart bill for Northwestern Energy, 37–60 on its third reading today. Yesterday, while the future of HB-658 remained in doubt, the MT House approved SB-331 on its second reading 62–38.

Five Democrats, including the Flathead’s Rep. Dave Fern, who changed his vote from No to Yes, voted for SB-331 on the third reading. Twenty-three Republicans joined 37 Democrats in voting no. All Flathead Republicans except Rep. Frank Garner voted No.

The table below displays how the MT House voted on SB-33r1’s second and third readings, and can be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet.

At the Montana Free Press, Leia Larsen has an outstanding report on the duplicitous campaign Northwestern has waged on SB-331.

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When coal was king, boys were breakers —
and they didn’t have Medicaid

Whether underground in Appalachia or in the giant strip mines of the Powder River Basin, digging coal always has been a dirty and dangerous job that ruins land and miners alike. At one time, the miners included 12-year-olds known as breaker boys. Lex Romane sang of their labors on his great album, Digging Dusty Diamonds. After listening to Breaker Boys, you may be in the mood to hear Lex sing the Miner’s Prayer.

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Hold your nose and cross your fingers —
it’s legislative sausage and extortion day in Helena

Today may be the last day this legislative session that offers a reasonable chance of passing HB-658, extended expanded Medicaid as bastardized by the “Solutions Caucus” of so-called “moderate” Republicans.

Several members of that caucus and cosponsors of HB-658, aided and abetted by Scott Sales and Fred Thomas, two of the most reckless legislators in Montana’s history, have been withholding their votes for the Medicaid bill in a brazen attempt to coerce Gov. Bullock into signing SB-331, Sen. Tom Richmond’s robber baron bill to help Northwestern Energy shakedown its ratepayers for the benefit of its stockholders.

If the Medicaid bill fails again in the MT Senate, we’re probably headed for a train wreck with 96,000 casualties and a special session in a last ditch effort to clean up the mess.

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A cat by a keyboard

Straylena often parks herself next to my keyboard. A couple of days ago, I was able to photograph her in that position using my Flip Mino HD video camera.

Taking 96,000 hostages to save SB-331 won’t save Colstrip

There’s only one way for Montana to keep Colstrip’s coal fired power plants open, providing job and polluting the land and sky: the State of Montana can buy the old power plants and operate them at a loss. Our legislature rejected that option early in this session.

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Colstrip and the Who Lost China Syndrome

Except for a few diehard denialists, Montana’s legislators, and political and economic leaders, know Colstrip’s days are numbered, and know the day of reckoning will arrive sooner than later. They know that Colstrip’s geriatric generators will not be saved by SB-331, or by exotic — and unproven and expensive — technologies for sequestering carbon.

They also know that when Colstrip emits it final belches of steam and smoke, when the coal mines feeding it close, and men and women without jobs produced by coal face grim and lean futures, there’ll be finger-pointing and cries of “You lost Colstrip” as everyone tries to blame everyone else for Colstrip’s demise.

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Why is the MT Senate protecting school lunch shamers and
the counter-productive suspension of driver’s licenses?

Two good bills that passed the MT House by wide margins are bottled-up in MT Senate committees — and calls to blast the bills to the floor reportedly are not being heeded.

HB-217, short titled “Remove suspension of driver’s license as punishment for certain crimes,” and carried by Republican Rep. Casey Knudsen (HD-33), was approved 65–29 on its third reading on 15 March. It has support from the right and left, from the American Legislative Exchange Council, from the American Civil Liberties Union. But on 5 April, it was tabled in the MT Senate’s judiciary committee, which also tried to kill Hanna’s Act.

HB-414, which would outlaw shaming school children because their parents were behind in payments for school lunches, and carried by Democratic Rep. Jessica Karjala (HD-48), passed the MT House 67–32 on 27 February. A month later, it was tabled by the MT Senate’s education and cultural resources committee. Karajala isn’t optimistic the bill will be removed from the table or blasted out of the committee:

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Stand down notice

Kathleen Williams’ repeat run for the U.S. House is smart politics

Kathleen Williams announced yesterday that she’s making a second run for the U.S. House. She’s the first Democratic candidate for that office to mount successive campaigns since Pat Williams (no relation) retired from Congress in 1997.

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Would Montanans have approved a single-subject
initiative repealing the sunset on expanded Medicaid?

We’ll never know: no such initiative has ever been on the ballot in Montana. In 2018, Initiative 185, which included repealing expanded Medicaid’s sunset, lost by 28,129 votes, a 47.1 to 52.9 percent — but I-185 was not a single-subject initiative. Instead, it raised tobacco taxes, dedicated the revenue to several programs, and repealed the sunset. Scroll down for a breakdown of the ballot measure’s many parts.

The importance of that distinction cannot be underscored heavily enough. The voters could not cast separate votes on each issue in I-185. They had to vote for a bundle, presenting the possibility of someone voting No because he disliked raising taxes more than he liked extending expanded Medicaid. It’s possible that voter, had he been presented with an initiative just raising tobacco taxes, and a initiative just removing the sunset, might have voted against raising taxes but for removing the sunset.

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Joe Biden and the ladies, Trump’s EC lead, legislative notes

Today’s post will be brief as Flathead Memo’s editor and janitor needs time to complete his semi-monthly grocery buying expedition, a task made more complicated, exasperating, and expensive, by the need to conform to a low protein, sodium, and potassium, diet. It’s also a low taste diet. Today’s objectives include finding safe and tasty French dressing and tomato based spaghetti sauce. That may prove to be mission impossible. I have little appetite for the experience.

Now, on to Joe, Trump, and the legislature.

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Kathleen Williams, Tom Winter, & Al Olszewski

Updated. Montana’s hustings are heating up. Yesterday, State Rep. Tom Winter (D-Missoula, HD-96) announced he’s running for Montana’s sole seat U.S. House of Representatives. Today, State Sen. Al Olszewski (R-Kalispell, SD-6) announced he’s running for governor. And Friday, in Billings, former State Rep. Kathleen Williams, who lost the U.S. House election to Greg Gianforte, is announcing she’s a candidate for an undisclosed office.

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Mighty rad gumbo

Gumbo was always on the menu when I was in college in Houston in the Sixties. Little Feat’s musical tribute to what many consider the king of Cajun foods is just as spicy as the sauce that sets one steaming with red hot heat. John Jorgenson and Albert Lea cover Rad Gumbo with hot licks that almost burn down the house.

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Reports that Charles Koch converted to Democratic Socialism
send libertarians reeling and lunging for smelling salts and Valium

NEW COCKAYNE, HANS. “It was as though Jesus Christ had embraced Satanism,” quavered libertarian author Ann Wrandlite. “I snorted the salts, washed down two Valiums with Old Crow, and fell to my knees crying ‘say it ain’t so, Charles.’ I would have prayed, but I’m an atheist.”

Wrandlite’s breakdown was triggered by a Faux News report that multibillionaire Charles Koch, the flinty funder of uncompromising libertarian organizations and skeptic of majority rule, had experienced political and moral epiphanies and defected to the camps of Democratic Socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I saw homeless people shivering under a bridge,” Faux says Koch said, “and realized that if paid higher taxes, I could help those wretches. I saw the light!”

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