The “Right” to an Abortion and the “Right to Have Rights”

Guest Essay By Jim Smith

The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization did more than simply deny women the right to decide their own health care issues, it denied them full citizenship in the political community of our nation. By stating that the “Constitution does not confer a right to abortion” the decision has rendered women no longer full citizens and has subsequently, denied them the status required to have the “right to have rights.” How is this so?

…read the rest

Democrats will err if they make abortion
the most important 2022 midterm issue

By James Conner

Anger’s incandescent passions motivate powerfully — and blind the angry to fact and logic. According to various mainstream media news reports, Democrats, enraged by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, want to make protecting access to safe and legal abortion the anchor plank in their platform for the 2022 midterm election.

That’s understandable, but it’s not a good idea: for most voters the economy is and will remain the defining issue of the midterms.

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Preserving abortion rights in Montana depends in large
measure on re-electing MT SC justices Rice and Gustafson

By James Conner

Yesterday, as expected and feared, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overruled Roe v. Wade, holding there is no federal constitutional right to abortion. Whether abortion will be legal now becomes a state issue, with conservative states hellbent on outlawing the procedure and liberal states allowing it under certain circumstances.

In Montana, the legality of abortion is governed by Armstrong v. State, the 1999 case discussed by retired state supreme court justice James Nelson in his 8 September 2021 post on Flathead Memo:

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Women: Victims of the Hypocrites on the Supreme Court

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

On June 24, 2022, The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (note 1). The Court’s overruled Roe v. Wade, allowing the states to impose whatever abortion restrictions their legislatures can come up with.

Judges should be immune from partisan and sectarian pressures when deciding cases.

This is especially true when the case involves a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and her private reproductive choices in consultation with her healthcare provider free from government interference. Before Dobbs, this “medical model” adopted in Roe, had been acknowledged to be “settled law” by the men and women who have been appointed to the Supreme Court since Roe was handed down in 1973.

…read the rest

Gianforte’s administration still refuses to explain
why his Italian holiday was kept so secret

By James Conner

Yesterday, the Helena Independent Record’s Sam Wilson reported that Gov. Gianforte and his administration, citing security concerns, continue to stonewall inquiries about why his vacation was kept secret.

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Montana’s Constitution Guarantees the Rights of
Every Citizen — It is What Makes Montana Great

Guest Essay By Kyle Waterman

In the last month of the primary election we all received a barrage of political mail. I saw an alarming trend by the GOP to call for more government oversight into our lives and for arbitrary changes to our Montana Constitution. While some of these mailers argued that these changes protect families, they actually step us towards a tyranny of the few. Removing the guarantee of privacy that we all enjoy thanks to the Montana Constitution will result in the government being able to insert itself into every part of our lives. This is an obvious problem for those who do not want the government in their doctor’s offices or marriages, but it also means the government can have more routine public surveillance of all of our activities. The part that they aren’t mentioning is that a Constitutional Convention would also, disturbingly, open up Montana’s Public Lands to profiteering for these few.

…read the rest

We Can Have Only One Governor at a Time

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

It was one thing that the Governor’s recent vacation left the public and the press playing Where’s Waldo for the week that he was, as it turns out, in Italy, but how his executive office was handled during the catastrophic floods in Carbon, Park and Stillwater Counties leaves some doubts as to who exactly was the Governor during that time.

Article VI of Montana’s Constitution establishes the executive branch of our government and sets out a number of other provisions defining the operation and duties of the various public officers comprising that branch. (Hereafter, unless otherwise noted, Section references are to Article VI).

To put a finer point on it, Section 1 states that the executive branch includes, among other officers, “a governor” and “lieutenant governor.” Section 4(1) states that “[t]the executive power is vested in the governor who shall see that the laws are faithfully executed,” and that “[h]e shall have such other duties as are provided in this constitution and by law.”

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Has a precedent for an unconstitutional transfer of power been set?

Constitutional experts need to review how Gov. Gianforte temporarily made Lt. Gov. Juras acting governor

By James Conner

When Gov. Greg Gianforte flew to Italy last week for a long planned, and deserved, vacation, I suspect the last thing on his mind was the possible need to direct Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras to become acting governor in his absence. He would be staying in a modern, first world, nation with excellent communications. He could stay in touch with Helena by telephone, electronic mail, and video. And when major flooding damaged Montana, he did:

Then Montana’s statutes and constitution appear to have made a transfer of gubernatorial power necessary. Montana needed to ask President Biden for a federal disaster declaration (which kicks loose resources for responding to natural disasters such as fires, floods, and hurricanes). According to MCA 2-15-201 Section 3, “The governor is the sole official organ of communication between the government of this state and the government of any other state or of the United States.”

…read the rest

An earlier return would not have improved flood response.

Prior to his vacation, did Gianforte formally ask Lt. Gov. Juras
to serve as acting governor while he was gone from Montana?

By James Conner

Probably not. We know from a report in the Montana Free Press that on Monday, 13 June, Gianforte in writing asked, which is to say, directed, Juras to act on his behalf in his absence, but limited her power to do so to matters regarding flooding:

Article VI, Section 14, Subsection 2, of Montana’s 1972 constitution controls when a lieutenant governor can serve as acting governor:

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Democrats: this is no time for Partisan Gotcha!

Welcome home, Gov. Gianforte. Let's all work
together to dry out and repair Montana.

By James Conner

I hold all governors to the same standard. Policy matters. Party does not.

Not everyone takes that approach, which is why social media, where behavior is not governed by the restraints that govern face-to-face encounters, is rife with calumnious, hyperbolic, and often wildly off the mark, criticisms of politicians from the other party.

That dynamic is now being employed to denounce Gov. Greg Gianforte for being out of the country on vacation when near Biblical downpours flooded parts of Montana. There are unsubstantiated reports he was in Africa, and other reports that he was in Europe.

The announcement that he’ll be back in Montana tonight has not shut down the denunciations of his absence.

But it should. He would not have planned to be gone during historic flooding. And he seems to be coming home as fast as he can.

…read the rest

Montana is cold and wet, but the
Colorado River basin is hot and dry

By James Conner

When it’s as cold and wet as Montana has been the last few days, global warming and historic drought are hard to take seriously — until one looks beyond the northern Rockies to Phoenix, Arizona, a thousand miles south southeast of Kalispell and an order of magnitude more populous. Here’s Phoenix’s current forecast:

Kalispell will warm to 65°F today, and to 80°F tomorrow. The Flathead River will keep rising through next week, and may stay high for several weeks thereafter. Then, through the hot months of July and August, the river’s streamflow will decrease by an order of magnitude and the Flathead basin’s residents will worry about fires, not floods.

…read the rest

Provisional ballots flip Flathead county commish election,
but not the Public Service Commission District 5 election

By James Conner

Flathead County Commission GOP primary. Republican Pam Holmquist will serve a third term on the Flathead county commission. After the provisional ballots were counted yesterday, she had 7,526 votes, 42 more than Jack Fallon’s 7,484. Fallon told the Daily InterLake he would ask for a recount, but expressed doubts that a recount would reverse the election’s outcome. After he gives the matter additional thought, he may forgo a recount and concede. But right now, he’s keeping his options open. That’s reasonable.

…read the rest

Jack Fallon prevailed where people knew him

Provisional ballots may affect the GOP primary elections
for PSC District 5 and Flathead county commissioner

By James Conner

Montana counts its provisional primary ballots today. Ann Bukacek leads Derek Skees by 74 votes for the Republican nomination for PSC District 5 (Flathead, Lake, Lewis and Clark, and Teton Counties). Jack Fallon leads two-term incumbent Pam Holmquist by four votes for the Republican nomination for Flathead county commissioner.

There are approximately 300 provisional ballots in the Flathead, and possibly proportional numbers in the other PSC-5 counties.

Over the week, I crunched some crude probabilities, concluding that there’s roughly an even chance that the provisional ballots will flip the county commissioner election, but only an outside chance that they will flip the PSC election.

…read the rest

What are the odds that a recount will flip the outcome of
the GOP election for Flathead County Commissioner?

By James Conner

Updated. The qualitative answer: not high, but not insignificant.

The initial tally has challenger Jack Fallon leading two-term incumbent Pam Holmquist by four votes, 7,405 to 7,401. Jason Parce received 3,160 votes and Brian Friess (who had awful yard signs), 3,016. But the provisional ballots have not been counted.

According to the Flathead Beacon:

The website of Flathead County’s elections department does not report how many provisional ballot were cast. Neither does the website of MT SecST. Both the MT SecST and the county elections administrators should, as part of the regular count, report the number of provisional ballots submitted.

It seems likely that the gap between Fallon and Holmquist still will be within recount range.

…read the rest

Three PACs spent more than $100,000
in Republican primaries in Flathead County

By James Conner

Two of the PACs — Flathead First and Conservatives4MT — were formed by moderate Republicans trying to defeat the neo-John Birch Society candidates endorsed by the Flathead Republican Party. One, the Americans for Prosperity PAC financed by the Koch operation, spent approximately $27,000 on behalf of far right Rep. John Fuller’s effort to win the GOP nomination for SD-4 (Kalispell).

Conservatives4MT raised more than $60,000 from several current and former Republican state legislators, among them Duane Ankney, Walter McNutt, and Bruce Tutvedt, spending it on modererate Republican candidates around the state. In the Flathead, the PAC supported SD-4 moderate Lee Huestis.

Flathead First raised more than $80,000 from moderate Republicans, among them from former governor Marc Racicot and former MT SecST Bob Brown.

Here’s how Flathead First’s candidates were doing as of the time of this post:

I’ll post a follow-up this evening or tomorrow morning.

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Montana’s congressional primaries are not
the elections most important to our daily lives

By James Conner

Montana’s primary election month ends tomorrow, when Election Day voters, mostly Republicans, go to the polls to cast their ballots. As of yesterday (download spreadsheet), 41.7 percent of Montana’s 472,509 absentee ballots had been returned. That’s 26.5 percent of Montana’s 743,506 registered voters. Montana’s Census estimated population for 1 July 2021 was approximately 1.1 million.

These numbers will be updated later this morning. A registered voter turnout of 50 percent or so would be within the normal range for a midterm primary in Montana, but some contested primaries could draw higher turnouts.

The marquee primaries are for Montana’s two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, but the elections for Montana’s legislature, supreme court, and Public Service Commission, will have the greatest direct impacts on the daily lives of Montanans.

…read the rest

An inartful Tweet, a rally for better firearms policy

By James Conner

Much to my everlasting dismay, I’m not immune to phrasing a thought inartfully. Yesterday, attempting to say that calls for more restrictions on firearms are not being heeded, I Tweeted:

The Uvalde massacre is no longer above the fold on the Washington Post’s home page. The dead are being buried, their survivors are mourning, and the calls for firearms reform are fading. This is the American way. When will we ever make America better?

I should have Tweeted “not being heeded” instead of “fading.”Dozens of followers and strangers rightly took exception, noting that rallies for better firearms policy are scheduled across America in the next week.

…read the rest

As we honor the fallen, let us contemplate
what service and honor are and require

By James Conner

Today we mourn the men and women who died while serving in the armed forces of the United States. They did not join the military to die, but they joined knowing that doing their jobs could result in their deaths.

Yesterday, David French, attorney, author, and combat veteran, made that point in a thoughtful, provocative, essay, To Do the Right Thing, You Might Have to Die:

…read the rest

Friday roundup: Uvalde, & the Flathead GOP’s war with itself

By James Conner

The fog of war is slowing the emergence of a clear account of the events of the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting. Meanwhile, the largest, most intense intraparty political war in 18 years has broken out among Flathead Republicans.

Uvalde massacre followup

Not surprisingly, there are no clear answers to these questions. And there will not be for quite some time, I suspect. As John Marshall noted at Talking Points Memo, a fog of war factor is involved.

…read the rest

Suppress? Subvert? Or Both!

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

It has been said that nothing is fool proof, because fools are so ingenious.

Substitute the word authoritarian for fool, and this piece of conventual wisdom is particularly apropos in our struggle to obtain and maintain the goal of truly free, open and fair elections as guaranteed under Montana’s constitutional right of suffrage.

Article II, Section 13 provides: “All elections shall be free and open, and no power, civil or military shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.”

This right to vote is a fundamental right. It is absolutely essential to the existence and maintenance of democracy, because it is the only way that We the People are able to exercise our rights of sovereignty and to govern ourselves—also fundamental rights guaranteed under Article II, Sections 1 and 2 of our State’s Constitution.

…read the rest

Mass shootings will continue as long as millions of Americans are willing to pay that price for easy access to firearms.

By James Conner

Too much happened yesterday for me to sleep tonight. Usually when situational insomnia keeps me awake, I open an interesting book, listen to music, and wait for the blazing sunrise of a brighter day.

Tonight, however, I’m going to write about yesterday’s horror in Uvalde, Texas.

Larger map

A mostly Hispanic town of 15,200, Uvalde sits west of San Antonio by 80 miles and east of Mexico by 50. It's known for producing golden honey. Now, it will be known for 18-year-old Salvatore Ramos’ murders yesterday of 19 second, third, and fourth graders, and two adults, at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School. Lawmen killed Ramos. Several students and two law enforcement officers were wounded. Before heading to the school, Ramos reportedly shot his grandmother, who was airlifted to San Antonio and may be alive.

The casualty figures may be revised in the next few days. At this point, news reports are being updated by the minute and hour, and are still chaotic, sometimes contradictory, usually incomplete, and sometimes wrong.

…read the rest

Ranked choice in Montana requires a constitutional amendment

Tuesday’s primaries underscored
the need for ranked choice elections

By James Conner

Elections can turn weird when the field of candidates is large, and only a plurality is necessary to win. Sometimes the vote is so fragmented that fringe extremists who never could win a majority prevail.

Here are a few examples from Tuesday’s primaries:

• Oregon’s projected Republican nominee for governor, Christene Drazen, is winning her primary with 23.2 percent of the vote. Drazen may increase her percentage slightly when the votes in her home base of Clackamas County are finally counted.
• Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate — either Dave McCormick or Trump endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz — will win with less than 32 percent of the vote.
• Kentucky’s 6th congressional district Republican nomination is being won with less than 30 percent of the vote.
• Six congressional primaries in North Carolina were won with less than a majority; four with less than 40 percent of the vote. The state’s turnout was 19.6 percent. North Carolina requires a runoff election if no candidate receives at least 30 percent of the vote.
• Two congressional primaries in Pennsylvania were won with weak pluralities; one with 41.7 percent, one with 33.2 percent.
• In Oregon’s new 6th congressional district, the Democratic nominee received 36.5, and the Republican nominee 34.9, percent of the vote.

…read the rest

Flathead Memo endorses Ingrid Gustafson
for another term on the Montana Supreme Court

By James Conner

Two eight-year nonpartisan positions on the Montana Supreme Court are on the 6 June primary ballot.

Bill D’Alton is challenging incumbent Jim Rice for Position One. Both will advance to the general election.

James Brown and Michael McMahon are challenging incumbent Ingrid Gustafson for Position Two. Only two will advance to the general election.

If you value experience, a deep knowledge of the law, a profound respect for Montana’s constitution, an unwavering commitment to justice, an uncommon enthusiasm for improving Montana’s courts, and an a compassionate appreciation of humankind’s predicament, vote for Gustafson. She’s far and away the most qualified of the three running for the associate justice position she now holds.

…read the rest

Let the Little Children Suffer

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

With the demise of Roe v. Wade in the air, conservative state legislators, grounded in partisan and evangelical ideology, are vying to outdo each other in adopting laws that would prohibit and punish abortion. Louisiana Republicans, for example, advanced (but then pulled) a bill that would have classified abortion as homicide and would have allowed prosecutors to criminally charge patients; the bill would have granted constitutional rights to the “person” of a fertilized egg (note 1).

Montana’s legislature has not gone quite that far, at least yet. But the 2021 session did pass, and the Governor signed into law various anti-abortion laws, four of which are being challenged in court. One, the Montana Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (note 2) would prohibit abortions at 8 weeks and would punish a violation of the Act as a felony (along with other civil sanctions).

Ironically, though, in their fervor to protect and grant personhood rights to pre-viability fetuses, Montana’s nominally good Christian legislators seemed to have forgotten an important admonition from the Bible. In Matthew 19:14 when His disciples tried to prevent Him from praying over the little children, Jesus rebuked them, saying: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me and do not forbid them…”

…read the rest

Dark Money stands between us and
the healthy government we need

Guest Essay By Rebecca Johnson and seven others

We are living in very difficult times, but they are our times. Times we have helped create and need to help heal. For democracy to work we need a healthy government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Dark Money stands between us and the healthy government we need.

Maude Barlow served as the senior water advisor to the UN General Assembly promoting water as a human right. In her book, Still Hopeful, she says, “Oxfam and the British social justice organization Global Justice now have documented the rise of transnational corporations: of the top 100 economies in the world, 69 are corporations, and only 31 are nation-states.”

…read the rest

From the “Know Nothing Party” to the “We Don’t Care Party”

Guest Essay By Jim Smith

In the 1850’s in the United States there was a political party called the Native American Party. It started as a secret society which opposed immigration, was xenophobic, racist, and fearful of Catholicism, and had nothing to do with Indigenous people. Their meetings were held in secret, they would answer questions about their proceedings with “I know nothing.” So, they became known as the Know Nothing Party. Later they became one of the foundations of the Republican Party we know today as the GOP.

Today the GOP has evolved into the “We Don’t Care Party.” While no one has come out and declared this their new motto, it is expressed in dozens of iterations in the way they act, talk, and campaign.

…read the rest

Friday roundup: Election Month begins, crossover morals, tomorrow’s pro-choice rally, and a McCarthy era law

By James Conner

Absentee ballots. Absentee ballots for the 6 June primary election must be mailed to Montana’s voters no later than today. Montana’s SecST provides an online tally of absentee ballots mailed and returned that is updated daily. Montana has approximately 743k registered voters, approximately two-thirds of whom vote by absentee ballot. SecST provides daily updates on registered voters.

Crossover voting. Now that voting has begun, Democrats in red counties must decide whether to crossover and vote in Republican primaries in which relative moderates are facing off against far right wackadoodles. In the Flathead, there are moderate v. wackadoodle primaries in house districts 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11; in senate district 4; in public service commission district 5; and in the county commission district in which Pam Holmquist is seeking a third term.

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The importance of Armstrong v. State [of MT]

The Supreme Court Spoiler Alert

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

The release of the proposed draft of the United States Supreme Court’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was, to be sure, a spoiler alert of sorts. For one thing, appellate court opinions are not supposed to be leaked. The process of opinion writing is tedious: proposed drafts are circulated to the members of the court; memos are exchanged; jurists weigh in with their comments, thoughts and suggested language tweaks; there may be some intra-court lobbying between judges; dissents and concurrences are, likewise, circulated; and eventually judges’ opinions are solidified and will coalesce into a majority and, possibly, formal dissents and concurrences. The process is secret until the opinion’s author sings the final aria and is joined, in turn, by the chorus of dissents and concurrences.

Ironically, while in the process of trashing women’s privacy rights, the Supreme Court is miffed that its privacy rights were violated.

In any event, the good news is, that the leaked proposed opinion will likely not be the final opinion. The bad news, however, is that whatever the final opinion looks like, the Court’s conservative majority will probably overturn Roe, leaving decisions on abortion to be made by each state.

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The 55-year-old incident informing my reaction to
Justice Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade

By James Conner

In 1967, I was a student at a small state college in the upper midwest, pursuing a liberal arts degree and serving as an elected member of the student senate. Two fellow senate members — I’ll call them Alice and Joe — took an intense liking to each other. When Alice became pregnant, she had a back alley D & C. She hemorrhaged, and bled to death in the local hospital’s emergency room. An arrest warrant was issued for Joe, who disappeared.

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The Unhoused: America’s Refugees

Guest Essay By Jim Smith

Who are unhoused people? We all have various ideas of who is an unhoused person and how they became unhoused. These are based on what we see in the media, stories from friends and family, or what we see in the street. There simply is no such thing as the “typical” unhoused person. No one is completely safe from becoming unhoused and every community has unhoused people. As Hannah Arendt, the renowned expert on human rights stated so perceptively, a refugee is someone who has been deprived “of their place in the world.” An unhoused person is also someone who has been deprived “of their place in the world.”

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Repke has the résumé utility executives fear

Why Flathead Memo supports John Repke for the Democratic nomination for District 5 MT Public Service Commissioner

By James Conner

John Repke, a man with decades of experience in high level corporate finance, is by far the better qualified of the two Democrats seeking their party’s nomination for the District 5 seat on Montana’s Public Service Commission.

First, a brief review of utility regulation in Montana. Then, why Democrats should vote for Repke.

…read the rest

Former PSC heavyweights pick their man

Six former commissioners endorse John Repke
for the Democratic nomination for PSC District 5

By James Conner

 Updated 18 April.  There are two candidates for the Democratic nomination for the District 5 (map) seat on Montana’s Public Service Commission: Helena’s Kevin Hamm, who has been campaigning since last summer, and Whitefish’s John Repke, who filed on 14 March and has been running harder than a man who fears the sheriff is gaining on him. PSC commissioners serve four year terms.

Yesterday, five former PSC commissioners (dates and duration of service), all Democrats, announced they support Repke for the Democratic nomination for PSC 5, and submitted the guest essay below to Flathead Memo and Montana’s major news outlets. Flathead Memo published Repke’s guest essay on 3 April, and supports Repke (more on that tomorrow).

Today, 18 April, former District 3 commissioner John Vincent added his name to the excommissioners supporting Repke.

…read the rest

There’s a good argument that President Joe Biden should
visit Kyiv as a gesture of solidarity and American strength

By James Conner

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson popped up in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday. He made the journey by Ukrainian rail following a secret flight to Warsaw, Poland — and, according to The Guardian, after a battle royal with his security detail.

He conducted no business in Kyiv he could not have conducted from London, but his appearance in the Ukrainian capital greatly boosted the spirits of Ukrainians. Earlier, on 15 March, the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia, visited Kyiv.

Could President Joe Biden make the same journey? Yes. Should he? Definitely.

…read the rest

Protecting Our Environment? Not!

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

George Ochenski’s recent essay (note 1) graphically describes how we are despoiling our environment for not only ourselves, but also for future generations. He cites the inefficacy of laws passed to protect our environment, noting that these are jury-rigged by polluters to obfuscate and weaken science-based standards. What laws and rules that are adopted, are not enforced. The result? Miles and acres of polluted waters; forest resources thinned and logged to the point of ruining habitat and encouraging wild fires.

In short, we are killing our earth’s environments and ecosystems and threatening the very existence of present and future generations. And, our leaders are allowing this degradation to take place. Worse, they are encouraging it.

Keep in mind that pursuant to Article III, section 3 of Montana’s Constitution, every legislative, executive, judicial and ministerial official in this State takes an oath (i.e., their appeal to God to witness the truth) to, among other things, support, protect and defend our Constitution.

…read the rest

War and high profits are old partners

Montana’s farmers and fossil fuel producers
could profit from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

By James Conner

We are reminded of these trends every time we visit the grocery store and filling station.

Hence it is no surpise that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service in its 6 April 2022 monthly update reports that grain prices are increasing worldwide.

…read the rest

The long-held Montana value of personal responsibility
apparently does not apply to PSC Commissioners

Guest Essay By John Repke
Democratic candidate for PSC 5

In 2021, a state audit of the MT Public Service Commission (PSC) revealed “several situations indicative of an unhealthy organizational culture and ineffective leadership, including certain commissioners overriding department controls.” They added, “We believe this culture limited management personnel’s ability to enforce compliance with state and department policy.”

Put differently, at a taxpayer funded agency there was a complete failure of integrity which created an environment ripe for fraud. Being incompetent is bad, but collecting six figure salaries while abusing the trust and resources of Montana voters and taxpayers is inexcusable. While we can add up the sum of their paychecks, the full cost of this mess is unknown as the auditors “give no reliance to the information in the financial schedules.”

…read the rest

American Democracy — Alive or Dead?

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

Our democracy — is it alive, do we still live in a democratic republic, or is our democracy dead, no longer a governance of, by and for the people? How is the American Experiment faring? As it turns out, not so well.

On November 22, 2021, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IIDEA), based in Stockholm, Sweden, released its 2021 Report on The Global State of Democracy. The Report concludes that Democracy’s “survival is endangered by a perfect storm of threats, both from within and from a rising tide of authoritarianism.” “The world is becoming more authoritarian as nondemocratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression. And many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by … restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law.”

Over the past year, 60 countries became less free, while only 25 improved. 38% of the global population live in countries that are not free (the highest since 1997); 20% live in free countries; and 42% live in “partly free” countries. Sadly, the United States falls within this last category

…read the rest

Close of filing for Montana elective office; two kinds of incumbents; soapbox candidacies; candidate roster churn

By James Conner

Last day to file for elective office. The window for filing for elective office in Montana closes at 1700 MDT today. No statewide partisan offices are on the ballot, but two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are (and already there’s a glut of candidates for each seat). So are two seats on the five-member Public Service Commission. Link to the filing rosters.

…read the rest

Is Gov. Greg Gianforte the unluckiest hunter in Montana?

By James Conner

Most hunters never kill a critter that has been tagged and radio collared by wildlife researchers — and they don’t want to, as the public’s reaction seldom is favorable. Gianforte, however, has twice shot radio collared prey since becoming governor.

28 December 2021. Hunting on national forest lands north of Yellowstone Park, Gianforte’s hunting party’s hounds tree mountain lion M220, a five-year-old male wearing an NPS GPS tracking collar. After ascertaining the cat was male, Gianforte shot it dead. As required, he reported the kill — his public relations person said he “harvested” the lion — to the proper authorities within 12 hours. [Joshua Partlow, Washington Post]

…read the rest

Montana’s candidate filing window closes Monday —
Democrats have filed in only 53 of 100 MT House seats

By James Conner

Montana’s Democrats are experiencing extraordinary difficulty recruiting candidates to run for the legislature. With the filing window closing in five days, only 64 Democrats have filed for the Montana House of Representatives, and for only 53 of that chamber’s 100 seats.

Almost twice as many Republicans, 117, have filed for the house. Only six house seats do not yet have a Republican candidate. Five districts have Libertarian candidates. One independent filed for HD-3. Her status is “pending;” independent candidates must qualify by submitting a minimum number of signatures.

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State of the Union speech, Ukraine

By James Conner

SOTU. After losing my network connection three times, I decided to read President Biden’s state of the union speech. Although written at an eighth grade level, Teleprompter formatting — 370 of the 487 sentences were their own paragraph — made it difficult to read. Here are the standard metrics:

…read the rest

Putin’s revanchism may start a new Cold War

By James Conner

Sunday, I suggested that the Minsk framework offered a workable solution to the Ukrainian crisis. Monday, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin kiboshed that when announced diplomatic recognition of the predominately Russian speaking breakaway provinces (map) that he was sending Russian armies to the provinces to serve as peacekeepers.

Yesterday, Putin upped the ante, demanding (1) recognition of the entire region claimed by the rebels, (2) Ukraine’s recognition that Crimea now is a part of Russia, and (3) that Ukraine rid itself of sophisticated weapons, such as Javalin antitank missiles, obtained from the west. Otherwise, he implied, he’ll launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin may be bluffing, but the odds that he is are diminishing by the hour. In a startlingly aggrieved and bitter speech Monday, he argued that Ukraine is part and parcel of Russia and has no legal or moral right to exist as an independent nation.

…read the rest

Will Putin reprise the Soviet Cold War
invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia?

By James Conner

Three generations ago, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia to reinstall pro-Soviet puppet governments. I remember both events and how they shook the west. President Joe Biden also remembers, which may be why he believes Putin has decided to invade Ukraine — and why he also believes that diplomacy may yet spare Ukraine a terrible beating and Russia crushing sanctions.

Hungary

Russia invaded Hungary in late 1956 to crush a freedom movement that began 12 days before. I remember watching on snowy black and white television newsreels of the fighting.

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What Does John Fuller Mean?

Guest Essay By Kyle Waterman

In a recent piece, state Rep. John Fuller (R HD-8, Kalispell), a former teacher of American Government for more than 45 years, revealed that he believes democracy is a tyranny that has “failed as miserably as socialism.”

What exactly does Rep. Fuller mean when he says democracy is tyrannical and has failed us? The Founding Fathers designed our form of government to protect from tyranny. They also framed the Constitution on the very core of democracy — the idea that, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” In American democracy, that means fair and free elections.

If Mr. Fuller believes that democracy has failed, where does he think the government should derive its power? Military force? Surveillance? Coercion? Disinformation? Because that is how authoritarian governments do it — and that’s real tyranny.

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Voting Is Free Speech

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

When we think of freedom of speech, the spoken word is usually what comes to mind. But the First Amendment of the federal Constitution (and, hence, Article II, section 7 of Montana’s Constitution) also protect symbolic speech.

Symbolic speech is non-verbal action that clearly conveys a specific message to anyone who sees and reads it. It can take the form of public protests, such as sit-ins and marches, demonstrations, wearing buttons, armbands or clothing items such as t-shirts, nudity, flag-waving, flag-burning, burning draft cards and bras, braille, sign language and even non-criminal actions that others might find offensive (Note 1) (the universal one finger salute), to name a few.

My friend, Alan Nicholson, and I were exchanging emails, and he raised an interesting question: Could the right to vote be an exercise of free speech? I believe that Alan is correct, voting is the exercise of free speech. I suggest that it is a form of symbolic speech.

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A rare case in which votes cast illegally
may have changed an election’s outcome

By James Conner

Because so few votes are cast illegally, those votes almost never affect the outcome of an election. But in Dobson, Montana, a community of 125 located along Highway 2 just northeast of the Fort Belknap Reservation, two fraudulent votes may have determined the outcome of a municipal election last November in which the incumbent mayor was re-elected 21–19.

After the election, investigators found that two Dobson elementary school teachers, Grace O. Albia and Jannet Benitez Zeta, both citizens of the Phillipenes, neither a citizen of the United States, had registered to vote, and had voted in the election.

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Two Rights — A Multitude of Wrongs

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

Montana’s Constitution contains two fundamental rights that are distinct, yet, are connected in an important way.

The first of these rights is Article II, section 7 titled “Freedom of speech, expression and press.” This provision states, in pertinent part: “No law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech or expression. Every person shall be free to speak or publish whatever he will on any subject, being responsible for all abuse of that liberty” …

The second of these rights is Article II, section 9 titled “Right to know.” This provision states: “No person shall be deprived of the right to examine documents or to observe the deliberations of all public bodies or agencies of state government and its subdivisions, except in cases in which the demand of individual privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure.”

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Verify, don’t trust

Learn and share the abilities needed to be
smart, active consumers of news and information

Guest essay by Rebecca Johnson

As a Montanan who is very concerned about the neverending spread of misinformation throughout our country causing enormous problems with dire consequences, I contacted the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan national education nonprofit that provides programs and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy. The result is this article which I hope you read.

Misinformation is one of the gravest threats facing us, but we are not doing enough to educate people how to recognize fact from fiction in the flood of information they encounter every day. MIT researchers found that tweets containing falsehoods reach 1500 people on Twitter six times faster than truthful tweets.

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Illegitimate Political Discourse

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

In censuring Representatives Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger for their audacity in serving on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, the Republican National Committee (RNC) declared that the Select Committee was “persecut[ing] ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” (Note 1)

Just so we are all on the same page about the event being referred to by the RNC, this would be the one where a mob of some 10,000 people (variously described as domestic terrorists, insurrectionists or tourists — depending who is doing the describing), fired up by Donald Trump and other members of his cult stormed the Nation’s Capitol building in an apparent effort to disrupt the Congresspersons and officials engaged in counting the electoral college votes and confirming that Joe Biden won the 2020 Presidential election. The ultimate goal of this effort was to re-install Mr. Trump as President, notwithstanding that he lost both the electoral college vote and the popular vote.

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A cover-up of a $24 million scandal?

A photographic history of the renaming
of Kalispell’s hospital and medical center

By James Conner

In early December, 2020, Kalispell Regional Healthcare, formerly Kalispell Regional Hospital, announced it was changing its name to Logan Health in honor of Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. The decision to change names was doubtless made months, perhaps years, earlier. But now that the medical center was ready to start changing signs, the public had to be told and a rationale for the change had to be provided.

I have a hunch that the official reason for the change, and the real reason for the change, may be different. More on that in a moment. First, a look at how the name changed on the building.

From my front porch, the hospital, approximately two miles distant and slightly north of east, is visible against the 4,000-foot wall of the Swan Range 10–12 miles to the east. Over the years, it’s been one of my favorite photographic targets. The image below was made in mid-afternoon yesterday.

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Clean Water? It’s Too Demanding and Expensive

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

There’s the old saw about obscenity: “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” Thanks to SB-358, enacted by the 2021 legislature and signed into law by the Governor, that’s close to the standard that the Department of Environmental Quality is now required to use for measuring water quality: “I can’t define it, but it looks OK to me.”

As a recent editorial penned by Bozeman Chronicle Editorial Board pointed out, Senate Bill 358, passed earlier this year, requires the state move from objective, “numeric” standards for determining water quality to amorphous, subjective “narrative” standards for that determination — essentially from measurable objective standards to something more ambiguous.

These water quality standards are important, because they regulate the flow of nutrients into rivers — things like nitrogen and phosphorus, pollutants that promote the growth of algae and other plant life that degrade water quality and fish habitat.

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Court allows CI-121 supporters to gather signatures while
it considers a lawsuit filed by the initiative’s opponents

By James Conner

Briefs are due Friday in the anti-CI-121 lawsuit now before district judge Christopher Abbott, a Bullock appointee confirmed in a close vote last year. Abbott filed for election on 13 January.

Background

CI-121, approved for signature gathering in early January by Montana secretary of state and attorney general, would cap residential property taxes at their 2019 values and limit annual tax increases. It is reminiscent of, but not identical to, California’s Proposition 13.

Abbott, on 25 January, lifted the temporary restraining order suspending signature gathering that district judge Michael F. McMahon imprudently issued on 13 January. See stories by the Helena IR and the Daily Montanan.

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Flathead Electric’s 2021 free LED bulbs
are better than its 2019 free LED bulbs

Twice beginning in 2019, Flathead Electric, Montana’s largest rural electric cooperative, has made available to its members packages of free LED light bulbs and other energy saving devices.

The 2019 package that I discussed on 23 August 2019 included eight LED bulbs with a light output equivalent to a 60-watt incandescent bulb. Last year’s package contained a low flow showerhead, a smart power strip, and eight LED bulbs with a light output equivalent to a 75-watt incandescent.

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Why the tax cap initiative (CI-121) is
bad for Montana and bad for public schools

Guest essay by Jim Smith

Republicans are pushing a new Tax Cap Initiative (CI-121), to be on the ballot for Montana voters. CI-121 limits annual increases in valuations of residential property to either 2% or the inflation rate (whichever is lower) when assessing property taxes if the property is not newly constructed, significantly improved, or had a change of ownership since January 1, 2019. CI-121 establishes 2019 as the base year for the valuations of residential property. It requires the Legislature to limit total ad valorem property taxes on residential property to 1% or less of the assessed valuation.

If passed, CI-121 will drastically change how the state funds education. Currently, 29% of public school funds come from local property tax, 64% from state aid and 7% from federal and other sources. The Governor’s Budget and Program Planning analysis of CI-121 predicts an $84 million dollar decrease in school funding in the first three years.

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There’s No More Activist Court Than the US Supreme Court

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

In legal briefing and in public statements, involving litigation surrounding Armstrong v. State (1) — holding that women have an individual privacy right to obtain a pre-viability abortion free from government interference under Montana’s Constitution—Montana’s Attorney General, Austin Knudsen, has accused the Montana Supreme Court of judicial activism and legislating from the bench.

Ironically, General Knudsen levels his claims against the wrong Supreme Court.

When Ronald Reagan became president, he set out to change the nature of the Supreme Court, which, for years, had been committed to defending civil rights against state discrimination. The Court relied upon the 14th Amendment, equal protection and due process clauses.

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You Don’t Have to Read ‘Em —
But You Can’t Ban ‘Em

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

It looks like the self-appointed morality police are at it again. Two articles (one, two) in the Daily Montanan discuss the book banning wars in Kalispell and in Billings. The books at issue are about LGBTQ+ children, and, by some, are considered to be, in part, child pornography. If, in fact, that were true federal authorities would have been all over them long before they got to a library near you—dissemination of child pornography being a crime, after all.

Of course, book burning and banning is nothing new. In what was to become the USA, the morality police were burning objectional reading material in the 1600s. And as history progressed, any number of books were banned by one moral authority or another, including, without limitation, Walt Whitman’s book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. And, of course, we are reminded of the stark reality of book burning in the wartime videos of the Nazi’s throwing books into a huge bonfire in May 1933.

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HB 651; An Anti-Citizen Initiative Law

Guest Essay By James C. Nelson
Montana Supreme Court Justice (Ret.)

During the last legislative session, while I was doing some legal research, I accidently came across HB 651. This bill (which is now law) overhauled and imposed significant burdens on the Citizens Initiative (CI) process—guaranteed to Montanans by our Constitution, primarily at Article III, sections 4,6 and 9, but also at Article II, section 14, Article IV, section 7, Article V, section 1, Article VI, section 10 Article XI, sections 7 and 8, and Article XIV, section 2.

Given the importance that the framers placed on giving citizens the right and power to enact laws and constitutional provisions by initiative, I thought at the time that it wouldn’t be long before all or parts of HB 651 hit the litigation fan. And as George Ochenski discusses in his January 23, 2022, Independent Record column, I wasn’t far off the mark.

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MT’s best hunting idea since that spear hunting bill

An Exciting Alternative to Gianforte’s Grisly Grizzly Proposal

Guest essay by Jim Smith

Gov. Greg Gianforte’s has put forward a petition to remove most Montana grizzly bears from federal Endangered Species Act protection. This petition claims the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear population is ready to survive under state management. Not so subtlety pushed in this proposal is the desire to allow trophy grizzly bear hunting, most likely in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Gianforte even intimated that when permits to hunt grizzlies are a reality, he will be applying for one.

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Secure Our Right to Vote

Guest essay by Rebecca Johnson

Recent legislative actions in Montana have made access to voting harder. Restricting eligible voters’ access to voting does not equate to more secure elections. For example, let’s look at the new voting law (HB-176) “eliminating same-day voter registration on Election Day” to see if it truly protects our elections by making voting less accessible to Montanans. From 2006 to 2018, approximately 60,000 Montana registered and voted on Election Day without a single case of voter fraud (source). 2020 recorded the second-highest use of same-day voter registration by Montanans (approximately 8,200 Montanans) to vote in this election, and again, without a single case of voter fraud. That means more and more Montanans are choosing this method to vote in each upcoming election. But now in 2022 with this new law in place, there will be zero Montanans using same-day voter registration to vote.

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Where do regulations come from?

Guest essay by Jim Smith & Rebecca Johnson

Sunday, January 2, 2022’s Helena IR published another column from Kendall Cotton, on Red Tape Relief. Mr. Cotton states that “the accumulation of thousands of regulations has been shown to stifle economic growth and substantially increase the cost of doing business.” He states that many of these regulations are “unnecessary.” Many of us can probably concur with this sentiment in some regard, but with the caveat of saying, like beauty, unnecessary is in the eye of the beholder.

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