Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Today, brief discussions of Sen. John Walsh’s military records, Jason Priest’s legal and political predicaments, residency requirement for state legislators, and cross-county legislative districts in Flathead County. I was tempted to offer a comment or two on the Republicans’ ridiculous big stink over Gov. Steve Bullock’s following the law when he appointed Walsh to replace Max Baucus in the Senate, but decided there was no sport in tommy-gunning ripe carp.
At the Montana Lowdown, Great Falls Tribune reporter John Adams confirms what I suspected when I learned Walsh’s campaign had released his military records:
The files were not available electronically but were given to reporters in hard copy. In the interest of providing this information in its entirety to the public, I scanned all 378 pages and posted them here.
The PDF is a 75 MB download. It’s also possible to read the documents online.
I’m sure Walsh’s campaign understood that a hard copy would make its way online eventually, so providing the records as hard copy was a delaying action intended to keep the records out of the hands of Steve Daines, Karl Rove, et al, for as long as possible.
Walsh’s reprimand and not being promoted to general are already the focus of attack ads on the internet. I encountered one on YouTube in the form of an ad I had to endure before listening to Ferlin Husky sing “On the wings of a snow white dove, he sends his pure, sweet love.” A nefarious figure occupying warmer territory was the turkey buzzard behind the ad.
Montana Cowgirl today updated her post on Jason Priest’s legal predicament with a link to the Carbon County News, which reveals that his wife’s conduct during the event may have not fully complied with the instructions of the court overseeing the couple’s ugly divorce. I would not be surprised were the defense to argue that Priest’s wife, who knew how to push his buttons, wanted to provoke a violent incident to secure an advantage on child custody.
The courts can and will sort out the assault charges and divorce. The political consequences are already clear. Priest has no chance of being re-elected state senator. If he files for the seat, he’ll do so only as a public relations ploy in his effort to stay out of jail. But at some point, perhaps years from now, he’ll be a factor in providing support to far right candidates, either in Montana or another state.
Montana’s constitution sets the requirement for residency for legislators. If the district is entirely within the county, the case with most but not all districts in Flathead County, the legislator must be a resident of the county. But if the district is located in two or more counties, the legislator must be a resident of the district.
The in-county requirement protects legislators from being disqualified from serving because of relatively minor boundary changes in cities and heavily populated counties. The in-district requirement protects voters, primarily in the empty quarters of eastern Montana, from being represented by someone who lives hundreds of miles away.
Usually, these residency requirement are not a problem. But they can snare the unwary in the first season — 2014 is such a season — after redistricting. And the unwary can be caught in two ways: being unaware of the residency requirements, and relying on the legislative district maps for 2004–2012 instead of on the maps for 2014–2022.
There are three house and four senate cross-county districts in Flathead County: house districts 10 (Flathead and Lake), 13 (Flathead and Sanders), and 15 (Flathead, Glacier, Lake, and Pondera); and senate districts 5 (Flathead and Lake), 6 (Flathead and Lake), 7 (Flathead and Sanders), and 8 (Flathead, Glacier, Lake, and Pondera).
House District 15 is one of six Indian majority districts (map, PDF) in Montana. It sprawls over the continental divide, encompassing a part of Flathead County that’s almost entirely national forest and uninhabited save for the Spotted Bear Ranch and the old ranger station at Spotted Bear (Google Earth map). Neither HD-15 nor SD-8 is a factor in Flathead politics.
HD-13, and to a lesser extent, SD-7, are minor to virtually nonexistent factors in Flathead politics. I doubt anyone living in Flathead County will file for HD-13. SD-7 is a holdover district that matures for election in 2016.
But senate districts 5 and 6 are big factors in Flathead politics. SD-5 is mostly in Flathead County and is on the ballot in 2014. SD-6, currently represented by tea tinged Republican Janna Taylor, matures for election in 2016, occupies the west, southwestern, and northwestern, lands adjacent to Flathead Lake, and stretches from just south of Kalispell to south of Polson.
