22 June 2015

Dan Happel’s narrow vision for Montana’s Republican Party

Update. I recommend Ed Berry’s take on Happel, published today.

A big political tent always shelters factions that are not completely at ease with each other, that do not march in lockstep on every issue. Montana’s Republicans won 59–41 and 29–21 majorities in Montana’s House and Senate 2014, but lost important votes in the 2015 legislative session when a minority of their colleagues formed winning coalitions with Democratic legislators.

More than a few Republicans, Dan Happel among them, want to replace those coalition susceptible legislators with men and women more resistant to compromise. Happel, who seeks the party’s chairmanship, wrote in yesterday’s Daily InterLake, that:

Crossover voting does occur, but it doesn’t always make a difference. Moreover, finding proof of Democratic crossover voting that would satisfy a political scientist, and proof that that the Democratic crossovers changed the outcome of an election, is difficult. I’ve been able to identify several primary elections in which Democratic crossover voting probably occurred, but only one in which I’m reasonably confident that it changed the outcome.

But proof or not, many Republican leaders believe that conservative Republican candidates are victims of Democrats crossing over in our open primary. Their remedy, part of the party’s platform:

Montana’s Republicans decided to seek a closed primary through a lawsuit in federal court, not through a bill in the Montana Legislature.

Happel says “…our focus to strengthen the Republican message should be based on our mission statement: The state platform.”

That platform contains some interesting planks. Among them:

• Agenda 21. We recognize the destructive and insidious nature of the United Nations Agenda 21 and hereby expose to the public and public policy makers, the dangerous intent of the Agenda 21 plan.


• Nullification. We agree with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who stated that the U.S. Supreme Court does not have the sole authority to judge the constitutionality of federal laws. We hold with these men that the States not only have the right, but also the duty to nullify unconstitutional laws in order to protect their citizens.


• Medicaid. We support the repeal of ObamaCare. We oppose the implementation of ObamaCare including expanding Medicaid through ObamaCare. We support patients’ maximum freedom in health care decisions.

Fealty to the platform required voting against all bills that accepted any federal money for expanding Medicaid in Montana. Yet enough Republicans voted for Sen. Ed Buttrey’s (R-Great Falls) SB-405 that it became law. Did they do that because they shamelessly embraced socialism despite their party’s call for “personal responsibility” (translation: you’re on your own)? Or, was there another reason?

There was another reason. Montana’s hospitals and health insurance companies wanted the money. A federal program that partially compensated hospitals for charity care was expiring, and health insurance companies may have been losing money. SB-405 is best understood not as an expansion of Medicaid, but as a scheme to use the money for expanded Medicaid to help the hospitals and bail out the insurance companies. That more Republicans didn’t vote to help hospitals and insurers tells us how far the tea party faction has ventured into Cloud Cuckoo Land on health care.

Finally, Happel’s promise to work hard if chosen to chair his party probably will not be welcomed by the party’s paid staff:

In other words, “Move over, Mr. Executive Director. I’m from Pony, I’m in the saddle, and I’m running this here show.”

Should be an interesting state GOP convention in Helena this weekend.