28 January 2021 — 1801 mst
Whitefish has one house district — so how can Rep. Dave Fern,
D-Whitefish, and Rep. John Fuller, R-Whitefish, both be true?
Map of Montana’s legislative districts
If Montana’s legislators had to live in the districts they represent, I would not be writing this post, which addresses news reports that are true but misleading. I’m not advocating in-district only representation.
But I am advocating an end to news stories and blog posts that do not unequivocally identify the district a legislator represents.
Here’s the problem. Whitefish, a town of 7,700 in northwestern Montana, has one house district in Montana’s legislature. Yet, a news story about the current legislative session could identify a bill’s sponsor as “Rep. Dave Fern, D-Whitefish,” or as “Rep. John Fuller, R-Whitefish,” — and both statements could be true.
What is going on here? An exercise in equivocation.
In Fern’s case, “Whitefish” refers to the district he represents, (HD-5, map) which is also the district in which he lives.
In Fuller’s case, “Whitefish” refers to where he lives, which is a Whitefish address in HD-6 (map), a district between HD-5 and HD-8 (map), the west-northwest Kalispell district that Fuller represents.
Writing “John Fuller, R-Whitefish,” could mislead readers who do not know already that he lives in Whitefish but represents Kalispell. So could “John Fuller, R-Kalispell,” by providing information that invites a false conclusion that he lives in Kalispell.
The issue is not hypothetical. Here’s a real life example of the Fuller-Whitefish mismatch:
Rep. John Fuller, R-Whitefish, said his bill was meant to protect the opportunity of females to compete in sports without being forced to compete against males or to lose their spot to a male. [Associated Press via Flathead Beacon]
Resolving the issue
The Fuller-Fern-Whitefish example results from Montana’s constitutional requirement for a legislator’s residence:
Part V, Section 4. Qualifications. A candidate for the legislature shall be a resident of the state for at least one year next preceding the general election. For six months next preceding the general election, he shall be a resident of the county if it contains one or more districts or of the district if it contains all or parts of more than one county.
Montana’s not requiring legislators to live in the district they represent allows situations presenting journalists and bloggers with this choice: If a report is about legislative business, and the legislator in the story does not live in the district the legislator represents, what is more important to the reader: a legislator’s residence, or the district the legislator represents?
For me, the answer is clear: the district the legislator represents is more important than the legislator’s home. A story about a bill sponsored by John Fuller should contain the functional equivalent of:
House Bill 112, sponsored by Rep. John Fuller (R-HD8, Kalispell)…
Further down in the story a paragraph could provide additional relevant information. For example:
John Fuller, a retired educator who taught at Flathead High in Kalispell, lives south of Whitefish in HD-6, which is represented by fellow Republican Amy Regier.
Adding this information would lengthen news stories and blog posts slightly. That should not be an issue for online reports. It may be a minor issue for print and broadcast reports, but all online print and broadcast reports should include the information that disambiguates legislators’ residences and legislative districts.
When I studied journalism a half century ago, the convention was to associate a legislator with the city he represented. I do not remember the city-district mismatch being raised, although it may and should have been raised. I have no idea whether current journalism education addresses the issue, although it should and I hope does. I do not know whether today’s news organizations have formal policies on the issue, although they should, and I suspect do. The issue this post addresses probably is not a lack of clear direction but a failure to follow that direction.
But whether the result of no clear direction or a failure to follow clear direction, some current news stories contain “John Fuller, R-Whitefish,” which is misleading. That kind of reporting needs to stop; to stop right now.