26 October 2021 — 1702 mdt

Where are the real conservatives?

Guest essay by Aaron Irion

In November 2020 Montana voters elected Republicans up and down the ballot, returning the governorship to a Republican for the first time in 16 years and increasing their control of the state house and senate. During the legislative session it’s hard to grasp the grand vision — bills move fast, change, die, and are brought back to life.

Six months after the legislature adjourned, it’s now important to take a step back and ask ourselves: where is this all heading? Reflecting on this point I was struck with just how un-conservative the nominally conservative MT Republican party is. While obviously the “conservative” label is fluid, shouldn’t it at least be the case that conservatives want to, well, conserve something in our state?

The sad fact is that the modern Republican party in Montana has proven to be anything but conservative. Governor Gianforte has adamantly used the conservative label claiming:

This rosy picture evidently inspired large swaths of Montanans to take a second look at the man they roundly rejected in 2016. Even Gianforte’s signature policy platform, the Montana Comeback Plan, rings of conservatism. Afterall, “comeback” insinuates a kind of restoration to a time past right? But what do the details of that plan amount to?

A look at a few of it’s key provisions and the actions taken by the 2021 legislature make me skeptical that Montanans are getting the conservatism they signed up for. For instance, the Comeback Plan claims that “Greg will work with the legislature to make our tax code more competitive, so Montana can attract businesses, promote entrepreneurship, and have more good-paying jobs.” Who doesn’t love entrepreneurialism and good paying jobs?

Unfortunately, these tired forms of trickle down economics have been proven over and over again not to boost economic activity, most recently by the London School of Economics. Even knowing this fact, the Republicans marched ahead with tax cuts for the wealthy, such as SB-159, which by some analyses will return thousands of dollars to Montana’s wealthiest and about $12 to the average working person. Evidently that quote above, about “letting people keep the fruits of their labor,” doesn’t apply to you if you’re not rich.

SB-159 was just one piece of the suite of tax reforms that Republicans pushed through the legislature in 2021. Unsurprisingly, most of these bills disproportionately helped Montana’s richest members. The justification for these policies is that they will either incentivize spending from businesses which already exist in the state, or that they will attract new business altogether. The former is unlikely as discussed above, but the latter is quite possible. Making Montana a corporate playground may well attract some large corporations to the area, but at what cost? The entrance of large companies into local markets has a long track record of shuttering small, local businesses who can’t remain competitive. So that “promote entrepreneurship” bit from above? Also not for you.

Even giving Republicans the benefit of the doubt that attracting these corporations will create economic growth for the state, I’m not sure Montanans will be comfortable with the trade-offs required to do so. Montanans take pride in their local businesses and shopping locally is the Montana tradition. When I was growing up in Montana, “shopping small” was a badge of honor. Now it may be a feat of strength to support our businesses and keep their doors open.

These weren’t even close to the most radical proposals, either. HB-261 would’ve asked Montanans to vote on a constitutional amendment to limit tax types in Montana to income, property, and a sales tax with the caveat that only two of the three could exist simultaneously. If it had been approved, it would have shrunk state revenues by 375 million over the course of the 2024-2025 biennium. HB-372 would have eliminated the business equipment tax and cost the state 20 million dollars. They both narrowly failed, but considering that those millions of dollars go to things like infrastructure, schools, healthcare, and forest management to name a few, these proposals sound more like state-sanctioned arson than principled conservatism.

While the Republicans looked to use the tax code to attract large companies, kill local businesses, and destroy public services, Democrats in the house and senate were working to amend the tax code to put more money into working peoples’ hands. Expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) was one idea. HB-424 would have increased the EITC by 7% and boosted economic activity without sacrificing Main Street businesses. It was tabled by the Republican controlled House Taxation committee. This is but one example of a trend from the 2021 legislature.

Rhetorically, everyone claims that small businesses are essential to preserving Montana’s character and way of life. Any principled conservative would work to bolster them, not hamstring them or push them out of the market. But in practice, that’s exactly what the Republican efforts would do. Again, it’s worth asking, are the Republicans who want to hand our state over to the Fortune 500s interested in conserving anything?

Amazingly, Republicans found time away from their tax-cut-a-thon to attack another vital Montana institution: unions. HB-251 looked to make Montana a “right to work” state, stripping unions of much of their power and forcing them to provide benefits to workers without a mechanism for collecting union dues. A similarly anti-union bill, SB-228, would have made it easier to withdraw from a public union and stop paying dues. Other bills would have required members of a union to re-join every calendar year. These bills were all meant to weaken unions and hamstring their ability to negotiate against big business and capital.

Unions have been a vital part of Montana’s history since the first was formed in Butte in 1878. Their presence has long helped balance the interests of Montana industry and its workforce, but moreover has become an integral part of Montana culture and history. Democratic Representative Sara Novak, speaking on the House floor against HB-251, reminisced:

This is not an unfamiliar story to thousands of Montanans whose lives have been shaped by the presence of unions in their communities, and it’s not an unfamiliar story to me who’s father secured better wages and benefits with the help of a union. No matter how they try to frame it, there is nothing conservative about overturning 150 years of tradition on the drop of a dime. It must be made clear that steamrolling unions is not only bad for Montana working families, it’s also a radical departure from the history and culture of our great state. In the presence of this Republican radicalism, preserving Montana’s tried and true way of life once again fell in the laps of Montana Democrats. They were up to the challenge. HB 251 failed to pass the house but not before being supported by 56% of the Republican caucus in what is perhaps an indication of efforts to come.

I bring up these tax and labor policies not because they are particularly egregious examples from the last legislative session, but because they aren’t. The tax reforms and anti-union legislation that swept through the 2021 legislature didn’t exist in a vacuum. Rather, they were indicative of the broader, extremely radical, policy program Republicans have endorsed. That program includes completely restructuring Montana’s judicial system. The well documented fight over SB-140 is yet another example of Republicans overturning what is this time a mere 50 years of tradition through abolition of the Judicial Nomination Commission. SB-140 was but one of dozens of bills that changed the Judicial branch and jeopardized it’s non-partisan nature. Some passed, some failed, but the trajectory could not be more clear. Needless to say, Democrats fought against these proposals tooth and nail.

Republicans have set out on a path of complete transformation, a radical path that undoes and uproots the broad consensus that has been the Montana way for my entire life, and well before. And so we’ve entered a paradoxical moment where “progressives” in Montana have become the conservative voice in preserving the dignity of families across the state, of Main Street, of unions and so much more while “conservatives” have marched further and further towards making Montana a corporate playground with low taxes on the rich, measly social services, and private ownership of Montana’s beauty and value. I’m afraid if Montanans don’t course-correct in the next few elections we may wake up one day in a place which is almost completely unrecognizable and beyond restoration.

The solution is not a complete one but there may be value in abandoning the claustrophobia of labels, and moving away from a focus on movement for its own sake (forwards or backwards, conservative or progressive) and re-rooting politics in principles and practice. Sometimes those principles are going to entail a conservative maintenance of wins already achieved and sometimes it will mean a progressive march towards new goals. The job ahead for Montana Democrats will be to portray Republicans for the radicals they are; to show Montana voters that Republicans are not conservatives who will preserve the things we all love about this great state, but completely destroy them. In the times we live in, call Republicans whatever you may — just don’t call them conservative.

Born and raised in Montana, Aaron is a Masters student at George Washington University. He was Deputy Operations Director for Steve Bullock’s 2020 Senate campaign, and worked in the Montana legislature during the 2017 and 2021 sessions. His Twitter handle is https://twitter.com/aaririon.