News you can use
News you can use
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Editor, Here in the United States, and Montana especially, free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy. We have focused a great deal on how everyone gets one vote this year, but not enough on how everyone gets one vote. The full fairness of our democratic union is bolstered by expanding access to the ballot and ensuring that everybody gets a say in how our government is run. When only part of the state has access to the ballot, only part of the state is heard. House Bill 613 provides much needed revisions to...
Week eight was a short, but long week. As transmittal was looming, over 200 bills were dropped in the last two weeks. This led to a crunch last Saturday and again Monday. Saturday was a disappointing day for me. There were around 50 bills that came to the Senate floor and I can’t say any of them put folks to work or brought the state of Montana any money. I went home feeling a bit dismayed. I had waited for something of substance, but it never came. Then Monday was week nine with 93 bills on the agenda. We started at 8:30 a...
Editor, Thank you to the staff at Northern Montana Hospital, the volunteers, and everyone who has played a part in delivering the COVID vaccine to our community. We recently received our vaccinations and found the process to be incredibly organized and efficient. The staff was super friendly, helpful and caring. You are offering a wonderful service for Havre’s citizens and we appreciate your dedication, hard work and sacrifices. Thank you! Jeannie Schlotfeldt and Helen Bebee Havre...
Dear Editor: Since there was no non-partisan transmittal legislative update in north central Montana, here is the update for your readers from my viewpoint of what went on, on the other side of the aisle — Democrats. There were a lot of good bills and proposals presented from the minority, but most were tabled in committee. In the House, of the 98 bills on the floor the last two days before transmittal only 16 were sponsored by Democrats. This is my 10th session in the legislature since 2003, and it’s by far the most hyper pa...
Hannah VanHoose, Chief of Staff............................................406.799.0801 Nathan Stein, Communications Director..................................847.420.6800 Megan Harbaugh, Budget & Appropriations Advisor...............406.475.0097 Alice Boyer, Committee & Indian Caucus Advisor....................406.544.9182 Josiah Porcel, Grassroots Organizer .......................................406.927.4126 Page 2 Table of Contents I. Talking Points, Page 3 II. Democratic Policy Packages, Page 5 III. Budget Update, Page 8...
Editor, I applaud the defeat of right-to-work legislation in Montana, where the House of Representatives voted 62-38 in a bipartisan rejection of the anti-worker bill-HB 251 Right to work sounds good on paper, but in reality it means lower paying jobs, fewer benefits and more dangerous workplaces. It is being pushed by out-of-state special interests who believe workers do not deserve a say in the terms of their employment. Plain and simple, it’s a corporate giveaway at the expense of everyday Montana families. I’m thr...
Editor, We are just past at the halfway point in the 2021 legislative session in Helena. I am impressed with the speed in which the Republican-controlled Legislature and the new Republican governor have ushered their agenda through the committees and on to votes inn the House and Senate. I guess it is easy with large majorities and there is no need to accommodate other positions. I noted that one of the first bills passed was one to expand concealed weapon regulations. More guns on college campuses, bars, restaurants and...
Nerds look things up, that’s who we are — sometimes that more for worse than for better. It started with “confab,” as in this simple reply: “That sounds fun, but John and I will have to confab on this before we commit to anything.” And all of a sudden, I realized that I don’t really use the term “confab” in everyday speaking and felt I needed to make sure I was using it correctly. Also, it sounded like an abbreviation of a longer word, like confabulation, so obviously I had t...
Whew! The election’s over. And Hooray! We don’t have to watch thousands of political ads or respond to the all too numerous requests for donations from various candidates running for office... until the next election cycle, which starts in less than a year. We all feel this way. We’re all glad it’s done, whether we’re Republicans, Democrats, independents, Greens, or Libertarians. We have something else in common. We’re trying to stop the flood of money and ads. Do you know that, in 2012, all of our 56 Montana counties pa...
Back in the olden days, in grade school, teachers used low-tech machines which made copies for all manner of school work, from pictures to color (don’t color out of the lines) to test questions. Teacher, most of whom we called Miss: Miss Brown, Miss Naomi, Miss Mary, would snap a stencil onto the drum of the machine. The slick paper, the stencil, and the ink combined to make an unforgettable sensory memory scent, sort of chemical alcohol. If you were Miss Brown, Miss Naomi o...
I know I am not the only one having travel fantasies. My husband, Peter, and I were not planning to do a lot of traveling in the past year. That was our plan, and we certainly made good on it. We didn’t realize at the time that “not a lot of traveling” would mean a bi-weekly trip to the grocery store. Like a lot of folks, we’ve been tracking how many months we’re getting on a gallon of gas. Now, however, traveling is sounding better all the time. My parents are also making tra...
The three of us have known each other dating back a half century when Dorothy Bradley and Bob Brown were young legislators and Marc Racicot was emerging as a top prosecuting attorney. Over the decades we have been fierce competitors as well as staunch allies in the rough and tumble arena of Montana politics. We have maintained our friendship and appreciated our varying commitments, which was once a worthy Montana tradition. Now, we are brought together by a common cause so compelling that we are speaking out together. Our...
Editor, Was the election “a fraud”? Were 61 courts, including Trump’s packed U.S. supreme court, wrong? What evidence was presented under oath in court? 2016: Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes. 65,853,625 votes, 48.0 percent Clinton 62,985,106 votes, 45.9 percent Trump The 2016 election hinged on approximately 78,000 votes from only three counties in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Those few votes flipped the Electoral College. 2020: Biden’s 51.3 percent of the popular vote was part of the highest...
Week eight is the lead-up to what is called transmittal. As I mentioned last week, all non-revenue bills must move from one house to the other by transmittal: House bills to the Senate and Senate bills to the House. Our job in committees is to either pass these bills on if they warrant being passed on or vote to table them. Tabling a bill does not mean the bill is dead, it has just hit a roadblock and may not move from that position. That being said, this week was crunch time. Many bills were passed and others, for one...
You know a word that we don’t hear very often? Giddy. And that’s a cryin’ shame. Well, of course, giddy doesn’t mean cryin’ shame. It means happy, joyful, elated, lightheartedly silly, but it’s a cryin’ shame we don’t hear about it happening more often. I was giddy Wednesday, and it took me hours to put a name to that feeling. I just couldn’t stop grinning and saying things like “I just feel all, I don’t know, whoooo!” Then it struck me. “I feel giddy. I mean, like, reee...
Havre’s Art Alley is a reality! Following the completion of the mural project in September of 2019, which culminated in the colorful artwork that adorns the west side of the Hill County Printing building, the work of the local volunteer Havre Main Street Group continued. The next project was developing an art alley in downtown Havre. The chosen alley was between Second and Third streets and Third and Fourth avenues, or the alley behind several downtown businesses, including Havre Home Center and Cavaliers. But why an Art A...
Have you ever felt like you don’t really know what’s happening until it’s over? If I’m not around people to mirror back to me what I’m doing or saying, it is easy to fool myself. When I begin to fool myself, it is easy to slip back into unhealthy behaviors from my past. A few days ago I told my daughter, “I think I’m mildly depressed.” “Ya think!” she replied, with THAT tone of voice. Truth be told, what I was fishing for was sympathy. I’d cast my line in the wrong pond. Dee D...
I remember, a long time ago, when I used to have a social life. My husband, Peter, and I have been visiting his sister, Lori, once a week while she battles cancer. She was in yesterday for another radiation treatment, and we are waiting to hear if she will be feeling well enough for a visit this weekend. And so we stay home, as we have since March of last year. Lately, we have taken to picking up our groceries at the curb. I was skeptical. I’d never had another person c...
Selena Not Afraid. Ashley Heavyrunner Loring. Kaysera Stops Pretty Places. For decades in Montana, Indigenous people — mostly women, like these three — have gone missing, many times murdered and leaving behind families to search desperately for their loved ones. And many times, these families of Native people have had to go it alone, to search for their missing loved ones without the aid of authorities and with limited resources. We’re keenly aware that some of our neighbors are treated differently, invisible and left behin...
Editor, A half-million dead. 500,000 lives lost — mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives and children, too. What does the loss of so many lives look like? There are 525,600 minutes in a year. That is one COVID death per minute, for almost an entire year. It would be like losing half of the residents of the entire state of Montana. Half of our neighbors, friends and families. Or losing all our U.S. Postal Service workers. A half-million would equal all the public-school teachers i...
The weather has warmed up and so has the legislative process. Up until now, the bills have been trickling into my committees. I picked up a bill, Senate Bill 284, that I am carrying for the counties. It is what folks are calling the Gravel Bill. More on that in a bit. There are now 284 Senate bills picked up and are either moving forward or stopped along the way. Transmittal, which is the deadline when all non-revenue bills must be in and moving, will be a week from this coming Wednesday. We were informed today that it is pos...
I clearly voted against the Board of Health’s mask order last week in our meeting, and I’d like to comment on that meeting. We are in direct opposition to all surrounding counties and the entire Hi-Line with our order. It will be interesting to watch the numbers in those counties and see if there are perilous spikes as is presumed. Mayor Tim Solomon’s comment that we need to be the “bad guys” and not local entities is quite convenient as it will clearly be the county and not the city that is the “bad guy” here. He also clear...
Helena’s contentious debate on the role of taxes has brought Montana to a critical crossroads: Do we follow the path of states like Kansas, which paid for tax cuts for the wealthiest with major cuts to education infrastructure, and more? Or will Montana stand up to wealthy interests and instead invest in our people and the services that will move our state’s economy forward? Supporters of tax cuts for the wealthy disguise those cuts as an economic growth plan. In reality, tax cuts do very little for the average Montanan and...
Rep.Wylie Galt, R Martinsdale, has introduced HB 505, a goldmine for landowners and outfitters, which intends to take licensing of non-residents out of the hands of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. This bill would establish landowner licenses for, not only cows, but also for bulls. A new license, Class B-13, is a landowner-sponsored non-resident elk combination that would allow a landowner to sponsor up to 10 license applicants pursuant to this section if the landowner owns 640 acres or more contiguous acres within a hunting distric...
Dear Editor: The rebroadcast of the 2019 film “Wild by Law and Nature,” produced by Montana PBS, deserves comment because the film misrepresents wilderness and the issues involved. A big problem with the film is that there is no mention that Congress passed the Wilderness Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund at the same time in order to provide for both preservation and recreation on separate and distinct public lands. The word “untrammeled” is misused. One speaker even misrepresented wilderness as “untouc...
