Agreement with Sivertsen over Legislature

Editor:

For one of the first times in north-central Montana, the vast majority of the Democrats I talked to in the last couple of days agree nearly 100 percent with the opinion Bob Sivertsen expressed in his column, the Legislature needs to join the 21st century.

The current Montana legislative session has become such a joke that it has gained national attention, Chris Matthews, on his interview show on MSNBC, expressed the widespread view that the current legislature in Montana sets a new standard of what Matthews calls "bat-crop crazy." (Did he mean bat-crap crazy? Excuse the language.)

Sivertsen calls attention too the new high point of legislative crazy describing the vote on House Bill 2, the major appropriations bill for financing the entire state budget.

As widely reported, the House of Representatives voted 100 percent in favor of HB2 on second reading with almost no discussion, a spending bill amounting to $4,546,622,698. Yet the majority of the House members admitted they had never read the bill and, worse yet, were not even familiar with its major provisions.

As Sivertsen says, "… it's time to bring the legislative process into the 21st century."

Sivertsen only leaves two points out of his evaluation of the legislative vote. First, the financing bill, HB2, still has to go to the Montana State Senate, where its previsions will most probably be properly reviewed and amended and corrected as appropriate,

Sen. Greg Jergeson of Chinook has essentially taken former budget expert Rep. Francis Bardenouve's place in the Legislature as the state's keenest mind on appropriations matters, and he is the current senate's most influential voice on financing decisions. The State Senate will probably see to it that the botched work of the House on HB 2 will be corrected.

Second, the current House of Representatives numbers 61 Republicans and 39 Democrats, and that error should be corrected in the next election. Montana voters, take notice. Our future institutions, roads, schools, universities and general welfare depend on this appropriations bill.

Bill Thackeray

Havre