Which Way to Go?

I’ve been asked more than once: Why should I vote for a Democrat in 2008 for the Montana Legislature?

Given that the Legislature meets for less than four months every two years, the question deserves a full-fledged discussion. So, in response, I usually pose a series of questions.

How much would you be willing to pay to ensure that homeowners and small businesses ( v. multi-national corporations) are treated fairly when tax policy is being set? To see to it that the State of Montana pays its share for funding our Kindergarten through Grade 12 system of public education? To make strategic investments in our colleges of technology and University System? To seriously confront the real costs of more than 145,000 Montanans without health insurance to our state and the remainder of us who have the good fortune of having coverage? To diversify Montana’s energy portfolio by requiring an increasing portion to be derived from renewable resources? To effectively address the causes of climate change and to faithfully perform our responsibilities as stewards of the land?

Those who yearn for a progressive agenda usually say, “A lot.”

How about one hundred and sixty dollars? $160.00 for each closely contested race?

These days you'd have to live under a rock not to know what these races are.

In the next two weeks, that's what it may take. Last-minute responses to late hard-hitting, negative fliers are expensive. And, let's face it, negative, attack mail works [unforunately].

And, then, how about investing a day or two assisting with the get-out-the-vote efforts?

These days, the only way Montana will have progressive policies is to elect a majority of Democrats to the House (at least 51 needed) and the Senate (at least 26 needed).

In the 2005 and 2007 legislative sessions, Democrats managed to hold slim majorities in only the Senate. In each of those sessions, working with Governor Schweitzer, the Senate overcame the obstructive tactics of House Republicans to address and to move an agenda each of the issues included in the questions listed above. The antics of the GOP leadership beginning on the first day of the ’07 session and continuing the last day, complete with Mike Lange’s vulgar tirade, are well documented.

That behavior was mean spirited and destructive, not to Democrats. No, it was destructive to the voters who send legislators to Helena to conduct the public’s business and to safeguard Montana's present and future.

While holding huge legislative majorities in both houses from 1995 through 2003, as well as the Governor’s office, the GOP ran the state into the ground. The Racicot years were marked by a budgetary hocus pocus, under-funding schools, deregulating electricity, gutting water and air quality standards, and shifting huge property tax burdens onto homeowners by extending massive tax cuts to, which went directly to the bottom lines of out of state corporations with no tangible return to the state. Judy Martz stumbled through her four years, but still managed to oversee the effective demise of the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) and the Major Facility Siting Act in 2001 and the introduction of massive inequities into Montana’s income tax system in 2003.

Industry got what it demanded and promised to deliver. Exactly what it was supposed to 'deliver' to Montana was clear. But, I am certain it was "a lot."

To the surprise of almost no one, none of it worked, at least not for Montanans trying hold down a decent job, to raise and family and educate their kids. The chicanery was exposed for what is was and Montana careened from one crisis to another.

While Governor Schweitzer and Democrats have made measurable progress, there is still a lot to do. They just need the opportunity. But, it takes legislators who go to Helena prepared to roll up their sleeves and find the common ground in setting policy that is so vital to Montana’s future.

Saying that we must elect Republicans to Helena to help balance things out only works if the GOP allows its members to stray from its hard core, extreme right-wing ideology, something that never occurred in the House during the 2007 session. In fact, in the 2006 election cycle, the GOP specifically targeted and defeated two moderates, Bernie Olson and Mark Noenig, who had the audacity to occasionally vote with Democrats. Ideological cleansing at its best (or worst).

A progressive agenda has begun to blossom.

The question now really is: Do we continue or turn back?

How much would you pay a lobbyist to persuade Republicans to be a part of moving Montana forward? And, if they continue their obstructionist ways, how much will each lost opportunity and setback cost us and future generations?

Let’s get it right starting now.

Questions about Democrats’ ability to manage the state’s finances have been answered. Despite Chicken Little proclamations that taxes would go up in 2005 and 2007, each session was characterized by a fiscal discipline that produced sustainable investments without an increase in taxes. That discipline and attention to the basics produced a surplus and, in 2007, each income taxpayer received a check for $400.00.

There is work to be done in the areas of the Montana economy and the creation of good-paying jobs with benefits, education, health care, and energy.

Each of these will be addressed in future postings. The frame of reference will be: The operations of the House and Senate will be controlled by individuals who are elected into leadership positions or appointed to chair committees. Of the two teams competing to control the process and the agenda in each house, which is better suited to move Montana forward?