ICYMI: Montana Political Reads for the Week of April 26, 2015

This week, we’ve got a great collection of reads, including calls to regulate mining and student debt, as well as stirring, satirical piece by Sarah Laszloffy and the Montana GOP Young Guns. It’s funny stuff!

Mining industry’s poor record overlooked by state lawmakers – The record is clear: The mining industry doesn’t want to be responsible for the impacts it creates. And the evidence shows DEQ can’t nudge responsibility. And so when industry seeks new mines in sensitive places — such as the headwaters of the Smith River — and joins DEQ in telling us not to worry, the public should be forgiven for not believing them. Helena Independent Record

MT must end student debt crisis – Beyond helping borrowers with existing student debt, Montana must reinvest in higher education, so that we once again pay the majority of the cost to attend state public universities—if they are public universities, they should be publicly funded, after all. Increasing investment in need-based loans would ensure that students without the means to afford tuition could get more aid that they do not have to repay. Bert Chessin, MT Organizing Project

Perils of Proposing Public Parcel Plunder | – The deluge of letters we’ve seen recently supporting land transfer have all come, mainly, from a single source. The Washington, D.C. PR firm of Berman & Company. The Button Valley Bugle

Motl Gets Hearing – “Their laughable line of argument, if I understood it correctly, was that it’s a terrible problem that Motl is prosecuting so many Republican lawmakers and candidates who break the law.  Occasionally a democratic committee member would ask a question of one of these testifiers, like “weren’t you implicated in scandal in which campaign documents were found at a meth house?” or things along that line.” MT Cowgirl

SB-334 not likely to be vetoed – “Sen. Jennifer Fielder’s (R-Thompson Falls) bill, SB-334, that defines fur bearing animals as game animals, thus giving taking them by trapping a protected status under the Montana Constitution, passed the MT Senate 31–19 yesterday. It’s headed for Gov. Bullock’s desk. Although he’s being lobbied hard to veto the bill, I think he’ll sign it and let the courts decide whether it prevents Trap Free Montana from running a citizens initiative to ban trapping.” Flathead Memo

One voice | Opinion | – “That’s why Montana Sen. Debby Barrett, R–Dillon, stood up for voters and pasted the Cloud Peak Energy letter onto her official letterhead, filling the name/group/entity field with “Montana.” The Yellowstone County Board of Commissioners did the same thing, although obviously using their own letterhead and filling in “Yellowstone County.” The Billings Chamber of Commerce, presumably as uncertain as the rest of us about what a Chamber of Commerce does, just filled in “member businesses which we represent.”” Missoula Independent

A Satirical (I Assume) Guest Opinion from Sarah Laszloffy – Although Montana elected 59 Republican legislators in a 100-person House, a handful of liberal Republicans sided with the Democrats to form a majority and muscle through the largest increase of welfare Montana has seen in our lifetimes. Billings Gazette

Kochs defeated in Montana: 6 lessons the country can learn from this rural Western state – “Tea Party threats aren’t what they used to be. The Koch team used an implied threat against any Republican who leaned in favor of Medicaid expansion: vote for it, and we’ll tell your base voters that you resemble Obama, causing you to lose in the next primary. Nobody cared. Many of these legislators have already fended off such challenges. As Tea Partyers become crazier, successful challenges like these have become rarer.” Salon

Anatomy of a failed Tea Party strategy | – “But once the bloodletting was done and the moderate Republicans who remained standing took a good look around, they realized there was nothing to be gained by trying to work with members of their own party who equated compromise with treason. So they may have been even more inclined to work with Democrats, and definitely more inclined to vote in favor of the dark-money bill, since the primary-election attacks they suffered under were funded by dark money.” Last Best News

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