Billings School Levy fails -- and a postscript on all-day kindergarten

Why did the $800,000+ school levy fail in Billings? One can never know why individual voters voted as they did in this extremely close election. Some voters are reflexively against any tax increase, others are reflexively for them.

The Montana Headlines household was basically in favor of the levy -- the most compelling argument for it is that funding for day to day operations and infrastructure aren't keeping pace with inflation, and that property taxes probably wouldn't go up as a result of the levy passing.

Yes, you read that right. Due to the screwed up way that school levies are done, there is a levy for a set amount of money, not for a percentage levy on property. In a growing city like Billings, where new houses are being built, new businesses are going up or increasing in value, etc., the amount of tax levy is spread out over more taxpayers and more valuable property as the years go by. The percentage of a piece of property's worth that is taken in taxation actually drops as time goes by, and sometimes the actual dollar value drops as well. The school district still gets the same amount of money every year, but in order to keep pace with inflation, new levies have to pass.

It was estimated that most property tax payers in Billings would not see a property tax increase as a result of this levy, especially since a bond issue is being retired this year. If taxes were levied as a percentage of property tax values or indexed for inflation or something (as many other levies are,) then schools wouldn't have to keep coming back repeatedly to ask for more money.

So what was the problem? As far as Montana Headlines is concerned, it can be summarized in three words: All Day Kindergarten. This is not to try to refight the kindergarten war itself, but to highlight the fact that the State of Montana and the education lobby were complicit in spending a whole lot of money on starting a new program at a time when that money should have been spent on existing, pressing needs.

Reading the Gazette article, note that much of what is having to be shuffled around in the proposed budget cuts made necessary by the failure of the levy is the kindergarten population. Whole buildings had to be opened in order to accommodate the increased kindergarten population that came about as a result of instituting all day kindergarten in Billings.

This isn't entirely the fault of the school district -- when the state dangles money in front of hungry administrators and school boards, it shouldn't be surprising that they take it, even if it makes no real sense for them to do so.

The governor and his Democratic-controlled legislature had money to throw at education, thanks to the huge budget surplus that Republican policies had created. They didn't see fit, however, to let school districts decide for themselves what their most pressing needs were. House Republicans couldn't even get Democrats to modify the language to allow school districts to spend the money on generic "early education programs," let alone let school districts decide for themselves where to spend that money.

No, if districts wanted to get that big chunk of money being dangled in front of them by the governor, they would need to institute full day kindergarten programs and spend it on that. Overcrowded classrooms already? No matter. Aging buildings that need renovation or expansion? Shut up about that and start all day kindergarten. The city is growing and we need new school buildings? Didn't you hear right? -- start that blasted all day kindergarten and stop asking questions of your betters. They know what you need.

The question that no-one is asking -- certainly not in the press that shamelessly pushed this levy in a series of articles and editorials that could in some cases just as well have been considered to be in-kind political contributions (perhaps actually contributing to the defeat of the levy) -- is this:

Had the governor and the Democratic-controlled state legislature offered school districts the same amount of money that they did to start all day kindergarten, but told districts that they could spend that money on whatever they considered to be their most pressing needs, what would the Billings school district have done?

Would SD 2 officials have spent that money to increase the school population through instituting all day kindergarten?

We would hope not. We would hope that money offered without strings attached would have been spent reducing the serious overcrowding situation in our public high schools in Billings -- an overcrowding situation that, according to our own hard-working superintendent, contributes to our abysmal high-school dropout rates.

We would hope that the money would have been spent on aging infrastructure, or perhaps increasing starting teacher salaries (our outdated salary matrix is overly top-heavy.)

But we would hope that with all of the problems that we have in Billings with overcrowding, aging infrastructure, low starting teacher salaries, and other critical issues -- we would hope that SD 2 wouldn't have elected to spend desperately needed one-time state spending on a new program that will need ongoing funding in perpetuam.

So that is what people in Billings saw. They know that they just passed a huge mill levy increase last year after an aggressive campaign was waged in support of it (for the record, we supported that mill levy increase.) And they have heard the governor trumpeting how much he has increased state funding for public schools since he came into power.

So why should voters approve yet another levy increase? Especially when they just saw the school district start a massive new program of all day kindergarten? And when they saw money from the last levy spent on opening facilities to deal with the effective doubling of the kindergarten student population?

Ordinary voters, if their household budgets are tight and they have bills that need to be paid, don't take on additional financial obligations -- even if the credit card company company says that there is no interest for the first 6 months, or if the furniture store says you don't have to make a payment at all for 3 months.

School boards, school administrators, and the education establishment in Montana should have led the fight in Helena in the last legislative session to let individual schools districts decide how they wanted to spend the increased money that was going to come from the state. Had they done that, rather than reflexively support (or remain silent about) all day kindergarten, they would be in a much better position to explain to us why they need yet more money from us.

Ted Washburn (or Clint Regenold) for HD 69

In the past, Montana Headlines has asked liberals to define "wingnut" and other names they call conservatives here in Montana.

While most of the time such labels are loosely and unfairly applied, perhaps this is a good definition of wingnut mentality, if there ever was one.

We're all for principles, and for principled stands taken by politicians who go against the grain and are willing to stand alone. Every legislator ultimately has to vote his conscience, and occasionally that will clash with someone else's idea of practicality.

But Rep. Roger Koopman crossed a line when he created what amounts to an "enemies list" made up of his fellow legislators. It would be one thing if Koopman could rationally believe that conservative Republicans of his defined level of ideological purity could win a majority in the Montana House and Senate. But he knows good and well that they can't. Either that, or he is delusional.

This delusion was doubtless born of the Ron Paul performance in the recent limited Montana GOP caucus. Paul came in second, and a great number of his followers honestly (and incredibly) believe that Paul would have won in an open primary election. Given that Paul's best performance in a primary (as opposed to a caucus) rarely broke into double digits, this kind of self-delusion is truly breathtaking.

Proof of Ron Paul involvement in this project is the involvement of Dave Hart, Ron Paul's state director. During the caucus campaign, Hart and other Ron Paul supporters indicated that they were wanting to work within the party constructively.

If this is what they meant by working constructively within the party, then we'd like to see what they might mean by by destructive.

What really set the blood to boiling around Montana Headlines was the inclusion of Rep. Elsie Arnzten of Billings. We're not as familiar with the other Republicans on Koopman's list, but with all due disrespect to Rep. Koopman, he doesn't have to run in Arnzten's district, which leans heavily Democratic. Let's just say that Koopman would go down to spectacular defeat in this district where Arnzten wins handily.

And Koopman has the nerve to call the legislators on his list "socialists." This, after the Republican caucus in the House held together for one 51-49 party line vote after another throughout the last legislative session. Rest assured, given the fact that the more conservative wing of the Republican caucus narrowly won the leadership elections and set the agenda, the more moderate members of the caucus were undoubtedly the ones taking the biggest political risks in those votes of party loyalty -- not the Roger Koopmans in the House.

Koopman has called for "real conservatives" to challenge the legislators on his list. Of course, if any are fool-hardy enough to try, they will likely be trounced.

We, on the other hand, would like to see Rep. Koopman be successfully challenged by a "real Republican" -- i.e. one who understands what Ronald Reagan meant by the 11th commandment: Thou shalt speak no ill of a fellow Republican.

Now we're just taking a wild stab here, and we in general don't like things that start with "What Ronald Reagan would do is...." But we imagine that Reagan would say that Koopman was most certainly "speaking ill" by calling his fellow conservative Republicans "socialists," just because they don't meet his standard of ideological purity. It is a disgrace even to allow Koopman to claim the mantle of "conservative." We're not sure what to call his kind of extreme approach, but it is anything but conservative.

One last thing -- we've seen things on blogs and comments that say that Koopman is speaking for or representative of "the Montana Republican Party."

The truth is that Koopman is speaking for a distinct minority of the Republican Party. Maybe 10% at most -- albeit a very vocal 10%. It isn't that we don't accept that 10% in the Montana GOP. We do and should, and we value the most right-leaning members of the party, and we should value anything truly conservative and Constitutional that they bring to the table. They are a part of the "big tent" every bit as much as moderate to liberal Republicans are.

But the real voice of the overwhelming majority of Montana Republicans is reflected not by Koopman, but rather by GOP Chairman Erik Iverson's comments:

Asked if he agreed with Koopman’s labeling of the 14 targeted Republicans as “socialist incumbent ‘Republicans,’ ” Iverson said, “I refer to them as Republicans. We’re a big-tent party. We’ve got room for all Republicans of all types of ideologies.”

Good for Iverson -- we couldn't agree more. Don't get us wrong -- we are fine with having Roger Koopmans in the party and in the legislature if they can get elected and represent their constituencies. That's not why we are endorsing his opponents. It is not right to purge people of Koopman's ideology or voting record any more than it is right to purge moderates from the party.

But it is perfectly fine with us if the voters in HD 69 rid us of a Republican who isn't willing to work within the Republican coalition, but who seems bent on destroying it in favor of a permanent Republican minority. We know nothing about Washburn or Regenold -- but let's hope that one of them emerges as a consensus candidate of sane Republicanism in that district, and at the very least gives Koopman a taste of what he is advocating for the legislators on his enemies list.

Stockgrowers on brucellosis: is the Board of Livestock really listening?

The MSGA describes the mood of its members as "uneasy," and it seems that it should be. That organization had seemingly staved off the governor's push toward a "split-state" approach to dealing with the brucellosis problem that looms over Montana cattlemen because of the reservoir of that disease in bison in Yellowstone Park. Or at least until the latest "listening session" with the Board of Livestock.

Last fall, the governor seemed to have publicly (in none too good a temper) thrown in the towel on his split-state proposal -- which could also be known as a "split the Stockgrowers" proposal." Not that we blame the governor for wanting to do the agricultural equivalent of union-busting when it comes to an organization that, while itself non-partisan, tends to be supported by Republicans.

It seems, however, that the executive branch may just have been lying low. At the time when the split-state proposal got voted down, the vote was nearly unanimous. Nearly, we say, because one BOL member, Stan Boone, stuck with the governor in spite of the overwhelming testimony that Montana ranchers opposed split-state status.

Boone, as attentive MH leaders will recall, was the member that the governor pushed onto the board in the teeth of opposition from the legislature and over the objections of nearly all of the brand inspectors in the state of Montana. For those who weren't reading MH back then, here's a place to start -- follow the links.

The governor knew he what he was getting when he pushed through Boone over so many objections -- a loyal rubber-stamp. Now again at this latest "listening session," Boone came through for the governor by reviving the specter of split-state status:

"Just to clarify, split-state status is not off the table, it is still an option," stated Stan Boone, a BOL cattle representative from Ingomar.

The MSGA has made no secret of the programs that it thinks will best address the problem, and continues to wait for the Board of Livestock and the governor to be a help rather than a foil for the livestock industry in accomplishing the important task of maintaining Montana's brucellosis-free status. This should not be an issue that provokes partisanship, given the importance of the cattle industry in Montana, but it seems that this is an executive branch that is always looking for a partisan advantage.

We look forward to a Governor Roy Brown, who will work with a united ranching community, rather than working to divide them.

For the Billings Gazette, Roy Brown is just local news; also -- addressing the first (weak) attacks on Brown

Yes, Roy Brown is from Billings, but why did Charles Johnson's piece on the progress of Sen. Roy Brown's gubernatorial bid get put in the "local" section of the Gazette on-line? Especially when it was datelined "Helena?"

Just curious.

Sen. Brown is staying on theme, as he should: our state government has spent too much money and hasn't cut taxes when it could have.

The business equipment tax needs to be eliminated entirely. It is a relic -- one that the vast majority of states that used to have one have since gotten rid of.

As to the executive branch's defensive statements in response -- well, they are pretty weak.

There is of course the usual bragging about the $400 election-year "check in every pot" property tax rebate that the governor preferred to a real across-the-board property tax cut. It made work for all of those new Department of Revenue employees that we apparently so desperately needed (isn't it logical to respond to a $1 billion dollar surplus by hiring more tax collectors?) And it helps with the re-election campaign of the governor and the Democratic legislators the executive branch orders around.

And then there is the red herring of Sen. Brown and others voting to over-ride vetoes on certain spending bills. Well, perhaps true -- heaven forbid that the legislature actually determine how money is spent.

The whole reason that those vetoes happened was that the governor was unwilling to compromise with the legislature in general and the Republican-controlled House in particular. The governor's original spending demands were rammed through, pretty much unchanged, even though Democrats in the Senate were prepared to do some compromising with Republicans.

Which left a number of bills out there that had been passed by both houses of the legislature that didn't fit into the executive branch's master plan.

What was amazing was not that Sen. Brown voted again for the same bills that he had voted for the first time they came around -- what was amazing was that Democratic legislators allowed themselves to be strong-armed into voting against bills they had originally voted for.

In some cases, as we recall, there were even cases where Democratic legislators had co-sponsored bills -- and when the governor vetoed them, they were cowed into voting against their own bills when it came to over-riding the governor's veto.

So, the truth will out in the end -- but it is going to be a long, hard campaign, refuting these kinds of tedious charges against Sen. Brown, one at a time.

Civility and the art of legislative maintenance

Mark Sherouse's editorial in the Great Falls Tribune took the recent Wheeler Conference in Helena as a jumping off point for a more general discussion of civility and the need to rediscover it for ourselves in our political discourse.

One of the most interesting tidbits in the article was this:

Perhaps the most hopeful sign of the conference — attended by Republicans and Democrats in about equal numbers — was the civility of the discussion and the evident working relationship now being nurtured by House Speaker Scott Sales and Senate President Mike Cooney.

Hm. That was where the trouble started last time -- Cooney actually taking steps to negotiate with Republican legislators to find areas of compromise. We remember how that ended up. We are impressed that while Cooney got knocked down in the last session by those who didn't like his willingness to negotiate and compromise, he appears to be getting right back up again, and plans actually to talk to and work with Republicans.

The more partisan voices on the left attempted to undercut Speaker Sales's legitimacy by namecalling and ridicule -- it is good to see that Cooney isn't planning to allow himself to be railroaded into ongoing take-no-prisoners partisan warfare. And we look forward to another session with Sales as Speaker.

We don't know how the next election will work out, but one thing is clear -- regardless of who controls which houses of legislature, things will be close. Cooney understands that Democratic control of the Senate may be very short-lived, and that he who fails to work with people while in the majority can't expect those same people to work with him when he finds himself in the minority.

In spite of the legislative districting, Republicans are figuring out how to run in these new, oddly drawn districts, and stand a very good chance of controlling both houses in the next session.

If so, one hopes that Republicans won't take it out on Cooney -- he seems to have dealt pretty straight with us for as long as he was actually in control.

Narrow escape: special legislative session ends

In spite of (or perhaps because of) threats floated by Republicans in the Montana House to pass a fire-fighting funding bill and then adjourn, peaceful agreement was arrived at and the session appears to be over. Notably absent was the kind of take-no-prisoners strong-arming from Democrats that was so prominent during the regular session and during the special session called to finish the final budget this spring.

The real reason for Republican firmness was legislators like Sen. Sam Kitzenberg, who is most widely known because of his opportunistic party-switching after having been given an unadvertised state job by the governor. Kitzenberg wanted to use the session to find other ways to spend money. OK, it was "for the sake of the children," so no-one should have had the audacity to dare oppose Kitzenberg.

Kitzenberg would of course love to have extra education spending credited to him in the Democratic primary. He is campaigning to be the state's educational Grand Poo-bah -- which apparently pays more than does the state job he currently has.

That "for the sake of the children" act begins to wear thin after awhile -- and one suspects that his Democratic primary opponents would have raised a fuss within the party had he used the special session to gain an advantage over them.

Senate President Mike Cooney perhaps knew as much when he joined with Speaker Scott Sales in quashing any ideas of using the special session for anything but funding fire-fighting. It's not that Cooney might not have wanted to spend money, but out-of-control special session spending would have hurt Democrats more than Republicans in the coming legislative elections, so enlightened self-interest likely was at work.

Although Charles Johnson's article equally credits Democratic and Republican leaders for keeping the special session under control, notably absent were Republican plans to spend more money. It was the Democrats who appear to have had more grandiose plans and dreams for the session. In other words, it was the Democratic legislators who needed to be reined in, both on extra spending and on the expansion of powers for the state executive branch.

(Although we Republicans did get blamed for wanting to spend more money in the regular session on fire-fighting rather than on hiring more tax collectors -- silly us with our silly priorities.)

Anyway, it's over, and we can watch our wallets a little less closely -- for the moment, anyway.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

More kindergarten smoke-blowing from the Gazette editors: One would think that proponents of full-day kindergarten in Montana such as the Billings Gazette editors would be content with the fact that the program was rammed through the 2007 legislature in spite of other, more pressing, educational spending needs in Montana, and in spite of a lack of evidence that full-day kindergarten increases long-term educational attainment.

Last week, Montana Headlines pointed out that Montana's ACT scores were above the national average, with only 13 states having higher average scores -- many of whom use the SAT as their primary exam for college-bound students, thus inflating ACT scores.

The Gazette editors, however, take that same information and make the case that since Montana's ACT scores didn't increase last year, that it was because Montana hasn't had full-day kindergarten.

In other words, since Montana students 13 years ago had half-day kindergarten rather than full-day kindergarten, their 2007 ACT scores were lower than they would otherwise have been.

Maybe, just maybe, the quality of post-kindergarten teaching has a little more to do with an 18 year old's ACT scores than does whether that student as a five-year-old had an extra 3 hours a day in kindergarten.

Beyond this, there are a couple of problems. As MH pointed out back in January when the kindergarten wars were raging in the legislature, a Kansas Dept. of Education study on full-day kindergarten revealed that in 2001, there were only 12 states nationwide that required that full-day kindergarten be offered. One presumes that 7 years earlier than that, when Montana's 2007 ACT-takers were suffering under the primitive conditions of half-day kindergarten, even fewer than 12 states required that full-day kindergarten be offered. Remember that only 13 states scored higher this year than Montana on the ACT. Do the math.

Add to this the fact that given the fact that 40% of Montana's population was born outside this state, at least a fair number of the students taking the ACT in Montana this year went to kindergarten in other states.

Advocates for choosing to spend millions of dollars on full-day kindergarten rather than on other educational needs are long on rhetoric and short on logic.

Some of them are charged with teaching our children to think logically.

Others, like the Gazette editors, are presuming to teach the general public.

As was pointed out at the beginning of this segment, one would think that they would be content with having won the legislative battle, and would leave the matter alone at this point.

Except that, as educators across the state know, the funding provided by the legislature is just startup money and part of the ongoing funding for a single biennium -- each district has to come up with its share of funding full-day kindergarten. Every year. On top of all other educational needs.

So advocates like the Gazette editors aren't particularly fond of information that indicates that Montana students are doing very well -- such as this year's ACT scores. Unfortunately, we won't know whether full-day kindergarten is going to help until 2020 -- if then.

In other vital Gazette editorializing: ... city officials are scolded for not changing light-bulbs on the "Welcome to Billings" sign, and tut-tutted for not cleaning our "defining element." Slow news week.

Shocking news about Montana's Washington delegation: They are trying to bring federal spending to Montana. Really? Too bad we don't have a Senator on the Appropriations Committee. Tester's win against Conrad Burns, with the assistance of all of Montana's newspapers, means that instead of having a senior Senator in the majority on the Appropriations committee -- we have no Senator on the Appropriations committee.

Interestingly, the biggest single request was an intelligent request from Rep. Denny Rehberg that addresses both the loss to the Great Falls economy of part of Malmstrom AFB's missile mission and the vital need to secure our borders:

...$150 million for P-3 acquisition, or unmanned aircraft to patrol the border, for the Northern Border Air Wing at Great Falls International Airport.

The Wall Street Journal is worried about Mike Huckabee: In what amounts to a hit piece on Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose surprisingly strong 2nd place showing in the Iowa straw poll has ignited his Presidential candidacy, Brian Carney criticizes Huckabee for (eghad!) speaking in political generalities rather than hyper-specific policy proposals.

But it is clear that what really worries the WSJ (a paper that MH generally likes very much) is that Huckabee has a populist appeal that doesn't bow down to Wall Street interests.

Mike Huckabee v. Fred Thompson: In the latest dead-tree edition of National Review, Byron York's cover article on Fred Thompson begins, interestingly, by telling the story of one of the first times that Thompson has shared a podium with another candidate, at the annual meeting of the American American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC.)

Ironically, that candidate was Mike Huckabee, whose suddenly flourishing campaign may pose one of the biggest challenges to Thompson's candidacy.

Huckabee is what is historically the most electable of candidates -- a governor, and a Southern governor at that. Since Thompson has been counting on wrapping up the Southern primary vote, this spells trouble for him.

As MH has said repeatedly, Republicans have looked at Giuliani, McCain, and Romney -- and indicated that they prefer "none of the above." Thompson's great appeal is that he theoretically has the tools to be "none of the above," but it has always been predicated on whether he can go from 0 to 70 in a very short period of time. In short, whether he has the stuff to be a presidential candidate -- not at all an easy task.

If some of his recent interviews are any indication, he is not as quick a study as had been hoped. His appearance following Huckabee was apparently more of the same:

(Huckabee is) in top shape, on his game. He gives a speech that is tight, well-constructed, and impassioned, all from one scribbled note-card. By the time he's finished, the ALEC members are on their feet.

After a break, Thompson enters to great applause; the crowd is clearly ready to love him. But this, as it turns out, is not his day.

York continues with more of the events, and concludes:

When it's all over, most observers agree that the former governor has run rings around the former senator. 'The consensus of the crowd was that Huckabee wowed 'em,' John Wiles, a state senator from Georgia, tells me. 'Thompson's speach was a disappointment.'

Another attendee said that "Huckabee is right on, has a great delivery, is very articulate -- all the things Thompson wasn't."

Not a good sign for Thompson, but it is a very good sign for conservatives that Thompson is not our only hope in the race for the GOP nomination.

Eve Franklin resigns

Rep. Eve Franklin did the honorable thing by resigning her state House seat before starting her new job in the state government. Franklin had been appointed to be the state mental health ombudsman.

Now if only the other Democratic legislators who have been appointed to unadvertised state jobs would do the same thing. Had Sam Kitzenberg, for instance, done so when he got his unadvertised state job, his district would have selected a new Republican to fill his Senate seat -- one who would have been unlikely to switch parties in order to hand control of the Senate to the Democrats.

The next legislature needs to enact legislation to deal with this situation, since such appointments show no signs of slowing down. If legislators want to accept such a state job, they should step down first. After being in the new job, if they want to run again for a legislative seat, they should then be free to do so.

What is important is that voters know that a given candidate is a state employee with a vested interest in their department's funding and who is perhaps beholden to the governor who appointed that candidate -- before they decide who to elect for that seat.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

Billings Gazette does good job in covering Pat Davison: Back in the infancy of Montana Headlines last December, when the Pat Davison "Ponzi scheme" scandal was breaking, we wrote that "at this point, Davison's name is widely known for one reason, and one reason only -- his defrauding of investors and his pleading guilty on federal charges."

It was important that we make this point, since prior to this major personal financial scandal, Davison was perhaps most widely known in Billings as having run unsuccessfully for governor.

We pointed out on more than one occasion that the Gazette had a penchant for identifying Davison as a Republican candidate for governor, giving the impression to the uninitiated that he was the GOP's nominee, when in fact Davison lost the primary badly, carrying only two counties statewide and carrying his home county (Yellowstone) only by a thin plurality.

In today's big Sunday front page article about Davison, the Gazette mentions him as a gubernatorial candidate early in the article, but doesn't identify him at that point as a Republican -- and deep in the article when it mentions that run, it correctly states that "Davison... lost soundly in the Republican primary." The article puts the political connections in their proper perspective.

The Davison story is a big one, with the amount of money defrauded from his investors now approaching $12 million, according to the Gazette article. While one feels bad for his family and friends that an article like this rehashes a painful history, there is no question that in Billings it deserves big coverage.

As pointed out here on this site before, it is a "cautionary tale" at many levels -- personal, business, social, and political.

In particular, it should be a reminder to big financial backers of Republican candidates in Montana (and Davison had a number of them in his failed bid) that those candidates need a careful vetting. Think of the huge damage that would have been done had Davison won the nomination, let alone the governorship itself -- and then had this scandal break. The Montana GOP just doesn't have any room for those kinds of PR disasters.

Montana lobbyists span the political spectrum: Chuck Johnson's article reporting what was spent on lobbying the 2007 legislature is revealing. More precisely, it reports what the lobbyists themselves report, which, as the article notes, is probably a significant underestimate.

Not surprisingly, the top spender was PPL Montana -- and also not surprisingly, the teacher's unions were close behind.

It is true that lobbyists are "trying to influence legislators," in the words of the article. Well, of course they are.

But in fairness, in a 90 day session, legislators have to be desperate for information that they need to make decisions and write bills.

Term limits have only exacerbated those problems. Lobbyists play a valuable role in helping legislators know how legislation will affect different groups of Montanans -- who is going to know better how a law will affect Montana ranchers, for instance, than the Montana Stockgrower's Association? (They weren't mentioned in the article -- we just use them as an example.)

There is still something a bit bothersome about having public employees lobby the government that employs them, but that isn't likely to change anytime soon in Montana -- in fact, as we add more and more people to the government payroll, such lobbying will only intensify.

One does wonder, though: when the governor is speaking to groups of teachers and public employees, does he rail on them for spending money on lobbyists?

Great new Montana business website: Anyone who hasn't checked out Jeff Mangan's major initiative -- a Montana business website -- needs to hasten on over to mtbusiness.com .

Maybe Denny Rehberg just likes being a Congressman: In his "Horse Sense" column, Chuck Johnson makes a good case that this is why Rehberg has passed up shots at open governor seats and is passing up the opportunity to challenge Max Baucus for a U.S. Senate seat.

We would guess that Rehberg will be poised to challenge Sen. Tester in 2012. But that is a long time from now -- and while Rehberg would be Baucus's most formidable challenger right now (and would have a decent shot at unseating him,) it is by no means certain that Rehberg will have the shiniest star when the Tester challenge comes along. Five years is a long time, and Rehberg's fortunes could wane, while exciting, new GOP political figures will almost certainly arise between now and then.

We have the feeling that Johnson is right -- he'll take on Tester in 2012 if he is the logical candidate, and would have in 2006. But he's not someone who is sitting around pining for a U.S. Senate seat, and won't be crushed if someone else gets the nod. It wouldn't at all be a bad thing for Montana or the Montana GOP for Rehberg to grow old and gray (and hold a lot of seniority) in our solo U.S. House seat.

City Lights: You ask a stupid question...: We now know what Ed Kemmick was doing between 4:30 and 4:45 on Friday -- thinking up questions to ask himself about Billings, pretending that they are questions real visitors to Billings might ask.

Does he have a great job or what?

Montana Headlines was a bit disappointed in a couple of the rhetorical questions posed at the end of the piece (inviting reader answers.)

For instance, his hypothetical visitor asks: "Is it hard to run in cowboy boots?"

As any Montana politician worth his salt will tell you on an election year, it's nearly impossible to run without them in these parts.

Talk Radio and the Fairness Doctrine: David Crisp over at the Billings Outpost has an interesting article on the subject, and he concludes that talk radio is indeed profoundly unfair. It's true: imagine the pain of being someone who wants to listen to a liberal radio talk-show in Billings -- especially if one considers NPR talk-shows to be too balanced and fair to be liberal.

But neither does Crisp advocate reinstating the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," which only ever had the effect of keeping all political opinion off the air.

The whole opinion piece is worth reading, but he makes one particularly intriguing comment: "Conservatives appear to be somewhat more interested in listening to talk radio, and liberals appear to be somewhat more open to listening to conservative hosts than conservatives are to liberal hosts."

Well, that may be true, and it may be that this is enough for market forces to tip things to a 100% conservative talk-radio format, as he maintains. But the explanation is much simpler, and Crisp alludes to it in passing, even if only mostly to discount it.

The bottom line is that when talk radio started to flourish, conservatives had for decades felt inundated by an uninterrupted supply of liberal slant -- the major networks, public radio and TV (except for Firing Line -- our one television show,) the major wire services, nearly all of the major newspapers in the country, and the public schools and college campuses where we (and later, our kids) were educated.

Most of the content was intended to be fair and neutral, and most of that succeeded in having some sort of neutrality. But where there was a slant, it was liberal. Think of it this way: if the mainstream media is 95% neutral and 5% liberal, then the net effect over time is one of a liberal slant, even if it succeeds an incredible 95% of the time in being neutral.

That doesn't mean that the entire mainstream media and educational institutions slant everything in a liberal direction, it just means that there was and is a sort of ideological Brezhnev doctrine at work -- things drift only in one direction, and that is leftward.

Talk radio was suddenly a place where conservatives were able at last to find opinions that were similar to their own, and it should be of no surprise that conservatives flocked to it. Talk radio didn't create that audience -- it found it.

After all, the men around whose boot-clad feet a young Montana Headlines played while they drank coffee, discussed the weather, speculated about agricultural prices, and cussed the government knew good and well, long before Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, that what they read in the papers and heard on television was filled with liberal bias and general lies.

Furthermore, given the perception that talk radio needed to balance out all of the above, it shouldn't be surprising that the style of conservative talk radio would be to push back, hard, against what it perceived as a monolithic and powerful liberal establishment.

The accuracy of the perceptions on which conservative talk radio thrived can, of course, be debated. But that they existed, and still exist today, is the operative force at work.

Speaking of fairness: Forget talk radio. What Montana Headlines is really concerned about is whether Kree Kirkman is going to make sure that his utopian green-friendly medieval fortress/village "Oberkleinberg" is fair and balanced, with a population that is 50% Republican and 50% Democrat.

Montana Democrats raising big bucks -- do they know something we Republicans don't?

Governor Brian Schweitzer's fundraising junkets around the country have been well-publicized in Montana. It appears to be paying off, since he has a record $500,000 in the bank already for his 2008 re-election campaign.

Given that Schweitzer is heavily favored and that Democrats are convinced that he will win in a walk, one has to wonder just what is going on.

Of course, his coal schemes have been getting poor reviews with his leftmost wing here in Montana. And other than strong-arming a budget through the legislature that spent a record $1 billion surplus while amazingly managing to alienate the entire Republican party and not a few of his own Democratic legislators, his accomplishments aren't exactly on the tip of anyone's tongue.

A lot of hat, not too many cattle, in the opinion of many Montanans.

But as a good conservative website, Montana Headlines would maintain that doing nothing is far from the worst charge that can be laid at a government official's doorstep.

______________

It is interesting that the governor's campaign is able to tell us that 80% of the donors are from Montana -- but unable to tell us how much of the total money is from Montanans.

So far, the campaign has paid the consulting firm run by his brother $17,500 this year. Not a lot, so far.

_______________________

Granted, a couple of the potential candidates mentioned who might run against the governor are self-made millionaires who are presumably prepared to spend a good amount of money to get the ball rolling on their campaign.

And if Republicans serve up a softball, then Schweitzer will be sure to spend his money to get Democrats elected to the state legislature, just as Max Baucus was able to turn his attention to party-building and registration efforts in 2002 once his campaign had finished off Mike Taylor in some of the dirtier campaigning in recent Montana memory (which is saying something.)

So, look for the big fund-raising to continue. While the Montana GOP plans to further the state legislature gains made in the last election, the governor is unlikely to take it lying down.

Which is yet another reason why we need to get a couple of good candidates to face Schweitzer and Baucus -- and fund them well.

Getting Bohl'ed over

Montana Democrats have repeatedly shown us that right now they know how to run circles around the Montana GOP when it comes to managing the press and massaging public perception.

Consider the flap over Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, who was told he wasn't welcome at the GOP convention, even though he considers himself to be a Republican. The Billings Gazette gave it (and the Lt.Gov's case of the pouts) front page, Dr. David Crisp pronounced the time of death for the GOP, Left in the West demonstrated that this impoliteness was of a piece with the nefarious conservative strategy of running primary campaigns against Republican incumbents who aren't as conservative as a potential challenger.

You know, unlike the progressives who have never talked about challenging Max Baucus in a 2008 primary for occasionally voting with Republicans, and unlike Republican Rep. John Bohlinger running a primary campaign to unseat a more conservative incumbent Republican state senator before he was term-limited in the House (picking off an incumbent Republican state senator who was a minority, no less,) and unlike Republican state Sen. John Bohlinger running a general election campaign against his own party's slate of nominees.

But this is a digression.

It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to know that he wasn't going to be welcome at the GOP's party. Don't look for Sen. Zell Miller to be welcomed to banquets of the Democratic party faithful anytime soon. Granted, someone like Miller would have enough respect to stay away in the first place, but that's not what's at issue here.

The important thing to note is that Bohlinger's unblushing effrontery was a brilliant political move. Whoever came up with the idea (certainly not Bohlinger himself) knew good and well that Republicans were being cornered into a no-win situation.

If he had been allowed to attend, it would give credence to Bohlinger's claim to be a Republican in good standing as well as to the Schweitzer/Bohlinger ticket's claim to be one that crosses party boundaries to bring Montanans together.

If he was told he wasn't welcome, then we would get headlines like the ones we saw today, confirming that Republicans are mean-spirited ogres who eat small children for entertainment or merely to relieve boredom.

The GOP reaction was technically justified -- after all, what we saw from the executive branch (of which Lt. Gov. Bohlinger was a key part) in this last legislative session was a determination to win every battle, to sustain every veto, to get every desired program, to get every spending measure to the penny. In short, a determination to defeat the Republicans at every turn. That determination paid off, and as Montana Headlines has detailed repeatedly, the result was a nearly complete absence of compromise in Helena during this last session. There was rather only a Democratic victory that some tried to portray as a compromise.

If Lt.Gov. Bohlinger's job was meant to be one of building bridges and forging compromises between the Democratic and Republican parties in this state, well, the only certain conclusion is that he's pretty miserably poor at it. The governor should, if that was the goal, recruit a different Republican to be his running mate in 2008. In fact, there are any number of Democrats who would have done a better job at that task.

When the Lt. Gov. spoke in Billings during the break between the end of the regular session and the beginning of the special session (ostensibly an informational talk on what had happened in the legislature,) all he did was repeat the Democratic executive branch's talking points line by line. If there was anything in Bohlinger's head that was of a mind to forge compromise between the parties, he certainly was careful not to let any of it escape through his mouth.

So, a good case can surely be made that Bohlinger isn't a member of the Republican party in any meaningful sense of the word -- Sen. Baucus would be a far better candidate for that honor, truth to be told. And so the GOP was within its right to tell him to stay home.

But was it good politics? No -- it was pretty ham-fisted to tell the truth.

Would allowing him to slip in the back and attend the banquet be good politics? No, that would be even worse.

So what should party central have done? Well, Lt. Gov. Bohlinger is one of a handful of Republicans holding state-wide office right now, and when he expressed a desire to attend the GOP convention, he could have been invited to come and give a major address to the convention.

Consider: party conventions exist for one main reason -- to rally the faithful and organize the party to win elections. As such, there is always a series of addresses on a variety of subjects, all of which work together to lay out a strategy for electoral victory. The main item on the agenda at any convention is... how do we beat the opposition?

And that's what Bohlinger should have been told was to be the title of his address: "How do we defeat the Democrats?" Bohlinger, as a self-described good Republican, would doubtless have been more than happy to get up and give a speech advocating the importance of gaining Republican majorities in the state House and Senate. He could have talked about the importance of defeating Sen. Baucus, and of keeping Rep. Rehberg and Sec. State Johnson in office. He could have publicly lamented the Tester Senate victory.

Bohlinger wants to be an active Republican again? Then for heaven's sake don't give him the cold shoulder. Tell him "welcome, back, John -- we're excited -- we need all the help we can get to get the governorship back!"

Give him a place of honor, publicize it widely that Lt.Gov. Bohlinger wants to help the GOP win elections. The prodigal son has come home -- so kill the fatted calf, put a ring on his finger, let the dancing begin. All the men could show up in bow-ties. All the ladies could wear vintage dresses from Aileen's.

These are just ideas, and not by a stretch the only possible ones -- let's just have a little creativity, a little sense of humor. Something. Anything.

Anything, that is, other than accepting one of the two losing choices that Bohlinger was baiting Republicans with when he tried to buy those two banquet tickets in Helena.

Montana Main Street Blog on the Montana legislative session

For those who haven't read them, the last couple of Montana Main Street Blog posts have been valuable codas to the recent legislative session.

A lot of work went into the Montana Chamber Voting Review that MMSB links to -- and whether one agrees with the scoring system used or not (we basically do,) the raw data is there to summarize the voting records on a variety of business-related bills.

The review of the veto-override process (or rather absence of one) was especially revealing -- one would think that this sort of fact-based questioning would be simple meat-and-potato stuff for the Montana media, but if it's out there, we haven't run across it.

There were a lot of questions that weren't asked during the session -- a lot was going on and there are only so many reporters, but one would think that in-depth stories on particular important pieces of legislation would be appearing little by little after the session.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

A COOL idea: Would country of origin labelling (COOL) prevent the kinds of tainted food issues that America has recently experienced? Strictly speaking, no, since any producer can process food poorly or use unsafe additives. The difference is that when one consumes locally produced food, there are recourses -- the more local the source, the more personal and effective the sanctions that can be applied by consumers to food producers and processors.

There are those who blame the tainted food supply from China on an insufficiently gargantuan U.S. army of food inspectors. A much simpler solution is to consume goods produced as locally as possible -- there is no law preventing that, and there is no law preventing local producers from proudly labeling their goods accordingly. If consumers vote with their dollars and preferentially use foods from local sources, a healthier food supply and a healthier local economy results.

There are problems with a top-down COOL program, including cost and hassle factors, so such issues need to be taken into account, but the ups outweigh the downs for everyone -- eventually even the grocers and food processors who are now opposing COOL, since there will be more satisfied consumers.

The death penalty reduces murders: In one of the more interesting developments in the death penalty argument, recent academic research has apparently shown that the death penalty does reduce murders (18 fewer murders as a result of each execution, according to one Emory University study, fewer according to other studies -- but fewer in every study.)

A disturbing outbreak of intellectual honesty has taken place in some corners of the academic world:

"Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it," said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. "The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect."

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. "The results are robust, they don't really go away," he said. "I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) - what am I going to do, hide them?"

Predictable reactions of outrage at this particular inconvenient truth have ensued, some of it personally directed at the academics doing the research. Unlike scientists who proclaim another supposedly inconvenient truth (global warming,) the researchers involved welcome academic debate on the data and its interpretation:

Several authors of the pro-deterrent reports said they welcome criticism in the interests of science, but said their work is being attacked by opponents of capital punishment for their findings, not their flaws.

"Instead of people sitting down and saying 'let's see what the data shows,' it's people sitting down and saying 'let's show this is wrong,'" said Paul Rubin, an economist and co-author of an Emory University study. "Some scientists are out seeking the truth, and some of them have a position they would like to defend."

Montana Headlines has written on a number of occasions that we believe the death penalty is a legitimate and Constitutional means of criminal punishment and deterrent. We also have written regarding our support for legislation doing away with the death penalty in Montana, where it does not seem to be necessary at this time.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed state by state, precisely because crime patterns and local circumstances differ.

One thing is certain, an executed murderer is not going to escape to kill again (as so often happens) -- in that regard, it only makes sense that the death penalty would reduce murder rates, at least to some degree.

Taking the initiative: The process of public initiatives and referendums is an important one that allows citizens of Montana to address issues that our legislature is too timid or ineffective to address. Sec. State Brad Johnson's piece in the Missoulian outlines the changes made this past legislative session, most of which make the process one that will tend to work just fine for issues where there is a true uprising of Montana's citizens -- and make it harder for a single individual with a lot of money to abuse the process.

A referendum should be a rare last-ditch effort that reflects a failure on the part of Montana's legislature to get a job done. And yes, that does happen. Legislatures should, on the other hand, not be afraid to overturn or amend the results of such voter initiatives it the laws are poorly written. Is it politically risky? Yes, but it's also their job.

Legislators study and discuss bills at length, they hear hours of testimony and receive many letters from affected individuals, they make amendments when mistakes and problems are found with a bill, fine-tuning it. There is no such opportunity with initiatives, making them sources of what can be crudely-written laws with unpleasant unintended consequences. Measures get on the ballot as a result of signatures that are gathered with literally a few seconds of personal contact with voters, and most voters can't be fully informed about all of the implications of all of the measures on a ballot.

All in all, Sec. State Johnson, AG McGrath and the legislature are to be commended for the changes they have made -- and they shouldn't be afraid to tighten procedures even more. Those who are worried that these changes interfere with the democratic process or with free speech shouldn't be -- if a given measure doesn't make it on the ballot but is a good idea -- well, that's what we elect legislators for. If an overwhelming majority of Montanans want a change in the law, it is going to happen, one way or another -- sometimes through a ballot initiative.

Predatory ways: A lengthy article in the Missoula Independent talks about the work of a valuable agency, Wildlife Services. The main job of this agency is to eliminate predators that adversely affect domestic livestock production. The article isn't a positive one overall, but it does give a good picture of why the agency is an important one:

In 2006, according to statewide statistics, the sheep industry suffered a $1 million loss due to predators; the cattle industry lost an estimated $1.6 million to predators in 2005, the latest statistics available. While livestock producers typically employ a variety of nonlethal predator deterrents like guard dogs, fencing and hired herders, Wildlife Services specializes in lethality.

And while advances are being made continually in non-lethal means of protecting livestock, there is no substitution for eliminating problem animals and reducing the population of problem species like coyotes. All of this is part and parcel of finding a healthy balance between allowing ranchers to do what it takes to protect their livestock and allowing these predators to continue to exist in areas with active livestock production:

"With most farming or cropping operations, if they’ve got a pest in their field like an aphid or a weevil, they just go and spray the whole field. We don’t have that option…that’s why we use the government trapper as opposed to handling it on our own,” (a rancher) says. “We’d love to handle it on our own—give us 1080 [a heavily restricted poison] back and the authorization to use some chemicals and some toxins and we’ll just poison the whole damn ranch and we won’t have these problems, but that’s not acceptable in the eyes of the public. That’s why Wildlife Services is there to help us."

Costs are shared, with about half of the budget coming directly from livestock producers on a per-head basis. This is appropriate, since producers benefit and the public benefits -- both through a healthy livestock economy and through allowing healthy numbers of predators to exist, as opposed to the old-fashioned approach of just eliminating or nearly eliminating a given species.

Montana may be changing, but the importance of the livestock industry -- economically and culturally -- to the state isn't. Those who object to the methods used by Wildlife Services need to educate themselves on the importance of this program to ranchers. They are also welcome to come up with non-lethal alternatives that are just as effective in protecting ranchers. There are probably those who simply want ranchers to become an endangered species -- those who feel that way should state both their preferences and their political affiliations plainly.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

MYOB: The pharmacy owners in Great Falls who have decided not to carry birth control pills have been catching all sorts of grief, which really is amazing.

Part of the reaction is probably due to the fact that most of the people in a tizzy over it are from Missoula, where it is commonly believed that Great Falls has only one pharmacy, that the nearest alternative pharmacy for Great Fallens is in Calgary, and that even if there were more than one pharmacy in Great Falls, the residents wouldn't be bright enough to think of switching to the other one.

If the pharmacy had dropped a particular class of drugs because they believed the pharmaceutical manufacturers were making an immoral amount of money -- or if they had dropped a class of products because the carbon footprints of the factories were immorally large, they would be receiving the Granola Peace Prize right about now.

Go figure.

Golden Pen Award: Speaking of receiving awards, while we rarely read the letters to the editor in the Gazette, one thing that has caught our attention over time is the "Golden Pen Award." Doing a non-scientific survey based on the Gazette's search engine, it appears that the award invariably goes to a letter expressing a liberal sort of opinion -- except when it is a generic feel-good letter. Just one more objective piece of evidence that we Republicans really are a pretty unlettered bunch of knuckledraggers.

Rep. Rehberg on the Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill: Nothing fancy -- just a straight no-nonsense assessment of what a bad bill the current immigration "reform" measure really is. We have approved of how Sens. Tester and Baucus have voted so far on this bill. Rehberg's position is even stronger, if anything -- and somehow we imagine that we won't have to be watching his votes, when the time comes, as closely as we will have to watch Sens. Baucus and Tester.

Bill Kennedy's recent mailing for fundraising tries to make the case that Rehberg simply does President Bush's bidding. He'll have a hard time making that case, since Rehberg has done a good job of finding the right balance of party loyalty (without which a lone Congressman is dead in the water) and of knowing when the views of Montanans differ from those of many Republicans in other parts of the country. Just check out his ACU rating, and why he doesn't have a 100%. This is just one more example of Rehberg's natural bent toward a genuine Montana populism -- which is, of course, a mostly conservative sort of populism.

A CPA's opinion on whether Montana is "open for business": A nice piece in the Missoulian. No matter how much Democrats like to talk about "out of state tax-cheats," it is hard to escape the uneasy feeling that the real targets of the empire-building going on in the Montana DOR are the 20% of Montanans of modest means who already pay 60-70% of the taxes in this state -- not billionaires in Bel Air. This editorial strengthens that suspicion.

What Montanans should be demanding to see is concrete evidence and concrete examples of out-of-staters breaking Montana's tax laws, and how changing laws to address those specific situations will affect Montanans. The debate on this in Helena during the last session was long on rhetoric and short on specific examples -- in that regard, each party failed to make its case effectively.

Misplaced priorities: full-day kindergarten revisited, and other random thoughts

Montana Headlines had other priorities for a Memorial Day post, but there was an important article by Mike Dennison on Monday that deserves some commentary.

His article details all of the ways in which school administrators aren't happy with the school funding produced by the recent legislature. While there is $180 million in increased state funding, much of it is one-time, and some goes to reduce local property taxes in certain districts.

While there may be questions raised about how wisely individual school districts allocate their one-time spending when they have the money available, there can be little question that at least in places like Billings, there are infrastructure issues that need addressing. Parents and taxpayers should scrutinize how these funds are spent.

There is a problem, though, with at least one part of the increased funding, as pointed out by Superintendent Jack Regan in Miles City:

"If you start full-day kindergarten, yeah, that's a lot of money (this year), but we have to start a new program," he said. "It's not helping with teacher salaries or anything like that."

Indeed, and that is something that Montana Headlines repeatedly pointed out during the legislative session: full-day kindergarten may not be what a district needs most. Of the $180 million in increased school funding for the coming biennium, nearly $40 million, or 22%, is for full-day kindergarten. Of this, $10 million is start-up money and $30 million is ongoing funding for the biennium for the program. If Montana schools are so underfunded, was this really the best way to spend nearly a quarter of this new money?

We are told that we are at a big competitive disadvantage in recruiting teachers compared to Wyoming and Idaho. It is most interesting, incidentally, that the Gazette somehow neglected to compare Montana teacher salaries and workloads to those in our other two adjoining states -- North and South Dakota -- perhaps because Montana teachers make more, spoiling the theme. It isn't just the Gazette article, since today Helena Independent Record has an editorial that highlights the same comparisons with Wyoming and Idaho -- but no mention of the Dakotas.

But in this situation of competitive disadvantage, would we not want to allow schools to spend their part of that $40 million on something besides starting up and funding full-day kindergarten? For that matter, would we not want to give schools the option of eliminating kindergarten altogether but still get the same amount of money they would have been given for half-day kindergarten? All of that money could go toward paying higher teacher salaries. Schools who wanted lower salaries but full-day kindergarten could choose to spend their money that way.

Full-day kindergarten is sort of like "No Child Left Behind," AKA "No spring-break left intact due to testing days." There is money given, but it has to be spent on a new program, and there is no proven long-term benefit.

In fact, full-day kindergarten is worse. "No Child Left Behind" is federal money -- and Montana does pretty well when it comes to federal money in general, getting more than $1.50 in federal money for every $1 in federal tax paid. In addition, school districts have to come up with their share of the full-day kindergarten funding. Every year. This is apparently money they don't have, if they are already strapped for cash.

Of course, it is all the Republicans' fault according to the MEA:

Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, the union representing schoolteachers, said schools were starved for state money for nearly 15 years, from the early 1990s until 2005.

"You can't replace 20 years of bad budgeting in two legislative sessions," said Feaver...

Hm, weren't Republicans running the legislature for only 10 years? If so, that means 5 bad Democratic years -- or 10, if you use the "20 years of bad budgeting" number. Regardless, it is clear that Feaver considers it his job to give an apologia for the Democratic party's school funding budget, rather than to advocate for higher teacher salaries.

And when Feaver cites full-day kindergarten as a victory for teachers, it is hard not to suspect that his priority as head of the MEA was to create more teaching positions statewide, and hence more members of his union -- rather than to advocate for better pay for the union members he already had.

Likewise, we have the highest ranking educator on the state payroll weighing in with similar thoughts:

Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch said she always wishes schools could get more money, but that the 2007 Legislature approved many good things for schools.

The former teacher said state funding of full-day kindergarten is "the first statewide education reform initiative in anyone's memory we've done," and that it's a big step toward increasing the quality of education.

Leaving aside the arguable assertion that full-day kindergarten is a "reform initiative," let alone that this program was a good candidate for being "the first statewide education reform initiative in anyone's memory," we again see an emphasis on the expensive and ephemeral Shangri-La of full-day kindergarten.

The Montana educational establishment shouldn't be particularly surprised if voters don't turn a friendly ear toward them when they are clamoring for more money for teacher pay. Montana Headlines supported the recent initiative to raise the mill levy for schools in Billings. We did so knowing full well that much of the money was going to be spent (or rather misspent, in our view) on full-day kindergarten rather than on things needed much more -- infrastructure and better salaries.

What we find disappointing is that much of the Montana education establishment is going to spend money on a new program for which it agitated -- and yet perhaps simultaneously complain about not having enough money for existing programs. It's hard enough to convince voters that $32,000 (with the opportunity to make more at a second job during the summer vacation) is an unfair starting salary in Billings -- especially when the median income for males in the 2000 census was $32,525 and $21,824 for females.

Yes, the issue always brought up is competitiveness -- but we don't see many empty teaching slots in Billings, and our schools are full of excellent teachers. So where exactly is Billings failing to compete? There may be schools going begging for teachers -- in rural areas and small towns, for instance. There are real competitiveness problems there.

But every time Republicans proposed a school funding formula in the last session, it seemed that a common refrain from Democrats was that Republican formulas favored small schools and rural schools too much.

Given that the Democratic caucus is an overwhelmingly urban one (well, urban by Montana standards, anyway,) it is understandable that Democrats wouldn't want rural schools to have a funding advantage. But it seems a bit odd to have educators get on a soapbox about salary competitiveness after the party their union overwhelmingly supported ditched formulas that would have helped those schools most in need of help on the competitiveness front.

If one wanted to design a formula for ensuring a long wait before Billings voters approve another school funding initiative, it would start with having educators begin complaining about funding right after both local voters and the legislature approved funding increases.

If there is a silver lining, it is that at least some school administrators, such as Superintendent Dick Cameron of Broadus, are blaming Democrats for a change:

Cameron said many in the school community feel betrayed by Democrats, who had promised good increases in school funding if they came to power.

Yet with Democrats in control of the governorship and the state Senate, schools received a relatively small piece of the $1 billion surplus, he said.

"I can't think of a single superintendent of schools in the state that would vote for (Gov.) Brian Schweitzer again," he said.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

How the surplus was/will be spent: The Gazette asks -- "...Two years from now, will Montana have another huge surplus pile of cash? Or might the spending approved this year eat up any potential surplus, creating a deficit?" We'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

It was clear this session that when it came to tax cuts or rebates, Democrats put on their fiscal responsibility hat and fretted over whether such cuts would break the bank.

But when it came to spending proposals, there never seemed to be any worry about those potentially breaking the bank. At such moments, they put on their "essential services to the people of Montana" hats -- and for some reason there were always more (and more expensive) essential state services when the Democrats were sitting down to figure out how to spend the DOR's take.

"Glee": That one word from the article about how the head of the Dept. of Health and Human Services feels about the increased spending in this year's state budget says it all. It probably reflects how all the department heads must feel (except maybe for the agriculture and livestock folks -- did their budgets ever get put back up to what the Republican House proposed?)

With 400 new full-time employees added to the state payroll, those who want our state's taxation and government bureaucracy to resemble California more closely have a lot to be gleeful about.

But we heartless Republicans should rest easy (except when sending our checks to the DOR) -- if it turns out that we're still rolling in money two years from now, we'll get big tax cuts rather than even more state employees and higher spending, right?

How to get $400 in just 27 easy steps: Leave it to our friends on the left side of the aisle to turn a tax rebate into a Kafkaesque nightmare.

The whole thing could have been accomplished by a simple check-box on a Montana income tax form: "Did you own, pay taxes on, and live for at least 6 months in a primary residence in the State of Montana in 2007?" If yes, add $400 to your income and subtract $400 from your total tax. If you get audited and are found to have misrepresented this, you get a hefty fine. Done.

For those who live in Montana and pay property taxes on their home but for some reason don't file a state income tax form, the Kafka routine could still be available.

Crying wolf: Surprise, surprise -- wolves will bypass elk and deer and go for easier prey like domestic livestock. By the way, have we somehow missed the investigative reports in the Montana media that detail:

1. The numbers of livestock killed by wolves
2. The numbers that ranchers have actually been compensated for by Defenders of Wildlife or other environmentalist groups
3. How long it takes to get reimbursed by said groups
4. Whether the reimbursement takes into consideration other factors such as lost income on investment between the time the kill happened and when the reimbursement was received
5. How complicated the procedures are for getting reimbursed

Credit to the Gazette when credit is due: In its "Ups and Downs" segment, the Billings Gazette editors treated Gov. Schweitzer's "ride a kangaroo" comment as though it had been made by a Republican. The comment was directed to the Australian firm BBI, after its bid to buy Northwestern Energy was rejected by the state Public Service Commission.

They wrote: "Schweitzer's comment was flippant and inappropriate to the complex and serious matter of selling Montana's largest utility distribution business to the Australian firm."

The regrouping of the Montana GOP: Gwen Florio's article in the Great Falls Tribune talks about the divisions in the Montana GOP -- but other than talking about the ouster of Mike Lange as Majority leader at the end of the legislative session and of a primary race ousting a Republican legislator who broke ranks in 2005, there wasn't a lot of evidence in her article for a division about core principles within the GOP.

There was a lot of evidence for there being a division between Republicans and Democrats.

Montana Headlines has little inside information to back this up, but a more realistic assessment is that there is very little disagreement on core issues and tendencies between "moderates" and "conservatives." We're all pretty conservative in these parts.

The key issue is really more one of style. There are also these questions, which Montana Headlines in its own way has been addressing in one way or another since the beginning of this site: is it possible to be a firm, principled traditional conservative without being shrill and bellicose? And is it possible to arrive at real-world compromises while remaining uncompromising about our core beliefs?

The sweep of historical conservatism in the Anglo-American governmental, cultural, and legal tradition answers that question with a resounding "yes." Some of the reputation for shrillness on the part of Montana conservatives is deserved, and that needs to change. But a lot of it is the product of unfair caricatures by the opponents of the GOP.

We know we will be caricatured, so Republicans have to adjust tone and strategies accordingly -- replacing bellicosity where it exists with calm, thoughtful, and quiet determination. Initial impressions are that Erik Iverson, as the probably state GOP chairman, will more reflect the latter, but it is the duty of all Republicans to make sure it is so -- not just the leadership.

Not only does it make practical sense to approach things in that manner, it also keeps us fully in the traditions of conservatism -- moderation in all things, caution when it comes to change, Christian behavior, respectable comportment, generosity and magnanimity in one's personal life, acting with respect toward established offices and institutions... and so forth.

We need, in other words, to be in public what we are at home and work. And if we aren't that way at home and work -- well, then we may be many things, but we aren't particularly conservative.

McNutt: "Enough was Enough"

Continuing with the theme touched on in yesterday's Sunday Roundup and Branding, the Sidney Herald reports the comments of Rep. Walt McNutt, R-Sidney, about the recent special session of the Montana legislature:

...McNutt points out there's no tax relief for businesses, industries and even farms if the home is in the corporation's name.

McNutt put it simply: "We didn't get any business equipment tax relief," and "property tax relief wasn't in the budget from the get-go."

But just as Rep. John Ward was quoted in Chuck Johnson's article that "it was time to be done," McNutt had a similar comment:

...in the final two days of the special session it was obvious that the governor's budget was going to be passed in some form. (McNutt) said he voted for the final budget because he didn't feel any more progress could be achieved.

"There was no use sitting there any longer. Nothing was getting done. It was a situation where enough was enough," McNutt said.

Now over at Left in the West where he can really spread his blackbird wings, former 4&20 blogger Jay Stevens takes note of the Montana Headlines comment on Sunday that there was "a case to be made (whether one agrees with it or not) for just giving the executive what it wanted and being done with the session, since it was clear that real compromise wasn't going to happen."

Stevens however takes an interesting turn:

The unspoken corollary to this comment was that there was another case to be made by GOPers: one for obstructing the Governor at every step, and using a one-vote majority in one body of the legislature to bring down the session even though it wouldn't do any good.

By such logic, U.S. Senate Democrats from 2000 to 2006 had two choices: rubberstamp President Bush's entire agenda, or filibuster the entire government into shutdown. The fact that different strategies were devised indicates that perhaps other alternatives were available.

Even if one were to accept the idea that in any political situation there are only two choices (an idea that is mentioned only to be condemned,) one wonders how such a "corollary" would be arrived at, other than by intentionally creating a caricatured Republican strawman to swat about.

The far more obvious alternative case to be made was for Democrats and Republicans to arrive at a modest but real compromise on spending and taxes in the special session. It is hard to tell whether Montanans should be intrigued by the idea that perhaps progressive thinking isn't capable of arriving unaided at the concept of compromise -- or unsettled because Democratic partisan discipline won't allow it, even in an essentially tied legislature.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

Guided tour of that lodge outside of Helena: Chuck Johnson tells us more details about the dealmaking session between a few Republican House members and executive branch staff, and what led up to it. According to Johnson:

(The governor) thought he negotiated a handshake deal with then-House Majority Leader Michael Lange, R-Billings, in the waning days of the regular session. Lange abandoned the deal after other Republican leaders trashed it. Then Lange attacked Schweitzer in a profanity-laden tirade to fellow House Republicans.

It will be interesting to hear Republican comments on that. Lange is understandably licking his wounds after the session and keeping a low profile, but it would be good to hear his side of that particular story -- Johnson doesn't tell us whether he tried to get Lange's version of whether it was reasonable for the governor to believe that he had a "handshake deal."

As a side note, Republicans had better not eat their own when it comes to Mike Lange. If he is willing to run again for the House, count Montana Headlines in for a vote of support. A review of Montana Headlines archives will show a consistent theme of the utter necessity for rhetorical restraint and discipline on the part of the Republican leadership -- and hence an unequivocal vote of no confidence after the YouTube incident. Such a review will also, however, show a consistent appreciation for Lange's hard work and approval of the discipline and restraint shown by Lange early in the session.

Lange had an impossible task, and he isn't the only guy who might have blown his top under conditions of fatigue and high pressure late in a session like this. If he can win his district, it would make no sense whatsoever not to have his experience as a legislator -- although probably not in leadership -- two years from now.

The title of Johnson's piece talks about the Republican party being "torn," which is probably an overstatement. One hopes that predictions of primary election challenges to the "moderates" doesn't turn out to be the case. We need every Republican we can get, especially ones that have proven that they can win a general election.

Someone else is hoping that Republicans follow a script of waging a civil war, though: "Schweitzer looks for 'a hotly debated battle for the heart and soul of the Montana Republican Party' over the next year."

Speaker Scott Sales is right to identify this and similar statements from Democrats as "trying to incite people."

Anyway, back to that lodge outside of Helena. "They divided into 'pods,' with each group of working on one topic: budget, taxes, school funding and energy."

In the end, Schweitzer was mostly pleased with what the special session did.

Really?

"Llew Jones and John Ward are tough negotiators," he said. "They got more done in a couple of days than the rest of the caucus got done in 85. When you shake hands with Llew Jones and John Ward, there's no question what you've got."

Because of the deal, $30 million in general fund spending requests was chopped from the budget passed by the Senate, including $10 million from the Corrections Department and $4 million from the Revenue Department. The way schools were funded was changed more to the Republicans' liking.

If that's tough negotiating, then Republicans are in real trouble if we ever get into negotiations when we don't have a $1 billion surplus to blow. It is also interesting to note how the numbers keep dropping. The first report was that the budget went down from $7.9 billion to $7.85 billion, or $50 million. Later reports cited a $40 million reduction. Now we are down to a $30 million reduction in general fund spending. That is a decrease of less than 1% in general fund spending, or 0.4% in the context of of a $7.9 billion dollar budget.

It is hard not to worry that it will be down to $20 million by next week.

To use the analogy of dickering over the price of a $30,000 car, 0.4% would be a savings of $120 dollars. Tough negotiating indeed. The very phrase "chopped from the budget" by Johnson is misleading, to be generous. "Lightly scuffed off the surface of the budget" is more like it.

Johnson says that Speaker Scott Sales "believes Schweitzer's staff snookered the Republican moderates at Ward's lodge. Schweitzer got virtually everything he wanted, he said, while Republicans would up with scraps."

At least one of the "moderates" involved in the deal doesn't have a view that is much different:

Asked if he was satisfied, (Rep. John) Ward said, "Satisfied is way too strong. It was time to be done. Some good things, from my perspective, came out of it. Obviously, I believe the governor got a lot more. He had two (the governor's office and the Senate) of the three power centers."

This is more like it. There was certainly a case to be made (whether one agrees with it or not) for just giving the executive what it wanted and being done with the session, since it was clear that real compromise wasn't going to happen. And Ward is to be commended for being straightforward in describing what happened as such.

It is also interesting that Ward describes the state Senate as being a power center that belongs to the governor. It is not, unfortunately, an inaccurate description, and that perhaps is the real story of this session.

Montana's Senators oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants: Holding their metaphorical fingers to the Montana political wind, both Senator Baucus and Senator Tester appear to be poised to vote against the grand "comprehensive immigration reform" bill.

Sen. Tester gave a reasonably clear statement through a spokesman:

"He does not support amnesty. He believes that we need to strengthen our ports and borders, that folks that want to come to this country need to get in line no different than his ancestors did, and we need to crack down on employers who are knowingly hiring illegals."

Sen. Baucus had a similarly clear response -- with the usual, and reasonable, caveat that he hasn't seen the legislation -- he shouldn't feel bad, neither has anyone else:

"But I will not support any legislation that does not include strong border enforcement for both the northern and southern borders," Baucus said in a prepared statement. "I do not support amnesty for illegal aliens, and any immigrant who wants to become a citizen must pay back taxes, learn English, and go to the back of the line." (Our emphases)

While progressives/liberals are perceived as surging in Montana, it is gratifying to hear our Democratic Senators, for now, using talking points about this immigration bill that could have been published in American Conservative -- they must know something about the Montana electorate's opinions on this subject.

For Baucus in particular, such a clear statement is telling, since it puts him at odds both with his K-Street corporate donors and with the amnesty-friendly progressive mainstream. We suspect that he's reading Montana voters quite correctly.

Likewise indicating his understanding of the views of most Montanans is Baucus's vote, joining Republicans, against requiring the Army Corps of Engineers to factor in global warming into all project analyses.

It is the last two years of Baucus's term, so he'll be voting with Republicans a lot.

Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting: Ya just gotta love a good water war out here in sagebrush country. For folks new to the intermountain west, the water war between Montana and Wyoming may seem esoteric, but this is serious business --

Wars have been fought for less.

In its lawsuit, Montana Justice Department attorneys describe the conflict as "a dispute between states of such seriousness that it would amount to 'casus belli' if the states were fully sovereign. Casus belli is defined as an act or circumstance that provokes or justifies war."

The compact, which was endorsed by Congress, constitutes a treaty, Montana argues.

"Violation of a treaty is one of the classic occurrences giving rise to war," the lawsuit said.

The battle will be fought in courtrooms, and the weapons will be thousands of pages of legal documents. And it's likely to stretch on longer than the wars in Vietnam or Iraq. Some interstate water disputes remain unsettled for decades.

Settle back with a whiskey (put that water on your vegetable garden) and watch this one -- and find a comfortable chair.

For those who are curious about the historical aspects of western water law, a couple of good books to read while waiting for dispatches from the front in this particular water war are Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains and Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert.

Renaming Glacier National Park: The Missoula-based National Environmental Trust is having a contest to rename Glacier National Park. Now we know where Sen. Tester got that line.

As the Daily Interlake editorial points out, Glacier's glaciers have been melting for thousands of years, and that "it is misleading to suggest that... policy changes, no matter how draconian, will 'save' Glacier’s glaciers."

There are good reasons to keep working rationally on decreasing emissions of all kinds into the atmosphere -- a stunt like this isn't, however, one of them.