The Gazette editorial page begins its honeymoon with Roy Brown

The Billings Gazette editors certainly picked a great day to run an editorial about the Old Fund liability issue -- right after Sen. Roy Brown set a date for the formal launch of his campaign for governor, and the day before the scheduled formal announcement.

The piece itself is a typical Gazette editorial that throws together a bunch of mushy alternating statements, first putting the 2003 Republican legislature in a bad light and then acknowledging mitigating factors and shared blame between the parties involved. But tempted as we are to critique, once again, the turgid prose and confused organization of Gazette editorials, our emphasis today is on content.

The piece culminates with highlighting then House Majority Leader Roy Brown's sponsorship of the bill that borrowed $23 million from the Old Fund as part of a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to address a projected $232 million budget deficit, although the editorial does acknowledge that the bill had overwhelming bipartisan support.

The Gazette editorial writer then wraps up with a final "pay as you go" scold (presumably Gazette editorials at the time were advocating $23 million in addition tax increases or program cuts -- we can't find it in the Gazette archives, but maybe it's hiding somewhere.)

In short, the net effect of the piece seems to send a not-so-subtle message that Republicans are fiscally unreliable -- not particularly helpful to Sen. Brown's campaign, given that he is rightly running his campaign at least in part on the reckless 40% state spending increase we have endured over the last 4 years.

One wonders, though, whether the editorial writers at the Gazette bother to read their own newspaper.

You see, Gazette reporter Jim Gransbery -- on the very same day, wrote an excellent article that includes key information about what happened in the 2005 legislative session that was left out of the editorial. But not once in the editorial is the year 2005 even mentioned, even though presumably the editors got a sneak preview of Granbery's piece.

Yes, right there in the news section of the Gazette itself is the rest of the story. Namely, the story of what happened in the very next session after the money was borrowed from the Old Fund:

When the state's financial situation improved, Sen. John Esp, R-Big Timber, introduced a bill in 2005 to repay the Old Fund, but the bill was tabled on a party-line vote in a committee controlled by the Democrats, (Sen.) Brown said.

He said Esp approached the governor's budget director, David Ewer, about repaying the money, but nothing came of the overture.

Ewer said Tuesday he recalled vaguely Esp's effort, but his office did not take part in any of the hearings of Esp's bill.

Brown said that with a $1 billion surplus in the state's checking account this year, the Schweitzer administration made no effort to repay the money when the Legislature was in session.

Isn't that fascinating? David Ewer only "vaguely recalls" GOP efforts to repay the money, and apparently didn't bother going to the hearings about a bill that would have paid back the money in 2005 -- obviating the need even to be discussing this issue in 2007.

Given the budget director's, shall we say, colorful performances in the last legislative session, we find it hard to believe that he would pass up an opportunity to weigh in publicly with his opinion.

Unless, that is, the executive branch and the 2005 Democratic legislature was in such dither to get down to spending as much money as possible that they didn't want to have their allowance cut by $23 million plus interest.

And then, there was a $1 billion surplus this last session. Couldn't the executive branch have done with a little less of a spending spree and cut $23 million free somehow?

The 2003 legislature did what it had to do in the face of a deficit -- if anything, Sen. Brown and the Republican legislature should be praised for finding a comprehensive solution for situation it faced. They raised some taxes, but avoided raising taxes that would hurt the economy and jeopardize future tax revenues. They cut spending, but by borrowing a little of the government's own money avoided even deeper cuts.

Republicans had faith that the economy would improve, and that the money would then be available to replenish the fund. And at the very next session, that's exactly what they tried to do -- to no avail.

So, why didn't the Gazette editorial mention any of this? Why didn't it mention the events of 2005?

Maybe there's more to the 2005 story than Gransbery was able to dig up -- but then why didn't the Gazette hold off on on an editorial that prominently features Sen. Brown in a negative light until that paper could get the story straight?

Was it more important to get that editorial published the day before Sen. Brown's formal announcement of his candidacy for governor?

We've got 'em right where we want 'em

Conservatism never is more admirable than when it accepts changes that it disapproves, with good grace, for the sake of a general conciliation; and the impetuous Burke, of all men, did most to establish that principle.

-- Russell Kirk


The portrait is, of course, of Edmund Burke, and we will return to the Kirk quotation later. The title of this post is what the legendary quarterback John Elway said to his teammates when they were pinned down on their own 2-yard line, trailing in the 1987 AFC championship with time running out.

Elway had an advantage, because it was 1st down. The Montana House GOP leadership is 4th and long on the Human Services bill (the last of their 8 bills), but it looks like they may finally have found a way to construct it that might actually get the needed 51 votes from the GOP caucus+Jore.

And, we might add, to do so by creating something that actually resembles a serious appropriations bill (i.e. no mock $300 tabula rasa on which the Senate must write the bill themselves.)

The Senate is starting to work over the first 4 appropriations bills sent to them from the House, and so we will now for the first time get some substantive Democratic input -- a must if we want our good governor to sign off on the specific compromises and solutions that need to be reached in the bills.

If budget director David Ewer was furious at having to testify as an opponent of the GOP bills in the House, what he must be feeling at having to come before a Senate committee to talk about bills that have actually been formally endorsed by the House Appropriations committee and formally passed by the Montana House of Representatives, we can hardly imagine. He may actually have to treat them like real bills.

Fortunately for Ewer, in dealing with the Senate Finance and Claims Committee he now has the assistance of Sen. Dave Lewis, R-Helena, a former state budget director under Democratic and Republican administrations, to help explain things to him:

"The kinds of increase that we're talking about in this budget are so extraordinary that I can't even imagine you wouldn't be more accepting of the adjustments that were made," Lewis said. "We've never seen anything like this."

Jeff Mangan, who knows a lot more about how things work in Helena than most, has proposed that the most workable compromise might be to bring back HB 2 in exchange for permanent property tax relief. He postulates that the GOP might have to choose between their split appropriations bills and getting the property tax relief they promised when campaigning.

This may still very well need to happen, but if the most recent version of the Human Services bill passes, the political landscape will shift, and the GOP will be in a position to expect both the split bills and the necessary substantive compromises on spending, tax relief, and other legislation.

The feeling at Montana Headlines is that it would be a bad idea to bring back HB 2, simply because it rewards bad behavior on the part of House Democrats, who refused to participate in the process of amending the House bills.

Democrats, of course, hold precisely the opposite view -- that they don't want to reward what they see as bad behavior on the part of House Republicans in splitting the appropriations bills. If this last appropriations bill passes, however, the GOP will have done what they are responsible for doing -- they will have passed comprehensive appropriations legislation using the procedural rules of the House.

The Senate, in turn, can now use its own rules and procedures to amend those bills in a way that can come to a substantive consensus between the House Republican leadership, the Senate Democratic leadership, and the governor. It has been predicted that cooler heads will prevail once the bills hit the Senate -- may it be so.

We started this post with the quotation from Russell Kirk about Edmund Burke for a reason. The compromises that we will get from this process will, in the end, leave us with a state government that most conservatives will think is taxing, regulating, and spending too much.

It will be a state government that is not doing as much as it should to address critical things like the coming crisis of illegal immigration and the ongoing crisis of the depopulation of our rural areas.

It will be a state government that is still using misdirected programs to address real problems. As an example, think full-day kindergarten -- which will not address the real problem of having some Montana high-school graduates who are intelligent and motivated enough to go to college but who can't read and write properly.

Progressives (and as an aside to 4&20 BB -- don't even think of ruining our reputation by calling us one) will of course portray the end product as a once beautiful work of art that was marred by unappreciative Republicans -- but Republicans should take that in stride, speaking and behaving in such a way that we can say that we have accepted some changes of which we disapproved, with good grace, for the sake of a general conciliation.

Welcome to the dark side

As predicted, fireworks flew at the House Appropriations Committee. The AP article reporting on the proceedings was kind in characterizing budget director David Ewer's comments as being a "warning." One felt more like he was making the committee an offer they couldn't refuse.

It is certainly understandable that those who had spent much time and effort developing the governor's budget would be unhappy at seeing the House budgeting process take a different course.

Montana Headlines, on the one hand, doesn't feel terribly sorry for the executive branch, given that it wouldn't take a genius to understand that a 23%+ increase in state spending was going to have opposition. We particularly didn't feel sympathetic when no moves toward compromise on spending materialized.

On the other hand, watching Ewer's scarcely contained fury, it all came home: there are some Democrats who never expected to lose control of the House in the 2006 elections and who still haven't accepted that Republicans earned a place at the table in these discussions.

Democratic overconfidence was understandable. They never dreamed that Republicans would manage to overcome their gerrymandered districts this quickly, winning control of the House and tying the Senate in only the second election after redistricting. In many ways, their rhetoric prior to the election seemed to indicate that they expected to expand their majorities in both houses.

Even after those blows, they were given, courtesy of Sen. Kitzenberg's defection, reason to delude themselves that they wouldn't need to adjust to the new reality. Ewer certainly gives the impression that this delusory bubble only burst for him on the morning of March 5th, 2007.

Watching Ewer deliver his seething and condescending opening tirade at House Republicans, one wonders where this gentleman learned his political manners.

The crowd had been warmed up by Democratic House members, who badgered HB 805 sponsor Rep. Ripley, R-Wolf Creek, by asking him the same questions over and over again -- seemingly choosing not to understand his answers. Montana Headlines was gratified to see that Ripley never once got flustered, and kept calmly walking members through the budget line by line, placidly chewing gum and peering over the top of his glasses.

After Ewer's outburst, a series of state department directors testified against HB 805 while Ewer sat just off the left shoulder of each speaker at the podium, with his face giving a running color commentary on how obediently and effectively each department representative was toeing the executive branch line. (Ewer dodged the question when he was directly questioned regarding whether the department directors were asked to testify against HB 805 -- but the answer was obvious.)

Particularly amusing was watching while Commerce Director Anthony Preite gave his genial and gentlemanly presentation. As long as Preite read from his text, Ewer sat smug -- but when he looked up and gave extemporaneous remarks that showed some warmth, Ewer glowered until he returned to script. It was not our imagination, since during questioning from the committee, Preite confessed that he "almost had Mr Ewer on his back" at one point when he apparently almost told the legislature that his department would do just fine with the HB 805 funding.

Even more uncomfortable was watching certain directors whose budgets had been increased beyond what the governor had requested (namely Agriculture and Livestock) being made to testify against the bill.

All the while, Ewer sat behind them like a dark enforcer. When trying to place exactly where we had seen his imperious expressions before, it suddenly came upon us: The Devil Wears Prada.

We watched in disbelief as Ewer got up out of his seat at one point (when he wasn't the one being questioned, no less) to virtually leap into Rep. Wells's face: "Did you get your answer? Did you get your answer? Did you get your answer?"

Maybe that's how they taught Ewer to act back at Harvard -- we don't know. But one wonders just how well this act is going to play in Montana if Ewer gives 6 back-to-back command performances of this sort.