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...

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More Bohlinger convention goofiness: This time, our faux-Republican Lt. Gov's antics surround the Montana Democratic convention, where he will be appearing with his running-mate, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

Bohlinger, reached as he was preparing to return to Montana from the National Lieutenant Governors Association meeting in Williamsburg, Va., said, "I didn't know that I'd been invited. I haven't had any plans of attending. You know, I am a Republican. I really appreciate the invitation."

Yeah, right. Quite a surprise.

Denny Rehberg votes against permanent bases in Iraq: The U.S. House bill also states that the U.S. is not to exert control over the oil industry in Iraq. Rehberg and most Republicans voted for this broadly bipartisan bill, as was appropriate.

Truth in editorializing at the Gazette: Pat Bellinghausen tells more about the process of writing editorials at the Billings Gazette. Given that unsigned "Gazette Opinion" editorials have a particular impact, coming across as the magisterial voice of an institution rather than the opinion of a particular writer, it is good to tell readers that she is primarily responsible for writing those editorials.

She also invites readers to contact her if there are columnists that they would or would not like to continue to see in the Gazette. Best nationally syndicated columnist printed in the Gazette right now: R.J. Samuelson. Worst: Ellen Goodman.

On the purely conservative side, we could probably do better than Cal Thomas -- it would be nice to see an opponent of the Iraq war from the right, with the two most prominent being Pat Buchanan and Robert Novak. Both are engaging writers and are good at stirring up controversy with both the right and the left (Novak is even still a registered Democrat.)

"Hillary the underestimated": Or so Rich Lowry of the National Review (one of the more mature of the former NR youngsters) calls her. Money quotation:

"Clinton has run a nearly flawless campaign and has done more than any other Democrat to show she’s ready to be president..."

Not a few thoughtful conservatives have come to the conclusion that if we have to have one of the top three Dems, Clinton would probably be preferable.

She knows how to triangulate -- which means that she will come up with policies more conservative than would either Edwards or Obama.

And her performance shows that maybe she wasn't just baking chocolate chip cookies and doing needlepoint during her years as first lady.

Her most recent coup has been to demonstrate that she knows how to handle the liberal netroots. She doesn't let them intimidate her and doesn't particularly care if they like her. But she has skilfully avoided having them turn on her and make a cause out of defeating her -- and that is really all she needs to do.

She knows in a general election campaign, she can count on their support for her being an automatic and unconditional "night of the long knives" against any Republican, and she also knows that cozying up to the netroots will cost her with the general electorate.

Smart lady.

The governor's "blue-collar getaway": He purchased the $2 million Georgetown Lake lot because it was a "blue-collar place," but according to a shocking story in the Great Falls Tribune:

"the Schweitzers' 4,000-square-foot cedar-and-sandstone mansion on a point jutting into the lake is anything but blue collar."

And there are some things that we just didn't need to know:

Four bedrooms plus an office. Six baths (a couple of them, Schweitzer took pains to show off, with urinals. "There's not going to be any discussion about toilet seats").

This is, of course, just the sort of things that sends Republicans. But, while Montana voters may take note and dock Schweitzer a few points for the sheer silliness of his "blue-collar neighborhood" claim, the GOP would do well not to try to make a direct campaign issue out of Schweitzer's new mansion. After all, we believe that people should have the right to make what they can and spend what they are able.

And what should the governor have done? Should he have failed to take advantage of the property exchange "tax loophole" that keeps him from having to pay capital gains on the ranch he sold?

The governor is in many ways his own worst enemy when it comes to this sort of thing -- and then the GOP comes riding to his rescue every time by attacking him loudly, making it look petty, and cancelling out any benefit that there might have been from his gaucherie.

Whoever runs against the governor needs to do it on policy and performance alone. And there's more than enough of that to debate.

Addendum:

Thanks to the anonymous commenter below, our attention was drawn to this letter (scroll down) in the Helena IR, which contains what may be the only "news report" about our Sen. Jon Tester voting against the so-called "John Doe" amendment -- a measure that would protect citizens from being sued for reporting activity that is suspicious for being possibly terrorist-related.

What was this highly dangerous amendment (SA 2340 -- submitted by that arch-conservative racist Republican Senator, Susan Collins of Maine) that Sen. Tester couldn't bring himself to vote for? Here's the meat of it:

(1) IN GENERAL.--Any person who, in good faith and based on objectively reasonable suspicion, makes, or causes to be made, a voluntary report of covered activity to an authorized official shall be immune from civil liability under Federal, State, and local law for such report.

And, with all due respect to those who are worried that this could be used as a pretext to hassle people without fear of consequence, we would suggest actually reading the next part of the amendment (we assume that the House language was pretty much identical):

(2) FALSE REPORTS.--Paragraph (1) shall not apply to any report that the person knew to be false at the time that person made that report.

The roll-call vote can be found here -- note that the measure failed by 3 votes to hit the 60 vote mark. Every Republican voted for the measure.

Democrats who are facing elections where they need more than the MoveOn.org crowd to get elected (Sen. Clinton in the Presidential race, Sens. Baucus and Landrieu in their re-election bids in "red states," -- also North Dakota's two Democratic Senators, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, etc.) tended to vote for the measure, while those independent "mavericks" like Jon Tester and James Webb who don't face re-election until 2012 voted against it along with the main body of the liberal Dems.

It is interesting that given how much play this amendment got nationally, that the Montana press seems to have been silent on how our Senators voted.

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

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Carbon County Moos on the brucellosis affair: Over the last couple of days, Montana Headlines has been expressing opinions on the recent brucellosis happenings. We've referred readers to blogging rancher Sarpy Sam, and now want to do the same for Karbon Kounty Moos, whose story is a more up-front and personal one -- and should be read.

The Democrats are coming, the Democrats are coming!: To take over the intermountain West politically, that is. As Montana Headlines has pointed out before, the Democratic resurgence in this region is real, and has many causes.

One, of course, is that the West has never been as solidly Republican as is commonly assumed. Another is big-spending Republicans on the national stage and an ill-conceived (and then botched) war.

Yet another is the combination of Republicans getting lazy and flat-out beat on the ground in this region -- not having the imagination and creativity to deal with shifting demographics and issues of concern while still holding onto core principles.

And there is, of course, the fact that the Democratic party has finally figured out that in order to win in the West, they have to abandon -- or at least soft-pedal -- some of their liberal shibboleths (think Senator Tester on gun rights or illegal immigration.)

Having the opposition co-opt one's positions, of course, means that Republicans have won certain battles. It also means that Republicans have to be bright enough to realize that if they try to keep using the same old play-book, they're going to keep getting beat.

A Republican resurgence in the West will come -- the fundamentals are still stacked in our favor -- but we will need some good leaders.

Deployment limits: This past week, attempts were made in the Senate to place limits on the length of deployments to Iraq and to mandate periods of time at home between tours in Iraq. Both attempts failed to get the required 60 votes to move forward. Both Montana Senators voted for the limitations, and both Wyoming Senators voted against the limitations.

Here in the Montana blogosphere, reaction from the left included an R-r@ted one from Left in the West, and from somewhere in the general vicinity of the right, The Western Word likewise expressed disappointment that the bill didn't pass.

Having limitations on the length and number of overseas combat tours and on length of time between tours is nothing new. Many of the old-timers from WWII recall that the mindset at that time was that no-one came home until the war was won. That wasn't exactly true, since very late in the war, a Advanced Service Rating Score was initiated to help decide who got to go home first.

But this system was developed by the military itself -- they had a mission to accomplish, and after winning in Europe, they had an excess of troops overseas. They wanted an equitable way of determining who came home when.

In Vietnam, the idea of a one year tour of duty was developed -- again by the military itself. Its wisdom has been debated, but it is how things were done at that time. (In most wars, flight crews have often had their tours determined by the number of missions or sorties they are required to fly, rather than measuring the tour according to a certain length of time.)

Anyone who has served in the military knows exactly how long they could potentially be sent on an overseas TDY, and whether and for how long that tour could be extended -- again, all under military regulations for the particular branch of service at that time. There is nothing quite like getting on a military aircraft in time of conflict, not being exactly sure where you are going or when (or whether) you will be coming back. That is, however, an intrinsic part of military service.

The military itself has two competing interests that have to be taken into consideration in deciding how long tours are, who does them, and who has to return for further tours: First -- accomplishment of their assigned mission, and second, recruitment and retention. From the military's perspective, this is a balancing act, and it varies from service to service and from job to job within each branch of service.

Even when a draft is on, the balancing act continues with regard to "recruitment" and retention, since drafts are politically unpopular, and also because some draftees elected to extend their time in service voluntarily.

Ultimately, these decisions need to be made within the military itself. Congress has no role in making such decisions, and Sens. Tester and Baucus were wrong to vote for the Webb amendment.

Some felt that since Webb was a combat veteran, that he should have been heeded. In fact, as a combat veteran and former Secretary of the Navy, Webb knew better than to introduce this amendment. It was a politicized act meant to tie the President's hands in Iraq. In some cases it may have helped troops and the mission, and in other cases it would have hurt both. Regardless, it is not the job of Congress to decide.

As Montana Headlines has repeatedly stated, what Congress can do is to deauthorize a military action. To "undeclare war," so to speak. The proposed Byrd amendment sounds like an approach that is constitutional. Sen Tester has, incidentally, expressed his support for this amendment.

Granted, the Byrd amendment hasn't materialized yet, so we don't know exactly how it will be worded.

In general, Sen. Byrd has been a strong proponent of holding firmly to separation of powers -- which in recent years has meant holding firm against executive over-reach. He has also in the past spoken about "the pitfalls of usurping the Executive Branch’s role in an ongoing war," so one supposes the legislation will be carefully written to reflect that as well.

Lonely older women will hate Fred Thompson: According to Susan Estrich, that is. Keep in mind that Estrich is famous for her brilliant management of the Dukakis presidential campaign. But she is an entertaining political commentator.

The upshot of her recent commentary is that older single women are tired of seeing single guys their age date and marry younger women (a shocking recent trend,) and they will take it out on Fred Thompson by voting for the other guy (or gal,) since Thompson married a "trophy wife."

Sounds like Estrich is miffed that Thompson didn't chase her during nearly his two decades of being single.

Another liberated modern woman had the same first impression, but on looking at the situation again, realized that she was following the kinds of prejudices that she would condemn in others.

How will it all end up? Who knows? But early indications are interesting -- liberals have sniped at Thompson for being married to a 40 year old blonde who has the audacity to be sexy, smart, successful, and Republican (those danged liberated women -- gotta do something about 'em,) and they've even floated the rumor that Thompson is gay (and you can just hear them add, "not that there's anything wrong with that...")

Now where have we seen the homosexual-friendly Democratic Party indulge in gay-baiting before? Oh, yeah. Right here in Montana.

Anyway, it is interesting that Democrats seem to have directed more fire at the undeclared Thompson than they have on all of the other GOP candidates combined.

The Loonies are coming, the Loonies are coming!: The strong Canadian dollar has cash registers ka-chinging in northern Montana.

The taxability of the $400 election-year "check in every pot": We have already discussed the needlessly complicated means of getting that golden $400 check from the Montana government.

Now, we learn from the Missoula Independent that those who itemized deductions on their income-tax return in 2006 will have to declare the $400, while those who took the standard deduction in 2006 won't have to declare it as income.

According to H & R Block District Tax Specialist Nancy Eik, that’s because itemized returns allow for larger deductions, so “you already got a deduction for the $400 last year.”

Huh?

Let's try that another way: the purpose of a standard deduction is to eliminate the hassle and paperwork of itemized deductions, both for the majority of taxpayers and for the government.

The number is set at a level determined by the government to exceed the amount of deductions that most taxpayers would be able to take. Therefore, by definition, those who don't itemize are almost always getting a bigger deduction than they would otherwise be entitled to.

So this "tax specialist" has it exactly backwards, it would seem.

This little part of the bill would seem to be yet another bit of election-year pandering (should we be surprised, given that the entire schemata is designed around election-year pandering?)

Most Montanans presumably take a standard deduction rather than itemizing, so most Montanans won't have to declare the $400 check as income. And most of those who do have to declare it as income probably weren't going to vote Democrat in the first place.

You've gotta hand it to the Democratic strategists in Montana -- they're no amateurs.

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

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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.

A little different look by the Great Falls Tribune

Today's Great Falls Tribune has an editorial that gives a little more balanced account of how the recent legislative session turned out than did yesterday's Gazette opinion, about which we expressed ourselves freely. The Tribune editors wrote:

But in the final analysis the pieces that came together last Friday, Monday and Tuesday bore a striking resemblance to what the governor proposed back in December.

Indeed. And Montana Headlines wouldn't even have minded had the Tribune editors added that they were happy that the governor's plan came through basically intact and that the Republicans were thwarted in pretty much every way -- such would have been their prerogative as editors writing an opinion piece.

They didn't, but rather told the story pretty straight.

One word notably missing from the Tribune editorial was one that appeared twice in the opening sentences of the Gazette opinion: "compromise."

The Tribune editors are to be commended for not portraying the final budget and tax bills as being compromises in any sense that an ordinary Montanan would understand the term. Quite the contrary:

Looking past the many small details on which they disagreed, the big-picture view showed them at odds on two main, related items: Republicans wanted much more than the governor in the way of permanent tax relief and much less in the way of government growth.

Schweitzer prevailed on those items — government spending will increase 11 percent each year of the biennium — though not always to his full satisfaction.

Well, perhaps not full satisfaction.

Random legislative notes

The House passed a $7.85 billion budget. The Senate version at the end of the regular session was $7.9 billion. Let's hear it for fiscal restraint on the part of the Montana House. Those 13 Republicans ought to hire themselves out as professional car-buyers -- people would probably pay them good money to shave 0.6% off sticker price. (On a $30,000 car or truck, that would save you $180. Now that's compromise. )

The amusing part is that when Scott Sales proposed that the House could go ahead and adjourn, Sen. President Mike Cooney had a fit, threatening not to approve the budget. Let's see -- it is the deal cut by the same governor Cooney obeyed when told to stop working on a compromise with Republicans on the final day of the session, and it only reduces spending by 0.6% from what the Senate passed. And this is a problem for Cooney?

The latest version of the tax bill in the House has what appears to be an interesting compromise: leave out the ongoing property-tax credits, but also leave out all of the extra empire-building powers the DOR was wanting so they could go after taxpayers. (Although we assume that the DOR still got its 90 employees -- so look for them to be coming after us anyway, just to have something to do.)

It also leaves out the renters' tax credit, which never did make sense.

What remains is the $400 election-year "check in every pot" for the governor -- and the Republican's business equipment tax reduction -- the most important proposed tax reduction of the entire session.

This is actually not a bad compromise.

Divide and conquer

While the Billings Gazette has its own report, the Great Falls Tribune gives a somewhat more detailed account of the proposed summit meeting in Billings between Democratic and Republican legislative leadership.

A few things jump out of the report:

1. While Rep. Mike Lange has taken a beating due to Epletive-gate, including baseless rumors (started by whom?) that he might be edged out of leadership, he is exactly right in insisting that the governor be involved in any talks and negotiations.

It is good that Speaker Sales is taking a more prominent role at this point -- listening to him on the final day of the session, one is reminded that the caricature of him painted by Democrats in the blogosphere is just that.

Based on the timing of the collapse of negotiations between Sen. Stapleton and Sen. Cooney on the last day of the session while there were still many hours to work things out, one suspects that Sen. Cooney is not able to make the final deal in the Senate, so why pretend that he is? There is a third person along on this date, so he might as well sit up front with the other two.

2. The expected mind games are going full steam, attempting to plant ideas into Republicans' head that certain of their number are in secret negotiation with the governor. In fact, the governor's comments can only be interpreted as a thinly veiled implication that he is talking to nearly everyone except the leadership:

"I've been speaking to a lot of other folks. ... They're frustrated with their own (Republican) leadership."

Well, maybe, but not because we want them to sign off on everything Senate Democrats propose.

A less confident leadership would feel undermined by their own people if they believed it. After all of the party-line votes that Republicans have held together on, though, it is hard to be terribly worried about this kind of smoke and mirrors.

This is especially true since no Republican is going to gain anything politically by undermining his own party at this point. Above all, none of this is personal or nefarious -- Democrats are just playing politics, and we'd be surprised if they didn't. So no need to over-react.

3. Democrats cannot assume that they are going to get to start negotiations where they ended in Helena on the last day of the session. Republicans had essentially, as we have written before, given in on all of the spending increases that the Senate wanted -- at least on a one-time basis, and they had long ago agreed to go along with the $400 election-year "check in every pot" nonsense.

The details that should have been worked out (and by all accounts were being worked out) was the extent of the permanent across-the-board property tax relief that Democrats would agree to in return. Since this was the only Republican request, not to come up with it in some form would have been an admission that the Democrats were not interested in compromise. Senator Cooney is too astute and experienced as a legislator not to see this.

An abrupt end to the session makes sense only from the standpoint of a plan to play for all the Democratic marbles. Republicans had nothing to gain by not cutting a deal on the last day of the session.

But regardless of who pulled the plug on those final negotiations from the Democratic side, a step is rightly being taken back by the House Republicans on spending proposals, with Lange now going back to talking about significant spending restraints on the proposed corrections and revenue department budget increases, and even in the "present law adjustments" that involve increases for existing programs.

This is exactly right. Republicans had given in on the spending increases, but had done so with the proposal of getting some sort of long-term property tax relief in return. With Senate Democrats refusing to come to an agreement on that, Republicans are now right to go back to their original position of pushing for much-needed spending restraint.

Montanans know a little about horse-trading, and it doesn't mean settling on the price that the seller initially asks for. Once they see that the Democratic idea of compromise was to give nothing on spending and to give nothing on long-term tax relief, Montanans should start to get the picture.

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

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Tempers getting short in Helena: A frustrated Sen. Joe Tropila, D-Great Falls, made a symbolic gesture by proposing that the Senate adjourn and come back only after all compromises have been hammered out by legislative leaders and the executive branch. This was prompted by Speaker Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, having said that the House wouldn't consider voting on the appropriations bills sent back by the Senate until after the governor had signed the property tax relief bill that the legislature will eventually send his way.

The governor, of course, sticks by his position that he wants everything in front of him first before he'll sign anything. What is at stake is prioritizing, and it is no secret that priorities differ between the Republican controlled House and the executive branch -- and quite frankly there are probably more differences between the Senate, narrowly controlled by the Democrats, and the executive branch priorities than might meet the eye.

The order in which bills are sent to the governor for his up-or-down verdict are an important control that the legislature has over prioritizing spending and tax relief -- and this is doubly true now that the governor has shown a willingness to use very wide latitude in applying amendatory vetoes.

The press is making the House Republicans out to be the villains of the piece, and they have not perhaps mastered the skills of PR management enough to prevent this from happening. But as Charles Johnson points out in his Sunday "Horse Sense" column today:

The governor hasn't helped the situation much in recent days. He has been lobbing verbal bombs at the Republican legislators from California, where he has been raising campaign money, meeting with investors and appearing on a political talk show.

This was like having a batting practice fastball lobbed across the middle of the plate -- the fact that the GOP hasn't managed to hit that one out of the park, or at least deep into left field, is concerning.

One can only imagine what kind of press a Republican governor would get if he were off doing big-money fundraisers and playing rock-star while he and his legislature were in desperate need of working out some final compromises. One suspects that it would amount to more than a brief factual mention here or there.

But those are the ground rules, and Republicans need to figure out how to win some victories in spite of them. Maybe they still will, but a lot of Republicans are concerned about how badly to our disadvantage this deal is going to end up once it is finally closed. Until we find out, all we can do is wait, and keep rooting for the home team.

Multiple use under fire from East Coast Democrats: Montana Democrats like to get lots of mileage out of the fact that there is a history of big out-of-state corporations treating Montana's resources as though we are their colony.

Their point is valid, but all too often Democrats are blind to colonialism of the liberal sort. The proposal to turn much of the public land in the northern Rockies into wilderness areas is just another step down the path of incrementalist policies that ignore the fact that people actually live here.

The fact that the noted scientist Carole King (who apparently gained an in-depth knowledge of the needs and priorities of Montanans in between writing admittedly catchy pop songs) was involved in crafting the legislation makes the proposal difficult to ignore, we realize -- but we still feel that some critical thinking is in order.

In a recent episode of the Discovery Channel series Planet Earth, an ecologist living in Africa made some pretty harsh comments about people living in the developed world who "love the animals" from looking at pictures of lions playing with their cute cubs -- and don't have any idea (or really don't care) that in the particular part of Africa where he works, humans are a source of food for lions. Needless to say, the local whose children have been eaten by the noble lions have a different view about the beasts than does the environmentalist living in New York.

His point was not that lions shouldn't be protected (far from it,) but rather that if Westerners don't have any solutions that involve humans as part of the environment, they should just mind their own business.

We in the West like to make jokes about our ideas for reintroducing wolves to Central Park or the Berkshires, and we're only half-joking. Conservation and environmentalism starts at home, and eastern lawmakers should start telling us what to do with our land out west once they've taken some radical and very expensive actions in their own states (with their own money) to restore pristine wilderness.

As a side-note, it is interesting that this entire article went by without a single mention of one of the most emotion-laden uses of public land in Montana -- grazing. We realize that the Taylor Grazing Act (which isn't going anywhere anytime soon) protects grazing rights, even in wilderness areas, national monuments, and the like. But make no mistake about the fact that ranchers leasing public lands are in the cross-hairs. Rural Montanans need to keep this in mind when casting their ballots in 2008.

Selling out on immigration reform: Sen. Jim Shockley, R-Victor, had some words for Republicans who voted against his measure banning state contracts with those who hire workers who are in the U.S. illegally.

"The Republicans sold out to the Montana Contractors' Association and the Chamber of Commerce," Shockley wrote in a newspaper editorial.

Well, of course they did. Both of those organizations certainly had valid concerns about the legislation, but we have two things to say about that: Shockley should have known that those organizations would have issues with the bill, and worked with them far ahead of time to find acceptable language for meaningful reform. The Contractor's Association and Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, should have enough economic patriotism to want to work with Shockley to come up with good legislation that accomplishes the desired goal of reducing illegal workers without putting honest employers at excessive risk.

By not working with Shockley to come up with acceptable language and getting the bill passed, those organizations are giving the impression that they really don't care. Even if they don't, they should try to pretend as though they do. Because "we don't care" attitudes aren't the sort of thing that is going to make for good relationships with the rank and file of the party that generally supports their legislative concerns.

The most inflammatory comments came from one of the usual suspects, however -- and no, we're not talking about Ed Butcher:

Sen. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena, opposed all of Shockley's unlawful-immigration bills and said they "encourage us to distrust people with dark skin." She agrees with Shockley that unlawful immigration could be a widely discuss topic in the next state election, but said it would be one without merit. "It is a created issue rather than a real problem," Kaufmann said.

A majority of Americans are concerned about the rule of law when it comes to illegal immigration. They feel that employers, state and local governments, and would-be immigrants should all obey immigration law, just as we citizens are expected to follow the federal laws that apply to us.

If Sen. Kaufmann wants to call Sen. Shockley and other such Americans racists, she should come right out and say so in so many words. It will win her a lot of friends here in Montana. Which is why she is instead calling Sen. Shockley a racist by using sly code-words.

Everyone knows it's windy: It really is hard to find a downside to full throttle development of wind power generation in Montana, so this Great Falls Tribune article about the possible development of transmission lines that will take power from the windy country north of Great Falls to connect with grids in Great Falls and Alberta is encouraging.

We understand that there are some noise issues, that rights of way for transmission lines have to be worked out, etc. There are things to deal with in every kind of energy development, and wind power is no exception. There was a concerning reader's comment attached to the Tribune story, though:

The next logical step after developing the transmission lines would be creating one or more large man-made lakes in the area for pumped-hydro energy storage. Such a project must be done in such a way as to not trample on but rather assist the needs of farmers and other land owners within the Golden Triangle.

The following link was provided by the reader. Why this provokes uneasiness, we're not sure, but perhaps it has to do with the fact that water is hardly in plentiful supply in this state. Storing energy, which is produced on nature's schedule, for use during peak periods that depend on our consumption schedules, is of course a key issue with wind power. Further manipulation of Montana's water supply to accomplish such storage is, however, something that should be approached with more than a little care.

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

Image Courtesy of www.old-picture.com

Oh, what a relief it is(n't): There is supposedly tax relief coming -- both temporary and permanent. "Key Senator" Jim Elliott, D-Trout Creek, has proposed a bill for property tax relief, but it needs a lot of work.

Montana Headlines still believes that the idea pushed by members of both parties to give tax credits to renters doesn't make much sense, since by definition, tax relief should go to those paying taxes. This amounts to a handout -- which is OK, just call it a handout and not tax relief. But then, we're not the ones having to get elected, so maybe we just don't have the proper perspective.

Likewise, the permanent tax relief provisions only apply to those with adjusted family incomes of less than $45,000.

The Great Falls Tribune reports that the median income for two-earner Montana families is $57,000. If this is true, then well over half of such two-earner families will get no property tax relief.

According to 2005 income tax data from the Montana DOR using adjusted gross incomes (which doesn't break things down by single or double incomes), 20% of Montana families will get no property tax relief. That same 20% of families, according to those DOR statistics, paid 75% of all income taxes in the state in 2005.

The idea that a family earning $46,000 -- or $446,000 for that matter, doesn't deserve property tax relief reflects an ignorance of who the truly wealthy really are. We'll give you a hint -- it's the people who don't have to get up every morning to go to work, and those people make more than that. A lot more. And they don't comprise 2% of the Montana population, let alone 20%.

And why should income determine who gets property tax relief, anyway? It would seem that what can justly be avoided are giving big tax breaks to expensive luxury homes. Why not cap the value of private homes that get tax relief at, say, the 80th percentile of home values in the region of the state, and exclude 2nd homes from receiving tax relief? Provisions can be made for the elderly on fixed incomes or for family farmers and ranches to make sure that they don't get taxed out of their homes as property values rise around them.

A lot of work needs to be done on this. One thing is certain, the property tax relief plan as Sen. Elliot proposes it is not at all worth making spending compromises over. Better to cut spending and put the excess in a rainy day fund than to engage in a tax-relief plan that is just for show.

The trouble is that there just isn't a lot of money to be taken from the truly wealthy because there aren't enough of them. You have to sock it to the mid-middle and upper-middle class in order to rack up the big tax bucks. As Clive Crook pointed out in a recent Atlantic Monthly article (sorry, dead-tree stuff again), the vast majority of Americans consider themselves to be middle-class -- which is why politicians seem eager to be perceived as catering to them (even while figuring out ways to sneak enough money out of the back pocket of the middle class in order to bribe 51% of likely voters into voting for them.)

Ask most people where the middle class stops and where being rich starts, and they'll usually pick a family income not terribly higher than what they themselves make. And as family income rises, that family's definition of where being rich starts rises as well. Simple human nature -- and more to the point, simple common sense, once one realizes that the level of wealth at which one doesn't have to get up and go to work every morning is very, very high.

Crook summarizes his article, subtitled "What War on the Middle Class?" by pointing out that the real war, both present and coming, is a war within the middle class over who gets to be the payee and who has to be the payer.

By excluding from property tax relief the 20% of Montanan families who already pay 75% of the income taxes (nearly all of whom are middle or upper-middle-class), a war within the middle class is being promoted. And does anyone other than selected politicians really want or need that in Montana?

Speaking about something actually worth spending part of a surplus on: At Montana Headlines, we're not at all fans of mandating what should be in health insurance policies, so some of the bills aimed at such measures are dying well-deserved deaths. But if we as Montanans can afford to provide basic health care to kids who can't help it if they are born into families who can't afford health insurance, we should fund CHIP and Medicaid.

Republicans shouldn't be afraid to fund these things, and Democrats should understand that funding today cannot mean funding forever, regardless of the health of the economy.

Another predictable failure on immigration reform: From the beginning of the session, Montana Headlines has maintained that we need a comprehensive package of immigration reform measures based on the hard experiences of other states.

These measures should address depressed wages for legal workers, concerns about having to provide welfare benefits for individuals here illegally, concerns about already overburdened schools having to absorb children of illegals, concerns about enforcing the rule of law, concerns about safety on our roads and highways, and concerns about the integrity of the voting process in Montana.

Attempts to pick something here or there to address are inevitably going to seem unfair to one group or another. The House overwhelmingly rejected a measure aimed at state contracts with contractors who employ illegal workers. The idea is a good one, but it placed too much burden on law-abiding contractors, in the opinion of both parties.

The burden needs to be shared between the state and private businesses when it comes to making Montana a friendly place for legal workers and an unfriendly one for illegal workers and those who would employ them. This means carefully written bills covering a broad range of measures -- this should not be a partisan issue.

The Tribune makes a brilliantly realistic suggestion

The Great Falls Tribune gave us an editorial supporting the Democratic plan to grow the Dept. of Revenue by roughly 100 employees. They make the standard arguments about why the bill should be passed, but the humorous part from the editors is this: "If lawmakers are worried about abuses, they can sunset it after a few years."

Right. The state government will hire on all of those new employees, and then just fire them in 2 to 4 years. Here are the words of Ronald Reagan in his famous "A Time for Choosing," AKA "The Speech", in 1964 that catapaulted him to national fame:

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth.

Sunday roundup and branding

George Ochenski on toxic waste: The Missoula Independent has a great column by the inimitable Ochenski about the shenanigans in Helena. Read it all. He likens Republicans to the "monkey-wrench gang" (BTW, Democrats will be surprised to know that a lot of us old-fashioned conservatives actually have a soft spot in our hearts for the late Edward Abbey -- you've just gotta like a guy who was so MYOB that he made sure no-one knew where in the desert he was buried.)

He talks about "the Democrats’ strategy, if you can call it that...." And so on.

The most important section is this, though:

The budget battle isn’t the only game in town. Last week Republicans asked where Schweitzer’s energy bills are and when he expects them to be introduced. Evan Barrett, the governor’s point man on energy development, glibly replied the administration was still working on them because they wanted them to be done right.

Needless to say, since energy development has been Schweitzer’s single-minded focus for most of the last two years, it’s more than a little puzzling why his administration wouldn’t have had its package of energy bills ready long ago. In fact, Republicans and Democrats alike should wonder why these particular policy bills weren’t drafted long before the session started so Montanans could take a good hard look at what’s coming our way in the energy arena.

Indeed. Republicans are right to be somewhat dismissive of Democrats' complaints about the lateness and secrecy of the "split the budget" plan, especially since the administration surely knew the ball-park figure of a 23% increase in proposed spending -- but neglected to tell anyone until after the election.

But the lack of any ability to examine the proposed energy plans (which we assume actually exist) this late in the session is truly remarkable. And it should be recalled that when Republicans said about their "6-pack" that they were "still working on them because they wanted them to be done right," Democrats didn't think it was an acceptable response. And the GOP got their bills in a month earlier than the Democrats' energy bills -- a month and counting...

Episode IV: A New Hope: "We capitulated," House Speaker Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, told reporters .... He characterized the GOP offer as "holding out an olive branch" to Democrats.

We said a couple of days ago that we have assumed that Republicans always had a plan B in case Democrats refused to cooperate in any way in passing their appropriations bills.

Speaker Sales made a good move by giving Democrats two things:

1. Bragging rights: after all, the Republicans capitulated, and they can be quoted as having said so.

2. The ability, it seems, essentially to write the Public Health and Human Services funding bill -- funding it exactly as the governor originally wanted, if they so choose. Given the importance of this Department to key Democratic constituents, this is no small thing.

It is a good backup plan. Now, we expect that Republicans have yet another plan in reserve. For this plan, too, depends on some level of Democratic cooperation -- something that has been in understandably short supply. While there is hope it might materialize under these circumstances, there is no reason to expect it, and Republicans need a creative plan C.

The Butcher of Winifred: We're not exactly sure when Democrats are going to stop being surprised or shocked by Ed Butcher's inability to open his mouth (or now, type on a keyboard) without saying something goofy. In elementary school, disruptors were most effectively dealt with by not giving them the attention they seemed to enjoy.

With as many educators as the Democrats have in Helena, one would think they would know how to apply this principle. We suppose they're using one of those those new-fangled disciplinary methods -- you know, the one's that don't work.

Anyway, getting back to Butcher, it seems that when offered the option of replying to an e-mail enquiry by writing something like, "I regret to inform you that I really can't support the 'Indian Education for All' bill -- thank you for writing to express your concern," Butcher rather wrote an essay on Native American anthropology and linguistics. It sounded like he said that Indians communicated in sign language rather than by speaking because of the primitive nature of their languages.

Ordinarily, we would assume that Butcher meant that Native Americans didn't have written languages, and thus a lot of knowledge about them is based on speculative reconstructions and possibly unreliable oral traditions. But this is Ed Butcher, so we unfortunately have to assume that he wrote what he actually meant. Sigh.

He also was criticized by Democrats for saying that some proponents of the program were "semi-literate." Democrats were wrongly bent out of shape about this, since we believe Butcher was actually referring to the writer of the AP article, who wrote about the "department that overseas" the educational program in question.

Regardless, Montana Headlines is beginning to wonder whether the Majority Whip shouldn't, in circumstances like these, take his job at least "semi-literally."

An earmark by any other name: A Great Falls Tribune editorial talks with joy about the fact that our U.S. Congressional delegation managed to bring home a few of pieces of bacon: a housing project at Malmstrom, the purchase of some Rocky Mountain Front conservation easements, and funding for 3 northern Montana water projects.

Very nice. Funny thing -- we haven't seen much in the Billings Gazette about nice pieces of pork coming our way here in Billings and eastern Montana. And we probably won't, since Conrad Burns is no longer on the Senate Appropriations committee to look out for our interests, and we doubt that Sens. Baucus and Tester will be doing anything much to help Denny Rehberg look good by bringing much to his home-town.

We've said it before to the Billings Gazette editors, and we'll say it again: thanks for "helping out" the city and region that makes you money by working to defeat its most powerful and heart-felt advocate in Washington.

Where's Sam?: The Sidney Herald has an update from its area legislators, but Sam Kitzenberg, who represents half of Richland County, was again missing from the line-up. Does the Herald not invite him to these phone conferences, or is he not particularly interested in the Richland County part of his Senate District? Topics of conversation include concerns over excessively strict environmental laws that will hurt traditional energy development. We really want to hear from both Richland County senators on that and other subjects of concern to eastern Montana.

"A Zumboing we go": Steve Woodruff at the Missoulian had a good piece on the firestorm drawn by the blogging comment of one of the deans of American outdoors writing, Jim Zumbo -- including excerpts from Woodruff's interview with Zumbo himself. Zumbo made the seemingly innocuous comment that "assault-style" rifles were inappropriate for hunting, but then unfortunately went so far as to say that "game departments should ban them from the prairies and woods."

We apparently have been living in the same vacuum that Zumbo was, since like him, we had no idea that these had proliferated in some corners as hunting rifles. While we understand and fully support the concern that Zumbo's detractors have for 2nd amendment rights, we certainly have thought (as apparently does Woodruff) that the fire Zumbo drew was unfair and disproportionate.

Zumbo is a hunter's hunter, and a bit of a purist -- might we say "traditionalist?" Proposing restrictions on a particular firearm in hunting is not the same at all as banning it from ownership or from non-hunting recreational use -- there are all sorts of restrictions of this sort. The problem with Zumbo's critique was that he proposed legislating aesthetics rather than safety or "fair chase" principles.

Zumbo is contrite, and not because it will cost him money, but because he doesn't want "to go down in history as a guy who betrayed America's gun owners." One hopes that America's gun owners take a deep breath and forgive the poor guy. And all of us who write regularly on the internet should take note of this passage from Woodruff:

I tracked Zumbo down by phone the other day, bracing myself for an unpleasant interview with a defensive, possibly combative subject.

I was surprised to find him open, contrite, reflective and not even the least bit bitter. He was thoughtful and engaging. He struck me as a nice guy.

As we spoke, I wondered whether the critics who cut him down might have been less brutal had they talked with him instead of merely typing responses to the words they read online.

Where's my Senator?: Anyone who has been around the blogosphere is aware of the "gotcha" lectures given by self-righteous lefties to Denny Rehberg's staff. For the uninitiated, when Jon Tester said his schedule would be posted on the internet for all to see, Rehberg responded to questions by saying that anyone who called to ask has always been able to learn what he is doing.

So, a few folks made it their mission in life to call the Rehberg office daily to ask for a schedule, and have made much about the fact that they haven't received a copy. Rehberg of course should simply have done what Max Baucus did when asked the same question and mumbled something unintelligible rather than say something clear that he could be held to.

Anyway, kudos to the The Western Word for noting that the famous Tester schedule hasn't been updated since March 14th. Wonder what Sen. Tester was up to late last week that he doesn't want anyone to know about -- and we wonder whether liberal bloggers will be writing solemn tomes about Tester's honesty, since he promised that he would always post his schedule.

Montana Dems are the "missing link"

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper spoke at the Montana Democratic Party's annual Mansfield-Metcalf Dinner on Saturday, calling Montana Democrats the "missing link."

Chalk one up for Tribune writer Gwen Florio, who hastened to make sure that astute readers wouldn't think that Hickenlooper meant that Montana Democrats were knuckle-dragging creatures half-way between apes and men. We wouldn't want Republicans to lose their Neanderthal status. We're kind of getting used to it and would feel a little hurt to share the limelight with our friends on the left.

Anyway, here's more from the Great Falls Tribune report:

"Western Democrats are pro-business and pro-environment. They believe in the power of collaboration and accessibility," he said. That outlook will help move the national Democratic party more toward the middle, he added.

Well, we can only hope.

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

Legislative campaign issues: The Gazette has an article that talks about the increasing amount of money that individuals are spending on their own legislative campaigns.

In spite of the fact that 2/3rds of all candidates in 2006 spent their own money on their campaigns, the AP writer was apparently unable to find Democrats to write about who had spent their own money on their races -- only two Republicans are listed.

This phenomenon of the self-financed candidate is only going to become more common, since raising any significant amount of money at $130 a pop is very slow going. The same is true on the national stage, where Senate races in particular are increasingly the realm of multi-millionaires. Montana would do well to raise significantly the maximum donations allowed to legislative and other state candidates.

Might candidates be beholden to someone who writes them a $1000 check? Well, maybe. But how beholden are they to a well-connected individual (such as a governor or a senior legislator) who uses his connections to raise $10,000 in $130 contributions? Or how beholden will they be to the party HQ that pours money into a tight race, even though the party's interests and their constituents' interests might not always coincide? These conflicts are going to happen no matter what -- they are just more hidden.

In another legislative election issue, the Sidney Herald had a good editorial recently about the negative effects that term limits have on a legislature. Here's an excerpt:

Rep. Walt McNutt (R-Sidney) used an example... when he spoke to House members about water rights. "I got a deer in the headlights look by about 95 of them."

He said having legislators with less experience is especially dangerous for eastern Montana and the agriculture industry. While the "old guard" understand the importance of agriculture in Montana, it's not always the case with new legislators.

Eve Franklin and the Demo-rockers: Charles Johnson reports that Gov. Schweitzer called the Democratic members of the House Appropriations Committee "rock stars." We'll have to trust the governor on that one, we suppose.

But what did they do to earn this honor? They did sit in the room gavel to gavel, but appeared mainly to be answering e-mail, playing video games, and reading romance novels -- looking up only to vote "no" on any vote that came along.

We got to see Rep. Eve Franklin voting against funding for the College of Technology in her home town of Great Falls (something that didn't make the Great Falls Tribune particularly happy.)

We got to see 8 slightly pouty-looking Democrats refusing even to vote for a letter of legislative intent coming from the committee, even though their remarks made it clear that they agreed with the letter. They insisted that they would write their own "minority report" letter, apparently lest they be "tainted" (to use Rep. Franklin's words in describing why the Democrats were voting "no" on everything) by having their signatures on the same piece of paper with a Republican. Cooties, one supposes.

Since no votes were ever in suspense (unless an amendment drew a couple of Republican opponents to join with the Democrats to defeat it), it was more interesting to study faces and to listen to the way that particular representatives cast their vote.

Eve Franklin spat out "no" on every vote almost before the clerk recording the vote could finish saying the final "-lin" in the words "Representative Franklin." Rep. McChesney, D-Miles City, barked out his nasal "no!" as though he was worried that someone might not hear him and somehow accidentally mistake his "no" for a tainted "yes."

Rep. Janna Taylor, R-Dayton, was seen at least once mouthing the word "no" and tossing her head slightly while looking down, beating the Democrat to the punch whose vote she was predicting. Another time when temporarily chairing the committee she made an exaggerated expression of mock surprise when announcing that an an amendment had passed by a vote of..... 11 to 8! (Party line.) Her frustration is more than understandable (as is the Democrats') and we're sure that everyone is getting tired, but it still looked a little catty -- and we really don't need that.

Rep. Sinrud, whose composure and command of the situation has been impressive (again, it continues to become more apparent why the Democrats seem to feel so threatened by this smart and competent Republican leadership team), remarked that the Democrats' strategy seems to be to "cut off the nose to spite the face."

And as the Tribune said, "it's hard to disagree that that's how it looks."

Double scoop: Sen. Jon Tester scooped Republican Denny Rehberg by beating him to the VA hospital at Ft. Harrison. And again, the Western Word scooped Montana Headlines by pointing out that Rehberg had announced March 8 that he was going to tour Ft. Harrison to look for insights into how Congress should address the problems at Walter Reed in D.C.

Demonstrating impressive kleptoparasitic skills, Tester quickly arranged a meeting with the VA Secretary in Washington and then rushed out to Ft. Harrison to get there before Rehberg could. He promptly declared it "a Montana jewel" -- ensuring that Rehberg would be incapable of beating him on the obsequity front either. Again, very impressive for a wide-eyed "aw, shucks" rookie.

Baucus and his bag of CHIPs: It seems that one can hardly even read the Thrifty Nickel recently without learning about Max Baucus's advocacy for the CHIP program. It is a good program, and deserves to be funded well, since providing adequate health-care for low-income children is a basic responsibility of a society capable of affording it.

But one can't help wondering if all of this flurry isn't an effort to ease some of the growing heat on Baucus from the left wing of his party here in Montana.

You see, Baucus in 2005 was tied for third place amongst Democratic U.S. Senators in his American Conservative Union score. It was a measly 24, but even a score that low is too high for those in "progressive" circles.

Normally right about now, Baucus would be kicking into his late-term swing to the right in preparation for campaign season, after 4 years of voting left. But the leftish heat that he is getting these days is going to make that a bit trickier this time around.

But who can argue with something done "for the sake of the children?" He'd better milk this one.

"Flier-gate" continues at GOP HQ: As if the fliers weren't enough, GOP party chairman Karl Ohs says he "might respond" to a letter written by Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Farrell, who asked him to "explain the apparent hypocrisy" of having the GOP HQ send out attack fliers while GOP legislators denounced them. Um, write the letter and apologize, Mr. Ohs. It's called damage control, and if you don't do it now, you're just going to make things more difficult on the Republicans who are running for those legislative seats in 2008.

But for Mr. Farrell's benefit, the "hypocrisy" is really quite simple to understand. The GOP legislators probably didn't have anything to do with the fliers -- a rather believable proposition since the fliers were in abysmal taste, were incapable of accomplishing anything constructive, and wasted money and good-will that the GOP can't afford to throw around in this kind of close-quarters legislative fight. Say what one will about the GOP legislative leadership, they've run a rather tighter ship than that this session -- and we believe they probably were busy with other things.

Not that the GOP party HQ has a corner on bad taste. Some of the most offensive fliers we've received over the years have been from the state Democratic party. We sort of look forward to the day before an election, since we never know what kind of late-hitting tasteless and distorted flier or robo-call we're going to get from the state Democratic party.

Just when you think they can't go any lower -- they do. So enough of the sanctimony, Mr. Farrell. We're ashamed of the state GOP e-briefs and of these fliers -- but not because of any particularly high standards that you folks set.

Parental consent for surgical procedures

Browsing around through the Montana press, Montana Headlines encountered this little piece of hand-wringing from the editors up at the Great Falls Tribune. Their editorial on legislation dealing with parental consent for a minor seeking an abortion does the "on the one hand...on the other hand" dance, and concludes that this is an issue where "reality and common sense collide."

As they note, common sense says that if a girl needs her parents permission to get a nose-ring, why not to get an abortion? Reality for them, however, is summarized in various hypothetical cases, wondering who will help the girl navigate the legal system.

There really is a simple solution to the issue of parental notification. If a surgeon performed a gall-bladder operation or liposuction on a minor without parental permission and there were complications and/or a bad outcome, he would be sued for far more money than had he received the parents' permission before doing the surgery. Failure to obtain permission from an adult would probably be considered evidence in and of itself of negligence.

So, forget legislating parental consent and a complicated bureaucratic system for a girl to negotiate. Just pass legislation specifically stating that in medical malpractice lawsuits against abortion providers in cases involving a minor, failure to obtain permission from a parent is to be treated with the same prejudice that it would be for any other surgical procedure.

Furthermore, pass legislation specifying that malpractice insurance companies are not obligated to pay on malpractice cases involving minors receiving an abortion without parental consent.

Some adult has to take responsibility for the decision, and abortion advocates repeatedly tell us that this should be a decision between a woman (or girl) and her doctor. Logically, then, when a minor seeks an abortion, there is only one adult in the room, and that adult should take full responsibility.