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October 28, 2006
Jack Wells Launches A Whopper
Yesterday evening I was driving around town and heard Representative Jack Wells say this on talk radio: "Of course I'm in favor of these alternative energy proposals that people bring forward". Good thing I wasn't sipping from my water bottle. I would have spewed all over the windshield, I was laughing so hard.
To see why, let's just check the oficial voting record on the major alternative energy bills in the 2005 legislative session. We can start with Jon Tester's SB415, the wind energy bill that resulted in Montana vaulting from 48th to 15th in nationwide alternative energy production. Of course, Jack Wells voted against it. Twice. Check the record yourself, here and here.
While you're at it, notice that all of the rest of the Gallatin Republican house members voted against it, too. That's Sinrud, Sales, Koopman, and this campaign's Mister Bipartisan, Bill Warden.
Funny, wind energy is the best rural economic development we have going. It means fat rent checks for ag landowners who host windmills, and jobs in tiny rural communities to take care of the equipment. Jack Wells represents western Gallatin county, where they have lots of ag land and lots of wind. Same for Scott Sales, whose district runs from Bozeman to East Helena. Why do you suppose these guys wouldn't push the green button to actually help their constituents?
How about biodiesel? Ag producers can grow their own fuel by raising oilseeds, and take part in producer cooperatives to process the crop into diesel. That's real economic development in rural Montana, and real energy independence, too. We had two important biodiesel bills. How did Wells show his support? He voted no, of course, which you can see here and here. And here and here.
And on every one of those votes, Wells was accompanied by Koopman, Sinrud, and Sales in saying no.
And ethanol, which would provide Jack's ag constituents with another market for grain? Nope, Jack voted no here and here, along with the full complement of Gallatin House Republicans: Sales, Sinrud, Koopman, and Warden.
Every one of those four bills were signed into law by Governor Schweitzer. Jack Wells, along with Koopman, Sales, and Sinrud, had a perfect record of voting no. Warden at least batted .500 by supporting the biodiesel bills. I'll leave it up to his constituents to determine if .500 is good enough, or if Bill's opponent JP Pomnichowski might do better by batting 1000.
So Jack Wells is campaigning to get his House seat back, and claims that "of course I'm in favor of these alternative energy proposals." His voting record is exactly the opposite. What do you call it when a politician votes so doggedly one way, then goes home and says something completely different, just because it's what the voters want to hear? I start with hooey and hogwash, and get stronger from there.
Voters in western Gallatin County who really do think that alternative energy is important would be better off voting for the candidate who really supports the effort. That's Loren Acton, not Jack Wells. And in northern Gallatin and Broadwater counties, that would be Laura Obert instead of Scott Sales.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2006
Koopman Calls a Rove Play
You know how Karl Rove perverts elections. He takes his candidate's biggest weakness, then attacks his opponent on it.
Bozeman's Roger Koopman is trying to pull this same trick on his opponent for a Montana House seat, John Vincent. Vincent, a long-time legislator himself and a current Gallatin County commissioner, is rightly holding Roger accountable for his voting record in the 2005 legislative session.
We had a number of bills trying to get a grip on the methamphetamine problem. I sponsored three of them myself. And Roger has a terrible voting record on meth. So when Vincent points this out, what does Koopman do? He's running newspaper ads attacking John Vincent for, believe it or not, not being enough of a warrior on meth.
What Koopman is saying is, shame on John Vincent for not doing Koopman's job. That's the Karl Rove play.
Those of us in Bozeman with long memories remember the first half of the 90's when Roger Koopman wrote the biweekly rightwing screed in the Bozeman Chronicle now so ably authored by Tammy Hall.
Like Tammy, Roger spent years smearing, sneering, and jeering at anyone who disagreed with him. There are a lot of us. I especialy remember the time that he labelled me and my friends at Montanans Against Toxic Burning as Nazis for committing the terrible offense of demanding that a multinational corporation, well, you know, obey the law.
So now Roger has to actually be accountable for his official actions. Like so many conservatives who are plenty loud about how everyone needs to be accountable for their actions, he doesn't like it when it's his own actions on the judgement table. And his first instinct is to make a character attack on his opponent.
Maybe this is the year when the voters see through this.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)
Republicans Don't Want To Be Republicans In 2006
We're seeing it all over the state. After years of muscle-flexing conservatism and in-your-face politics, our Republican friends and cousins now want to talk about how bipartisan they are.
Funny how the national meltdown of the Republican Party and a highly popular Democratic governor have combined to make our local right-wingers ready to change their tune.
Of course, during the 2005 legislative session these same guys fought Governor Schweitzer tooth and nail. They were against pretty much everything he was for. Education, health insurance, alternative energy, tax policy, you name it, if Schweitzer was for it, they were agin' it.
But now that their elections are threatened, they are claiming to be bipartisan. Up in the northeast corner of Montana, Karl Waitsches, who is a leader in the Republican House caucus and powerful chairman of the taxation committee, is running on a bipartisan platform. His opponent Julie French is rightfully calling him on it.
Here in Bozeman, first-term legislator Bill Warden is pulling the same trick. Whe it was time to vote, he lined up with the rightwingers who run the Republican caucus time after time. Back home and running for reelection, he's judging which way the wind is blowing. His opponent JP Pomnichowski, like Julie French, is holding him accountable.
There is nothing wrong with being partisan, in my opinion. Legislating is a team sport. But you shouldn't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in when you're talking to the voters.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2006
Sending the Money Back
With three weeks to go to election day, we're reaching the freakout stage of the campaign. That's when it becomes apparent that there is not going to be enough money or time to do what needs to be done: knock on enough doors, send enough direct mail pieces, buy enough radio or tv time, or make enough phone calls.
The deadline is fixed and immutable. There will be no do-overs, no mulligans, no overtime, no incomplete grades, no grace period. November 7th is it. Last call, end of the line, game over, no second chances.
People who take up this crazy hobby get very stressed out in October. We tend to not sleep well.
So this evening I'm going through another one of the weekly 10 inch tall stacks of mail that come with this territory, and I come across a letter from a trade association for accountants. In it is a check for $130, the maximum allowable, made out to my campaign. For reasons not fully explained, they want me to have their money.
I do with this check exactly the same thing I've done with the checks from political action committees representing the power company, the unions, the environmental associations, the banking organization, and the national-class politician. I write a polite letter thanking them for their support, and I send it back.
This is my third campaign, and I've managed to do this every time. When I spent my nutty 88 days being a citizen legislator last year, it worked completely to my advantage. The lobbyists know. They can't be my new best friend. I won't let them buy me anything bigger than a cup of coffee.
I do support many of their causes. I'm high up on the voting scorecards of the unions and the environmental outfits, for example. But it works better if I steer clear of their campaign money.
As a result, I get a certain amount of respect. Everything is on the table, and my arm isn't getting twisted by the invisible hands of self-interest and hidden motives. So I can make decisions for all the right reasons.
But tonight, when I'm in campaign freakout mode and want to buy more advertising or more mail to send my message to my voters and seal the deal, I have to draw the line and give something up. It sure would be nice to spend their money, and not very many people would notice if I did. But the job I'm asking for is to represent 9,000 citizens, not the special interests.
If the voters choose to send me back to Helena, I'll be able walk the halls of the capitol without having to fend off all of my new best friends. And I'll be able to sleep at night. That's good enough.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)
Racicot Pimping for Burns
As if this election hasn't gotten deep enough. The other evening Marc Racicot came into my living room to tell me what a great an honorable man Conrad Burns is.
That's the same Marc Racicot who as governor of Montana signed off on the single worst pubic policy put forth in our state since the days of the copper collar. That would be deregulation, of course.
That's the same Marc Racicot who lawyered up for George Bush to steal the 2000 election, and the same Marc Racicot who was chairman of the Republican National Committee when Tom Delay was using the RNC to launder illegal corporate money into Texas legislative campaigns.
That's the same Marc Racicot who, after saddling half a million Montanans with higher power bills forever, went off to Washington to collect his reward as a lobbyist for Enron. That would be the famous nest of liars, thieves, con artists, and embezzlers who ripped off the entire West in 2000 and 2001 before imploding in a spectacular bankruptcy that left everybody sucking air except the chosen few.
That's the same Marc Racicot who, during his years as Attorney General and Governor, managed to not notice that hundreds of his friends and neighbors back in his home town of Libby were dropping dead of a mysterious lung disease. Well, maybe we can give him a pass on that one, because not a single newspaper in Montnan noticed either, until a Seattle paper scooped them all to break the story.
But that is the same Marc Racicot, now head of the American Insurance Association, who is dedicating his days to screwing the people of... wait for it... Libby!
The W.R. Grace asbestosis scandal is the largest industrial poisoning episode in American history. That's quite a competition to win when you're up against Love Canal and Three Mile Island. Racicot is lobbying against legislation that would deliver financial support to the same folks he grew up with, people who are dying a long and miserable death akin to slow-motion drowning.
And now Marc Racicot is appearing on our televisions, laying out more of his famous blarney, to convince us that Conrad Burns is just the guy to represent our interests in Washington.
After all Marc has done for us here in Montana, I intend to take that advice for exactly what it's worth. We'll have to judge Marc by the company he's keeping these days. And keep one hand on our wallets.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 08:10 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2006
Republicans Propose Tuition Cut They Can't Possibly Deliver
You have to admire the sheer gall of these guys. Yesterday, a covey of Republican legislative candidates appeared with Congressman Rehberg over at MSU, promising to cut tuition by five percent when the Legislature meets this year.
Wow. Talk about promising something they can't deliver.
These guys better check the Montana Constitution. The Legislature doesn't set tuition, the Board of Regents does. In fact, because of generations of micromanaging and political vendettas carried out by politicians with an intellectual axe to grind, our 1971 Constitution expressly removed any kind of U-system oversight from the Legislature and gave it to the new Board of Regents, to be appointed by the Governor.
It's the Regents who have complete control over the U-system budget. Salaries, hiring and firing, expenditures, and yes, tuition.
Never mind that tuition has gone up every year for 15 years in a row due to the exact same conservative policies that our Republican campaigners believe in and vote for. Never mind that 16 years of Republican-appointed Regents carried out the conservative dictum that everybody is on their own in a cruel world, and if kids can't pay or take on a fat debt, they're just out of luck.
Never mind that Pat Davisson, the chairman of the Regents during the '90's when tuition was skyrocketing, spent a bunch of time insisting on ever lower taxes for his stockbroking clients at the same time that he was voting to jack up the student tax, a.k.a. tution. Never mind that Davison himself has been indicted for running a $9 million Ponzi scheme at the exact same time that he was running for Governor two years ago.
For these guys to promise to lower tuition now is like some yahoo crashing his pickup through your living room wall, then jumping out of the truck and giving you a pitch. "Hey, looks like you got a problem here. I'm a contractor, let me fix this for you, whaddaya say?"
Would you let him pull out his hammer and saws? No way!
Same deal with these legislative wannabes. It was their philosophy that broke the system, and until they're ready to face up to that, they ought not to be making promises that they can't keep. In this case they don't even own the hammers and saws. And the rest of us should know enough of our own history to know that.
If the Regents aren't on board the tuition-cutting train, then it ain't leaving the station. And they aren't.
Not that something isn't being done about tuition.
What the Regents have committed to with Governor Schweitzer is this: if the Legislature puts up $50 million in new money, they will hold the line on tuition next year. That's the deal that's on the table. It's the first time in over a decade that there has even been a discussion like that, with the responsible parties making public commitments.
How to fix tuition in the long run?
1. Admit that the conservatives are wrong. Higher education is a public good, and deserves the support of the taxpayers for the common good of all.
2. Change the governance of the system to make the Regents accountable to students, parents, and taxpayers. That requires tinkering with the Constitution.
3. Require the Regents and the Legislature to stop paying poker with the U-system budget. Everybody puts their cards on the table and we enact long-range planning. The Legislature commits to a definite funding level, and the Regents commit to a long-term tuition schedule instead of the year-by-year mystery game we have now.
4. Put limits on the size of the system. The presidents of the big schools have been growing their gardens out of control for years. When do we start talking about pruning the garden?
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 08:19 AM
October 08, 2006
The Anger is Serious
So I'm out there knocking on doors six nights a week now, talking to voters about what Democrats accomplished in the 2005 Montana Legislature, and about what we'd like to do this winter should the voters grant us comtrol of the Legislature for the first time in 16 years.
I can tell you this: the people are pissed off.
Really. Pissed. Off.
I'm talking git-a-rope angry.
On top of the lies, the war, the corruption, the bribery, the looting of the treasury, and the incompetence, we now have the Republican leadership in Congress covering for a sex predator, for the purpose of keeping themselves in power. Family values, indeed. And the citizens are talking about it.
Just this evening I heard two rants on the war and one on the Foley scandal. My job is to stand there and listen, nodding my head from time to time. I think of this as Brady's door-to-door political counseling service.
People detest being lied to. And now they've been served a big, heaping, steaming platter of hypocrisy. In four weeks we'll know if they're going to answer with their votes.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 08:02 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2006
Republican Congress Murders Bill of Rights, Nobody Notices
Lost in the media feeding frenzy about the pediphile scandal in Congress is the news that just before they adjourned eight days ago, the Republican Congress murdered the Bill of Rights. And our echo-chamber media and freedom-loving conservative friends have been completely silent.
That's right, the Republicans jammed through the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gives dicatorial powers to George Bush. He can now declare anyone (including US citizens) to be an 'enemy combatant', and have them thrown into a military prison forever, without charges, attorney, or trial. And they can be tortured, too.
That means that the right of habeus corpus has been flushed. That's the one that says you can't be held in prison without reason. It dates back through 800 years of common-law rights to the Magna Carta, which was the first step on the long road from rule by despots to rule by the people. The power of indiscriminate imprisonment is the hallmark of kings and dicatators.
And it means that our cherished ideals of freedom for all and rights for the accused, have been thrown into the dump.
Can you imagine what our freedom-loving conservative friends and cousins would have done if Bill Clinton had tried this? They'd have pretty much gone ballistic, would be my guess.
Conservatism has failed, is my belief. How did 19 Saudis with box cutters turn the United States into a police state with 300 million people under surveillance, and a leader of questionable character who can now order anyone into a dungeon?
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 06:44 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2006
Dragging Tester Into the Gutter
I'm up in Helena for the day, and ran into Jim Farrell, who is the Executive Director of the Montana Democratic Party. He explained the strategy of the Burns campaign. "When your guy is behind, and you can't bring his numbers up, your only choice is to smear the other guy".
Jim went on to explain, in somewhat stronger terms, how bad it is. He showed me the Burns mail piece that accuses Tester of supporting child abuse. It's truly vile. "This is the kind of piece they would normally use to close a campaign, but this year it's their opener."
Stand by for worse. Much worse. Conrad's got $8 million of ugly to unload. His corporate pals are desperate for him to win, because if the Democrats take control of either the House or Senate, you can look forward to Truman-style hearings where we get the names and addresses of the folks who have been bribing our Congress and ripping off the Federal treasury.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2006
This Is Your Family Values Party
In addition to Congressman Mark Foley, who resigned last Friday after being exposed as a pedophile, we have the Congressional Republican leadership, who knew about Foley for at least nine months and did exactly nothing about it.
For those of you who are keeping score, here is a list of 40 Republicans from around the country who pleaded or were convicted of child sex crimes.
Here in Montana, we have the following family values Republicans:
Representative Rick Maedje of Fortine, currently a candidate for Lincoln County Commission, was arrested in May on suspicion of partner assault, meaning that he allegedly beat up his wife.
Tom Opre from the Swan Valley, who is running for the Montana House, was charged in August with misdemeanor partner assault, which means he allegedly beat up his wife.
Representative Jack Ross of Absarokee was sentenced in March for misdemeanor DUI.
And finally we have Pat Davison, who ran for Governor two years ago, being charged in August with defrauding his securities clients for a million two. The charges were later expanded to running a Ponzi scheme for a cool six million, while he was running for governor.
Until July, Davison was the co-chair of Senator Conrad Burns' finance committee.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)