Out-of-staters are behind three divisive initiatives

by HUGO TURECK
Coffee Creek
H.D. 29 Candidate

Lewistown News-Argus (written week of Sept. 4, prior to Judge Sandefur and Judge Honzel rulings)

On Nov. 7, we as voters will be doing more than just electing those who will represent us over the next 2 to 6 years. We will also vote on three initiatives that are controversial, and, I might add, divisive. They are CI-97 (State Spending Limit), CI-98 (Judge Recall), and I-154 (Pay or Waive Takings Initiative).

Representative Ed Butcher and his son have spent countless hours working to get these on the ballot. However, the initiatives were written and are being funded by big-money out-of-staters. Initiative I-154 is being bankrolled by developers from New York City and other outside developers who want to develop large parts of Montana without giving Montanans any say. Finally, most of the people gathering signatures for all of the petitions were from out-of-state and were paid thousands of dollars by the same developers.

It is important to note that these radical initiatives are being pushed in five other western states by the same out-of-staters that are simply moving from state to state.

Contrast this to past “citizen” initiatives that we have voted on in Montana. Those initiatives were written in Montana by Montanans. The people gathering signatures were Montanans and most likely volunteers and the money to fund these efforts was largely Montana money.

Over the next weeks I will discuss each of these initiatives in detail. Today, I want to raise a couple of issues about why Ed Butcher passed up the chance to run these initiatives through the legislative process.

During the Martz administration Ed Butcher was a Senator when Republicans held large majorities in both the House and the Senate. He could have submitted all three of these as Senate Bills where they could have been debated.

Debating the issues as bills would have given the proponents a chance to talk about the intended consequences of the measures. However, debating these bills would have also exposed the many unintended extreme consequences.

The same holds true for this last session where Ed was a simple representative (it must be more important to be a Senator as Ed continues to refer to himself as a Senator).

Our legislative process is a process that protects us as citizens by providing as much public scrutiny as possible on legislation that will affect our lives. It allows us the greatest opportunity for input as we can deal directly with our representatives. Furthermore, if these types of legislation were passed they would be much easier to amend or to get rid of as bad legislation with public input.

Ed did not have to ask his representative to present the ideas in these initiatives as bills — Ed was and is a representative. So why did Rep. Butcher choose to avoid using the legislative process, the very process he was elected serve? I believe the answer is obvious — the bills would have failed when openly debated. They would have failed when Republicans controlled the house and senate as well as the more recent session where the Senate was controlled by the Democrats and the House was evenly divided.

Rather, Ed chose to use the initiative process where dialogue and discussion is less public. Where big out-of-state funders can produce propaganda that makes the measures sound good. It is a process that lends itself to 30-second sound bites. It is a process where images, stereotypes and labels rule the day instead of in-depth public analysis. Most of us have seen Travis Butcher driving around in his pickup with the rather large blowup pig representing government pork.

There is no discussion about what pork, and, most importantly no discussion about how CI-97 would solve the problem. Finally, there is no discussion about how this constitutional amendment might create more problems than it solves.

These types of propaganda play on our fears, our angers and our anxieties. They are the tools of radical ideologues.

The Initiative process is a sound, democratic process that can serve to make government more responsive. It also can be subverted for far less noble reasons! Understand this, Montana already has protections created by Montanans, not out-of-state, big-money interests that address most of the three issues that Ed Butcher is proposing.

Postscript: At the latest court hearing on the validity of these initiatives, Trevis Butcher testified under oath that these were the creation of and funded by out-of-state interests. Several identical initiatives written and funded by these same groups were thrown off of the ballot in Oklahoma. People gathering signatures on constitutional initiatives in Oklahoma are required by law to be residents of Oklahoma. We have no such law.

We need to ensure that changing the Montana Constitution remains a Montana process. Passing a law requiring those gathering signatures be Montana Citizens would be a step in the right direction. Just think – it could be done using the legislative process without opening up our constitution.

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