Montana’s suicide crisis continues to make national news. Easy access to firearms and a paucity of rural healthcare availability no doubt contribute to Montana consistently landing among the top states for suicides per capita. Now, Montana Republicans are targeting our most vulnerable- Queer kids.
Suicide is already the second leading cause of death for kids in the United States, and LGBTQ+ kids are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers.
Interestingly, Montana’s own DPPHS report addresses the increased risk of suicide among LGBTQ+ kids. The report also notes, “Each episode of LGBTQ victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times on average.” Read the DPPHS report here: https://dphhs.mt.gov/assets/suicideprevention/SuicideinMontana.pdf
Preventing youth suicide would seem like a given. But let’s not pretend the MT GOP supermajority has any shred of decency. Rather than provide resources and funding to bring these tragic numbers down, Republicans instead are attempting to withhold healthcare for Queer Montanans. (Yes, we believe even those Montanans under 18 still count as whole, self-determining humans worthy of representation in our government.)
Enter the “Slate of Hate” as it has been branded by multiple non-profit agencies and human rights activists. The Montana Human Rights Network has identified a whopping 54 bills in the 2023 session with clear anti-lgbtq goals. Unsurprisingly, a number of those bills are sponsored by Great Falls’ own embarrassments, including “I Don’t Have to Pay Fair Property Taxes’ Jeremy Trebas and the world’s worst landlord, Lola Sheldon Galloway. More about these bills will be shared below.
Most urgent is SB 99, proposed by another Flathead-area bigot, Senator John Fuller. Fuller’s bill seeks to deny gender affirming care to minors. SB 99 would totally eliminate the rights of children and their parents to make appropriate medical decisions in consultation with qualified medical professionals. If this bullshit bill sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve literally heard it all before. Fuller introduced an incredibly similar bill during the 2021 session, which ultimately died on the Senate floor. But its a new session, and Senator Fuller still has a burning desire to watch Queer kids die. Denying them healthcare is one of the best ways to do that.
Montana’s own Health and Human Services agency recognizes the acute risk of being an lgbtq+ teen. Further, data also shows that gender affirming care SAVES lives. Yes, the very care Fuller wants to eliminate is what helps many kids survive into adulthood. Here’s a quick recap of a study showing the importance of gender-affirming care: https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/gender-affirming-care-saves-lives
Perhaps Fuller and his ilk aren’t aware of this data. More likely, they hate Queer people enough that they would simply prefer us dead. If verbal harassment doubles the rate of lgbtq+ youth self-harm, what effect are these GOP bills having on our kids? If this bill passes, our answer will be found in the local Obituaries.
Take Action To Stop SB 99
The good news is that the 2023 session has shown us the power of pushing back. We saw Keith Reiger immediately walk back his attempt to dismantle reservations after the idea was met with tremendous national backlash. Like most bullies, Republicans back down quickly when someone stands up and says “No more.”
Enter you, dear reader. You have an opportunity to stop Fuller’s bill, and the entire Slate of Hate, all from the comfort of your home. The bill is being heard this Friday, January 27, 2023. Follow this link to submit written testimony to OPPOSE SB 99 in the SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE. https://leg.mt.gov/public-testimony/
The E-City Beat opinion piece entitled“Mob Rule Dominates Great Falls Public Education Meeting” (1/4/2023) grabbed my attention. Its author Jeni Dodd identified herself as a “creative, multi-faceted, multi-talented, knowledge junkie. Liberty, integrity, truth, and critical thinking are among my most important precepts.”
Having attended that meeting, I found her article title completely confounding. So, I read the first sentence.
“Amid a chorus of boos and shout-downs, there were a few brave souls that dare (sic) to express opinions unpopular to the summoned mob.”
Wow! We must have attended different meetings. This “mob” consisted of an engaged, but largely respectful group of parents, current and former teachers, administrators, and legislators. Ms. Dodd followed that introductory grenade by stating that the above sentence was “my overall impression of the recent meeting … .”
Was she dreaming?
Ms. Dodd continued by “blowing” the line of communication that led to almost 200 people attending the meeting:
“… Moore originated the communication by sending an email to Great Falls Rising, who then forwarded it to the Cascade County Democrat Central Committee, who sent it via Mail Chimp to their mailing list.”
I sincerely doubt that only Great Falls Rising forwarded the communication to the Cascade County Democrat Central Committee. There were at least two other sources sharing communication about the meeting, each of which had CCDCC members as part of their email lists. The CCDCC could have gotten the information from any number of sources.
Ms. Dodd blustered on, “Moore approached me after the event, and I was surprised when he ask (sic) me if he had answered my question.”
The question wasn’t hers; Rep. Krebs demanded that Sup. Moore defend how he had come to hear about the meeting. Ms. Dodd later followed up by pointing her hypothetical finger at Sup. Moore as she rudely asserted, “You didn’t answer his question!!!!”
“I also let him know I had seen the message he sent to his so-called ‘partners’ and asked, ‘Who were these partners?’”
“He answered, ‘I sent an email to Great Falls Chamber, Yes to Education and the education advocacy group Great Falls Rising.’”
“By the way, his words, not mine, categorizing Great Falls Rising as an ‘education advocacy group.’ I would beg to differ.”
“I don’t know about you, but when someone won’t give a straight yes or no answer and instead, deflects questions and redirects to another topic, it makes me uneasy and suspicious. I subsequently told Moore that this wasn’t the first time I’d seen him evade and avoid answering questions.”
Really? I think Sup. Moore directly answered Ms. Dodd’s question. Maybe she should ask the real question: why does the MT OPI not want the educators it is meant to support attending meetings it organizes?
Here’s my impression of the Anrtzen’s “faux” public education meeting.
Sup. Arntzen organized the forum to attract a specific minority of Montana residents in each of the towns she visited. She did this by selectively sending meeting notices through certain sources to get the audience she wanted to interact with – Republican legislators so that they could use the meetings as a way to spread disinformation and raise popular support for for passing anti-public education legislation. (She held a fifth “forum” on January 2nd at the Capitol Building attended by her selected audience and, I would guess to her dismay, Occupy Montana Leg attendees there to express their opinions during the opening session of the Legislature. They watched as the meeting that she had tried to orchestrate in Great Falls actually played out in Helena (as it had in the first three meetings she produced in other Montana cities.) They said wildly conspiratal things: that public schools are “confusing” students by moving “far, far Left”, and that school administrator positions are a waste of taxpayer money.
Sup. Arntzen’s selection of the first four Montana cities for these “productions” (Kalispell, Stevensville, Billings, and Great Falls) is illustrative of Sup. Arntzen’s true purposes. She did not list Bozeman, Missoula, Helena, or Butte. What’s the difference? The four cities that got selectively-sent notices were Republican and the four which did not were Democrat.
The “chorus of booss” referenced by Ms. Dodd was directed at Sen. Emrich’s (R) suggestion that the inadequacy of funding for education could be addressed by reducing the funding directed toward school administrators. The “shout-downs” were an automatic shock response by attendees to the suggestion that too much funding was going to administrators and that reducing administrator funding could begin to adequately address the education shortfall. It was also a result of the obvious, insidious attempt to pit teachers against administrators by Sen. Emrich and other Arntzen “production” partners including Rep. Kerns. But Sup. Arntzen et al totally misjudged their audience. At one point, she asked the attendees who support public schools to raise their hands. With the exception of these legislators, nearly the entire room did raise their hands. Sup. Arntzen had an agenda she wanted to communicate, but she was forced to read the room. Regrettably for her, educators and parents were allowed to voice their very real concerns about education in Cascade and surrounding counties.
Ms. Dodd concluded her fallacy-filled confabulation with this:
“A picture emerged from my attendance at this forum and it isn’t a pretty one— the picture that far too many of the summoned bunch that attended don’t want parents and taxpayers to have a voice with OPI and legislators in a public forum— at least not a voice that they can’t control.”
Ms. Dodd, in the above quote, got it backwards. In fact, the Great Falls “bunch” was a voice that they (Sup. Arntzen et al) could NOT control.
Below is a summary of the suggestions coming from many of the meeting’s “uncontrollable” attendees:
We must pay our educators a salary commensurate with the responsibility they bear for our most valuable resource, our children.
We must bookend traditional K-12 education with
(a) public preschools taught by certified teachers in all school systems and
(b) direct connections to post-secondary training/education leading to jobs.
3. We must address the mental health/substance-abuse issues that threaten our children.
4. We must fully fund the woefully underfunded federal special education mandate
Readers of this commentary, please look carefully if you see/ any legislators referencing parent/public comment as a basis for an education bill. If the reference differs from the four suggestions listed above, they may have originated from a deceptively choreographed series of meetings like Sup. Arntzen’s that produced a predetermined result supporting the game plan of the MT Republican party to destroy Montana’s vitally important public education system.
Finally, Ms. Dodd failed in her self-proclaimed devotion to liberty, integrity, truth, and critical thinking. In fact, her opinion piece is filled with untruth, emotionally-based conclusions, and attempts to manipulate its readers.
Integrity? Sadly, Ms. Dodd, on that criteria you earned an “F”!
Having a great morning, sipping on some tea from my favorite local coffee shop. Knowing in the peripheries of my mind that somewhere, somehow, a Cascade County Representative was making a mockery of themselves and our city. But alas, I was blissfully unaware of exactly what was occurring.
And then it happened.
A friend sent a photo of Great Falls’ very own, LOLA (aggressive capitalization intended) Sheldon-Galloway sporting a vomit-inducing, repugnant fringe number while attending today’s House Judiciary Committee meeting which included a hearing on HB 163 – a missing and murdered Indigenous women task force bill.
I’d say that seeing the photo was like watching a car crash, but it’s more like watching those cyst removal videos on Tik Tok. Like, “Damn, I don’t want to see this but apparently the universe wanted to present this to me.” You don’t *really* want to witness it, but it’s now been put in front of your face, and even though your stomach kind of hurts and you want to look away… you can’t.
Since “Discovery” [insert a massive eye roll here], Indigenous people, particularly women, have been stolen from their homes and forced to perform sexual acts with, carry out manual labor for, and bear children to colonizers. A major contributing factor to this? The sexualization, fetishization, and dehumanization of Indigenous people. When colonizers, and particularly those holding political office, have woven legal policies and heighten rotten social customs to distance themselves from Indigenous people we get: LOLA, in fringe.
Truly, it doesn’t take the late Joan Rivers to point out what an atrocity the caped leather vest is, especially paired with what appeared to be double braids in her hair. But we’re not here to pretend play ‘Fashion Police’, as fun as that may be. What we are here for is to call out our local representation to leave sexualized imagery of Indigenous people in the past, not present it on a statewide platform in Committee meetings.
While we’d love to believe that LOLA has turned a page and today’s get up is how she’s showing her support and solidarity for the MMIW/MMIP crisis (however misguided), her documented history of voting against protecting and uplifting Indigenous people makes it hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Some specific instances from back in 2019 include: a no vote to HB 33 – a bill to extend a Montana Indian Language Preservation program, voting no to HB 42 – a bill to extend the Cultural Integrity and Commitment Act, and yet another no to HB 135 – a bill to create a tribal college credit transfer and student opportunity task force.
Knowingly using the likeness and sterotypical, wild west fantasy-esque imagery of Indigenous people while simultaneously and continuously proposing legislation that will no doubt harm that same population is right on track for LOLA.
Today’s showing is a good reminder that LOLA is in fact simply one of many wolves in sheep’s clothing (or colonizers clothing) ‘representing’ Great Falls.
We’ve just entered Week 3 of the 2023 Legislative Session, and boy has it been eventful. Republicans have floated a number of bad bills, many of which have already been abandoned due to public backlash. Although attacks on Indigenous sovereignty and medical privacy have grabbed headlines, there are GOOD things happening too.
Let’s take a look at a few bills that will help Montanans.
Senator MaryAnn Dunwell (D- SD42) and Jonathan Karfen (D-HD96) have drafted HB 252 which seeks to increase access to mental health services for Montana youth. Increasing mental health access is literally a matter of life or death. Montana has the 3rd highest suicide rate in the nation. Bills like this one can help protect our kids and keep them alive.
Dunwell has been busy and is already facing significant pushback from shady Republicans.Republicans killed her floor amendment to increase legislative transparency.The proposed amendment would have required legal review notes be attached to each bill. These notes are important because when the Leg passes laws that are unconstitutional or otherwise illegal, Montana taxpayers foot the bill. Last session Rs passed several laws that they knew wouldn’t hold up to judicial scrutiny and ultimately lost in court. Preventing access to these legal notes is an indication that they plan to waste our time and money this time around too.
Kelly Kortum (D- HD65) introduced HB201 to raise the minimum wage, combatting the inflation that has brought many Montanans closer to poverty. Kortum also introduced a bill draft that would protect renters. The bill would require rental application fees be refunded for applicants who aren’t selected for the rental unit. In another shady Republican move, this bill has been sent to the wrong committee- the Judiciary committee- where it is clear that Rs intend to kill it.
Representative S.J. Howell (D-HD95) introduced their bill to increase access to childcare. HD 238 supports the Best Beginnings program, a vital resource for working families in need of daycare.
So let’s round that up. We’ve got Democrats fighting for working Montanans who deserve a living wage, protecting kids through access to mental health services, helping parents access childcare, and assuring our government is following the law.
This is only a small slice of the action so far. What is abundantly clear is that Democrats are pursuing issues important to Montanans. Republicans are pursuing an extremist agenda that diminishes our freedoms and wastes our tax dollars. You get what you vote for.
Our state has a rich and deep labor history. Individuals began joining together to collectively advocate for themselves and their workplaces years before Montana even became a state. That’s right, Montana unions and the spirit of collective action has been “Montana” even before Montana was Montana.
Fast forward to present, and Montana and its citizens are still heavily steeped in labor tradition and philosophy, even for our non-unionized neighbors. Montana is the ONLY state in the union with worker protections enshrined in our laws- one of the biggest being Montana’s wrongful termination law. Montana is the only non at-will state in the U S of A, meaning that outside of a designated probationary period, law requires the employer to have just cause for terminating an employee. Montana is truly unique and has always valued the labor and contributions of its sons and daughters through worker protections like just cause laws and the right to unionize and collectively bargain. Even after Federal and State lawmakers over the decades have made it their mission to diminish the strength of unions and therefore effectively stifle the voices of the working citizens of Montana (ya know, the people they work for), the labor movement perseveres.
OUR RIGHTS UNDER ATTACK
The 2021 Legislature saw many an anti-labor bill, but like a true David and Goliath story, Montanans came out in droves to demonstrate our love for our fellow citizens, their labor, and the best vehicle workers have to maintain a proverbial and sometimes literal seat at the table- unions. Now, make no mistake, no one thought the detractors who put millions of dollars into stifling the voices of the average worker were just going to go away. Much like a mosquito, they continue to annoy and look for any opportunistic moment to swoop in and feed on the lifeblood of our state. Oh, and by the way, they dont always play fair.
On Tuesday January 16th, 2023, the house judiciary committee will hear HB 216 (Mercer- R- HD 46). Some of the things in the bill are redundant and have already been secured at the federal level with the Janus decision, and at the state level with last sessions HB 289 (generally revise labor laws relating to employee associations- passed), others are just reintroductions of parts and pieces of bills that failed in the last session. Let’s start with the redundancies and a little back story. Section 2(2) states “A public employee may not be required to become or remain a member of, or financially support, a labor organization as a condition of obtaining or retaining public employment.” Prior to the Janus v AFSME decision issued by the US Supreme Court in 2018, unions were able to collect an agency fee from non members, which was essentially a small fee the union could charge non-members to help cover the costs of the work that they are still required to do whether the individual working in the respective collective bargaining unit chose to be a member or not. These were not dues, and the fee payer was not a member or required to be, the individual was simply paying a fair share fee for the services rendered. The Supreme Court found this to be unconstitutional (it’s not, but that’s for another day) and ordered all public service unions still charging this agency fee to stop. The TL;DR here is that Montana’s public employees were never required to join. Post Janus, they can also get a free ride on the backs of their coworkers. This was further codified last session in HB 289.
Lets now go to Section 2(3) which states “A public employee may cancel the public employee’s membership and cease financial support of a labor organization at any time”. With a superficial glance, this seems like a non-issue to some, but let’s dive into this line from a purely financial and budgetary point of view and remove the union of it all momentarily. We all have a budget to which we adhere to. We know roughly how much income we have coming in per month, and roughly how much goes out to pay for our shelter, food, etc. You rely on the income to pay your bills. If you lost a portion of your income at random intervals throughout the year, that would throw a major wrench in your short term and long term plans, goals, or simply what you need to keep your head above the proverbial water. Now let’s put this back into a union frame. Any person, business, organization, etc cannot effectively function with that amount of budgetary uncertainty. This is why unions have designated drop periods, usually based on the calendar year, but sometimes based on other things like the date you joined, etc. It’s not shady, it’s common sense.
Now on to Section 2(4), as well as several line items in Section 3:
‘A public employer may not collect dues from compensation paid to a public employee on behalf of a labor organization without the annual affirmative consent of the public employee”. I think it’s obvious by now how the process works, but for the sake of information, let’s be very clear. An employee is hired, they are given the choice to become a member, and if for whatever reason they chose to drop, they typically have a window each year in which to do so. This line and basically ALL of section 3 aim to cripple union membership by imposing unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles in the way of the freedom to choose to associate. In the most simplistic terms, this would require an individual to OPT IN every year, rather than ongoing membership with a yearly OPT OUT period. Essentially, each collective bargaining unit in every public employees union would need to recertify and defend their right to exist every year. It also inserts the employer in questionable and potentially federally illegal positions by requiring them by law to insert themselves in the union-membership business and relationship.
PLAYING FAIR
HB 216 is scheduled to be heard by the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday January 17th. If there is any confusion on why the Judiciary Committee is hearing a labor bill, let me break that down. First, per page 37 of the House Rules, this bill is undoubtedly in the wrong committee. Page 37 states, in part, the following:
…legislation dealing with an enumerated subject must be referred to a standing committee as follows:
Business and Labor: Alcohol regulation other than taxation… labor unions; … workers’ compensation.
State Administration: Administrative rules; … state employees; state employee benefits; … voting.
So why is it being heard in the wrong committee? Well, because it’s more likely to pass in Judiciary than either of the appropriate committees. Slick, right?
TAKE ACTION
So what can we do to hold our legislators accountable to follow the rules and take the proper channels to do their legislating? Tomorrow, Monday January 16th, 2023 during the 1 PM house floor session, there will be a motion to refer HB 216 to the appropriate committee. Make your voice heard by contacting your legislator and asking them to support the motion to refer BEFORE 1 PM on Monday January 16th.
