Montana GOP: Dangerous Bigots

Montana GOP: Dangerous Bigots

This past week, I received a sickening postcard from Great Falls Republican Representative Lola Sheldon-Galloway. I’m assuming her message was in response to public comment I sent to the legislature about their continued attacks on LBGTQ+ Montanans. You can see an image of the bigoted, disturbing shit she is telling Montanans here:

Postcard reading, “In our confusing WOKE Culture defining sex is necessary to clarify GOD’S Truth – GOD created male + female in HIS imAGE! I will continue to STAND for this ETERNAL TRUTH! - Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway HD22”

 

In her postcard message, Lola stated, “In our confusing WOKE Culture defining sex is necessary to clarify GOD’S Truth – GOD created male + female in HIS IMAGE! I will continue to STAND for this ETERNAL TRUTH!”

Good grief, who are we letting create the laws in our state?

I’m not going to dive deeply into the logical fallacies of Lola’s statement. But I will point out that those are her personal religious beliefs, not eternal truths. “Christians” like Lola Sheldon-Galloway are openly comfortable claiming that they have a biblical mandate to occupy and control secular institutions. (Ironically, many evangelicals do not consider Lola Sheldon Galloway and her husband Steven to be Christian because they are Mormons. A fact that is apparently completely lost on the Galloways as they claim to represent the Christian perspective.)

Besides her evidenced lack of scientific knowledge, Lola apparently also lacks basic knowledge of our government’s founding principles. Because of their overt worship of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, I assume Republicans are also aware of our First Amendment. 

The First Amendment prohibits the government from “establishing” a religion and protects citizens’ right to practice their religion as they please. The United States was founded as a SECULAR nation. That means the separation of church and state is fundamental to our nation.

But our GOP-majority State Legislature and Republican Governor Greg Gianforte don’t give a shit about your religious beliefs if they aren’t in line with their White Christian Nationalism.

How is the religious extremism of our GOP government impacting Montana?

One way is via the Republican majority’s attacks on LGBTQ+ Montanans. Our Republican “leaders” have pursued a slate of anti- LGBTQ+ bills throughout this legislative session. When their relentless, hate-filled bills were called out for the death sentence they are to LGBTQ+ children, Republicans silenced their colleague Representative Zooey Zephyr. The Republican Speaker of the House has refused to let Representative Zephyr speak on the floor until she apologizes for her correct assessment of the harmful impacts of their hate. Representative Zephyr is a trans woman, which is relevant because of how her bullies are acting. In their public comments, numerous Republicans have misgendered her just to emphasize their cruel bigotry.

What is up with the Montana GOP’s slate of hate-filled anti-LGBTQ+ bills? 

Sadly, many of these bills are close to being signed into law by our equally extreme governor. Our Great Falls legislators are doing nothing to slow these attacks. Instead they are all voting FOR this hate over and over again. Several active bills attacking LGBTQ+ Montanans are listed below.

These are shameful days for our state. Goodbye Montanan attitude of “live and let live.” Not any more. Not when representatives like Lola Sheldon-Galloway feel emboldened to let their religious beliefs lead their legislative actions. 

 

Rigging an election is unpopular! Who’d a thunk it?

Rigging an election is unpopular! Who’d a thunk it?

Update: This story is still in progress. There have been reports of a broad title strike amendment to HB 774 to bring this primary proposal back to life. Stay tuned for the next round of partisan power grabs from our GOP legislators. 

Republicans shelved their proposal to alter the way the U.S. Senate primary is run in Montana. As of April 19th, SB 566 is tabled in the Montana House. That means it’s likely dead.

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about the particularly egregious efforts of the Montana GOP to keep Senator Jon Tester out of the general election in 2024. The cowardly way they attempted to silence Montana voters was by changing the rules of how candidates advance to the general.

SB 566 would have required that the two candidates who receive the most votes in a primary election for a U.S. Senate seat advance to the general election irrespective of party affiliation. That would mean that, if two Republican candidates got more votes than a Democrat or Libertarian in the primary elections, then whoops-a-daisy – no Democrat nor Libertarian can be on the ballot in the general election.

Just a reminder, EVERY GREAT FALLS SENATOR VOTED FOR THIS PARTISAN POWER GRAB: Emrich, Fitzpatrick, McKamey, and Trebas.

So why did the Montana House vote so decisively to table the bill, when every Great Falls senator was on board? One of the Republicans on the House committee who voted to table the bill, Rep. Gregory Frazer, spoke to the press.  “I have had a lot of my folks from back home reach out to me and ask me to vote no on this – a lot more than what I thought.” 

There you have it! Thank you, public backlash! Shaming people into doing the right thing can work.

 

Silencing Montana Voters…Again

Silencing Montana Voters…Again

How much more contempt can the GOP show the voters of Montana?  

A new shitty bill passing through the Montana legislature has come to our attention. Senate Bill 566 revises our election laws to provide for a top two primary for the U.S. Senate office. SB 566 has just passed out of the Montana Senate will be sent over to the Montana House this week.

What fresh hell is this?

SB 566 requires that the two candidates who receive the most votes in a primary election for a U.S. Senate seat advance to the general election irrespective of party affiliation. That would mean that if two Republican candidates get more votes than a Democrat or Libertarian in the primary elections, then whoops-a-daisy – no Democrat nor Libertarian can be on the ballot in the general election.

If you didn’t know, a lot of voters don’t vote in primaries. The majority of voters vote in general elections. Also, Republicans tend to vote more reliably in primaries than Democrats.  

Clearly this bill is targeted right at U.S. Senator Jon Tester

Tester has announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2024. It’s especially telling that SB 566 has an immediate effective date and termination date. That means the bill will be (1) in force as soon as it’s passed and approved and (2) no longer in force after June 30, 2025. Conveniently, that’s right after the 2024 election!

What are Great Falls legislators doing to stand up for Montana voters? SB 566 just passed through the Montana Senate. Let’s take a look. EVERY GREAT FALLS SENATOR VOTED FOR THIS PARTISAN POWER GRAB: Emrich, Fitzpatrick, McKamey, and Trebas

The third reading of SB 566 before it passed over to the Montana House.

Our current GOP government in Montana is just a bunch of ghouls trying to silence the voice of the voters. Disgusting.

Question the Montana GOP needs to ask themselves. (And the answer is Yes!)
The Clownery of the Montana Legislature

The Clownery of the Montana Legislature

While Cascade County residents are watching in horror the complete trainwreck of elections under newly elected Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant, how are things going in the Montana Legislature?

First the good news.

Ha! I kid, there is no good news. We elected clowns so now we get clownery.

Ok, fine I take that back. There is some good news. A big thank you to the people speaking up and testifying against hateful legislation. Democrats and members of the public are still pointing out illegal and thoughtless aspects of these bills. I’m thankful that people are trying to defend Montana’s citizens from our extremist Republicans legislators.

The latest stupidity from our Great Falls Legislators

The good news is that thanks to the efforts of passionate testimony, we have managed to reject some ultra stupid bills by Great Falls legislators. Like SB 235 by Senator Daniel Emrich — an effort to ban teachers from teaching scientific theory and SB 497 by Senator Steve Fitzpatrick — an effort to destroy stream access for Montana anglers. Buh-bye bad bills.

There’s another from Great Falls Senator Jeremy Trebas to highlight. Trebas wanted to prohibit Montana state employees from having to take classes about diversity, equity, or inclusion with his bill SB 222. “The proposed law would make it illegal to teach concepts that might make employees feel “guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress.” The bill is based on a Florida “Stop WOKE Act” showing the complete lack of originality for these bigots. Trebas said a twitter user told him, “soon we’ll be subjected to almost 50 trainings before June.” Sounds legit Jeremy. You definitely should shit on the teaching of anything that makes people uncomfortable like actual truth and history based on some rando twitter exchange. The bill passed out of the State Senate but got tabled in a House committee. Hopefully it stays tabled.

So, what’s the bad news?

Well. I’m sorry. It continues to be very bad. Shocking no one, Republicans continue to attack abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and pass bills to benefit the uber rich.

I can’t list all of the bad bills here, so I’ll just mention some of the worst and point out where our Great Falls delegation is failing us.

Abortion Rights

Great Falls Representative Lola Sheldon Galloway, our local delegation’s best handmaiden to the patriarchy, has two disgusting bills to highlight. The bills both passed out of committee based solely on Republican votes. HB 937 forces more onerous licenses for providers and facilities that perform abortions. HB 786 adds more burdens on abortion medication providers. The goal of this legislation is not to protect people with uteruses or keep us safer. (Despite the gibberish Lola likes to spout.) The real goal is to dissuade patients and medical providers from providing necessary healthcare. Wow Lola, why do you hate people with uteruses so much?

View of Lola Sheldon-Galloway's bench ad with her slogan "Leave our liberties alone" and an added speech bubble with the words "Unless you have a uterus!"
Lola Sheldon-Galloways’s bitterly ironic campaign bench ads from 2022

More Stupidity on Healthcare

Senator Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls continues to fight established medical knowledge and try to stop immunization requirements with his SB 450. SB 450 has now passed from the Montana Senate to the Montana House. Before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year. But who cares if your child catches a preventable and potentially fatal disease? Isn’t it better to be them to be immunization-free and dead?

LGBTQ+ Bigotry

Even though our Great Falls delegation aren’t the primary sponsors on several hateful anti-LGBTQ+ bills, they sure are fine voting for them.

Horrifyingly, the Montana Senate passed SB 458 to adopt discriminatory definitions of sex in an effort to exclude LGBTQ+ people from protections of state law. The bill prohibits “LGBTQ+ people from bringing claims of sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination in areas like employment, housing, public accommodations, health care, credit, and education.” What a sign of the times. Our Great Falls’ Senators Jeremy Trebas, Daniel Emrich, and Steve Fitzpatrick voted yes, because of course they did.

Is there more LGBTQ+ hate to go around?

Yes! Because our state is run by a bunch of homophobic extremists. 

What about the hideous SB 99 that our blog mentioned before here and here? SB 99 would make it essentially impossible for healthcare practitioners to provide age-appropriate, best practice, gender affirming care. This bill is a far-right attack on transgendered children and their families. The Montana Medical Association, the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Montana Primary Care Association all have spoken out against SB 99.

But why listen to an expert when you can listen to your bigoted impulses, right Montana Republicans? It has passed though the legislature and these Great Falls legislators voted for it:

  • Fred Anderson
  • Ed Buttrey
  • Steve Galloway
  • Steve Gist
  • Scot Kerns
  • George Nikolakakos
  • Lola Sheldon-Galloway
  • Daniel Emrich
  • Steve Fitzpatrick
  • Jeremy Trebas

Thank you to Senator Wendy McKamey for voting no on SB 99. Senator McKamey was the ONLY Great Falls legislator that didn’t vote to pass this hate.

Knowing the homophobia of our governor, SB 99 will be signed into law and then the taxpayers get to pay for the lawsuits. Meanwhile trans youth are treated as punching bags.

Where does that leave us?

I wish I could end on a lighter note, but our Great Falls delegation and other Montana Republicans continues to let down Montana’s citizens. Keep speaking up and let them know we are watching and disagree with their hateful attacks on our rights. You can send a message to a legislator using this form: https://leg.mt.gov/web-messaging/ or give them a call, they love it. The general switchboard is (406) 444-4800 and your message will be delivered to a legislator

“Bridges” of Communication

“Bridges” of Communication

Last night, Montana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Elsie Arntzen, hosted a forum at Heritage Hall at Great Falls College MSU and it was standing room only. Several Great Falls legislators, school board members, and school district superintendents attended the event.

Why such impressive attendance?

In the days before the event, Great Falls Rising had sent multiple emails with a forwarded message from Great Falls Public Schools Superintendent Tom Moore. In the message, Moore stated “none of the superintendents have received personal invitations to attend” the four events that were scheduled by the Office of Public Instruction (OPI) and he urged people to attend the meeting. To be honest, there has been a lot of broken trust between the OPI and Montana’s public schools. A year ago, the superintendent of every AA school in Montana signed a letter of no confidence in the OPI due to several failings during Superintendent Arntzen’s tenure. A motivation to rally around our schools might have packed the room.

What was the event’s purpose?

Ironically for a meeting about “bridging” communication, communication of the meeting’s purpose was poor. After the first 45 minutes of the forum, one audience member took the mic and asked the question on many of our minds. “What is the purpose of this meeting?”

Elsie Arntzen took back the mic and gifted us with an incoherent, rambling statement. I wrote, “WTF” in my notebook because her answer made zero sense.

Excuse me, what?

The questioning audience member tried to ask her question again, but Elsie either didn’t want to provide the real reason and/or was unable to articulate a response. Great Falls Public Schools Superintendent Tom Moore stepped in and briefly explained that he understood the purpose of the meeting was to have a conversation with the newly elected legislators in our area. To engage our parents, school leaders, and legislators in discussing issues of mutual interest before the upcoming legislative session. It was nice of Moore to try to hypothesize why Arntzen decided to host these forums.

Okay, Superintendent Moore’s answer made some sense – but – an astute audience member asked a great follow-up question. Why were these meetings only scheduled in the “more red” cities of Kalispell, Great Falls, Billings and Stevensville? Why weren’t forums scheduled in Helena, Bozeman, Butte or Missoula? On brand, Superintendent Arntzen’s response was a confusing paragraph of buzzwords. While her answer made little sense, she implied meetings would be held in the bluer cities in the future.

Nothing political to see here people!

If Superintendent Arntzen was expecting a venue to spew anti-public school and “parental choice” gibberish, she sure didn’t get it. When newly elected Daniel Emrich (SD-11) stood up and said that if you want to raise teachers’ salaries, you need to cut administrators’ – the crowd booed! A teacher spoke up and said that we need to keep public dollars in public schools and loud applause broke out.

What did other Republican legislators have to say?

Besides Emrich, a couple other Republican legislators in the room spoke and had tense interactions with GFPS Superintendent Moore. Jeremy Trebas (SD-13) pressed Moore about accountability for student achievement. Moore responded with a graph visually demonstrating all of the extra demands we have put on the shoulders of our educators over the past decades. Scot Kerns (HD-23) complained that communication between the schools and the public needed to be a two-way street. Moore responded by saying there were procedures in place to request information, fill out a form to release salary information. Kerns loudly interjected that he had filled out the form. Moore responded that other legislators have made an effort to go to the schools and work with administrators and teachers directly. It seemed as if he was calling out Kerns’ accusations of non-transparency as being in bad faith. 

Tough subjects were raised. I’m glad our legislators were there to hear them.

People brought up the fact that taxpayers  are  tapped out for increased property taxes. Multiple audience members mentioned that our students needed more mental health and prevention services, not less. That subject was raised in a direct response to Arntzen’s proposed elimination of mandated school counselor ratios.  

Based on the mood in the room, I felt hopeful. Because the word had gotten out, there was a strong, pro-public school sentiment in the room. We didn’t have the attacks on our schools seen at the Kalispell and Stevensville forums. People were speaking out and paying attention. If we want improved student achievement, we need to invest in our children. We can’t do that by asking more and more of individual taxpayers. The state needs to allocate monies properly to fund our PUBLIC schools. An audience member asked, “Who is going to want to teach in five years with these attacks on our public schools?” You heard us, Great Falls legislators. SUPPORT OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.