by WTF 406 Staff | Oct 18, 2022 | Abortions Rights, Elections, LGBTQ+ Issues
By K.T.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Thomas Jefferson January 1,1802, Letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jan. 1. 1802.
Now we come to legislator Scot Kerns. Before getting into details, we need to think a little about that good old time religion. Most of us are aware there are lots of different flavors of “Christianity,” some ultra conservative and some more liberal. There is no consensus among Christian churches on much of anything. From gay rights to capital punishment, one will find Christian churches with differing positions on virtually any political issue.
Beginning in the 1970s, some conservative Christian leaders began partnering with conservative political activists to mobilize their followers to engage the political process with an overarching goal of incorporating their religious views into public policy. And all along the way, they pointed at anyone who does not ascribe to their interpretation of scripture, calling them anti-Christian.
That effort over the last 50 years has paid off. Today conservtive Christains dominate politics from the US Supreme Court to the halls of the Montana Capitol. Our Governor, Greg Gianforte, and junior US Senator Steve Daines both attended the same conservative church in Bozeman. Visit the halls of the Montana Legislature and count the lawmakers wearing lapel pins with a tiny American Flag and a cross. And they have no reservations about imposing their form of religion on the rest of us. Welcome to the world of Christian Nationalism.
Scot Kerns is clearly steeped in the beliefs of the current right-wing religious uprising we face. After attending a private military school, he went on to receive a BA in theology from Concordia University in Chicago and then a MA in divinity from Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After college he was a pastor at St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Lincoln, Kansas. All of these are affiliated with Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
Without disappearing into the history of the Lutheran Church, here are a few of the positions of the Missouri Synod. Women cannot be ordained. Pro-capital punishment, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQI. . .you get the picture. For more information you can check this out https://www.lcms.org/about/beliefs/faqs/lcms-views.
Since leaving College, Kerns has been a pastor in Kansas. He has been a guest pastor for KUFO radio, a station owned by the Missouri Synod. He says he’s a former Captain in the Air Force but doesn’t provide any dates, positions held, or places served in the roster of current legislators. He says he is currently Christian clergy but doesn’t say where. He says he is also a member of the Civil Air Patrol but his name does not appear on the Montana Wing Staff Roster as of May 2021. The Civil Air Patrol does have different memberships, but Kerns does not list any specifics. You really can’t tell from public documents what he is doing for a living right now. And his campaign material is equally vague.
His campaign contributors have an interesting story to tell. He hasn’t gotten much support from Great Falls residents. A review of his last three campaign finance reports reveals that less than 40 percent of his donors live in Great Falls. Most of his out-of-town donors are heavy hitters in the Republican Party, including Greg Gianforte who gave him the maximum; Chuck Denowh, President of the lobbying firm, The Montana Group; and current and former legislators from across the state including far-right legislators Kenneth Bogner, Tom McGillvray, Keith Regier and Bob Keenan.
But at the end of the day, what really matters are his bills and how he votes. And here we see that he is clearly on the far-right of the Republican Party. Among the bills he sponsored are:
HB 436- Prohibiting local governments from restricting concealed weapons in publicly owned buildings. Failed
HJ 6- Resolution in opposition to a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for students of the Montana University System. Failed
His votes on bills he did not sponsor basically track the votes of the Trump Cult members in the legislature. He’s wrong on reproductive freedom and abortion, wrong on guns, wrong on tax, wrong on education, wrong on energy, and wrong on the environment. Rather than going through the long litany of bad bills supported by Kerns, we’ll just quote from a recent blog post in the Western Word, which is dedicated to independent commentary about politics, sports, the media, and current events. Blogger Mike Brown worked for Republican Conrad Burns in the mid-1990s . In his blog about the race between Kerns and Melissa Smith, he wrote, “I plan on voting for Melissa Smith. I followed Kerns’ votes in the last legislative session, and he is a full-blown MAGA guy.”
We couldn’t agree more.
by WTF 406 Staff | Oct 16, 2022 | Abortions Rights, Elections
By K.T.
In their Own Words
E-City Beat decided not to seek replies to a candidate questionnaire they sent out because of concerns raised by Republicans that their answers would be used against them.
Apparently legislative candidate Fred Anderson didn’t get the memo. He responded and E-City Beat ran it. We certainly hope his response below hurts his chances of election.
Anderson’s response to the E-City Beat question on abortion was. . .
“Life begins at conception and abortion should not be legal at any time for any reason.”
Anderson went on to explain that he believes all life is precious and he anticipates there would be numerous bills on abortion in the next legislature but, of the options E-City Beat allowed in it’s questionnaire, the above statement best characterized his position.
Thanks to E-City Beat for letting us know just how extreme Republican legislators can be on the abortion issue.
by WTF 406 Staff | Oct 16, 2022 | Elections
By K.T.
After our recent post on the support for legalization of recreational marijuana, https://wtf406.com/2022/10/great-falls-likes-pot/ a District Court in Great Falls handed down a decision on the lawsuit filed against the city by the owners of Green Creek Dispensary seeking to open a shop within the city limits of Great Falls. The city refused their application, and they filed a lawsuit.
On Tuesday, Judge David Grubich handed down a decision in the case, ordering the City of Great Falls to issue a permit which would enable the plaintiffs to open a shop. The Montana Free Press quoted from the decision, “the cultivation and sale of adult-use cannabis [are] authorized by state law within Cascade County, including within the City of Great Falls.”
Unfortunately the decision is probably a moot point. This comes just weeks before the vote on a local ballot measure to prohibit sales within Great Falls city limits. Voters should be aware that the ballot measure is very poorly written. A vote for the measure is a vote to prohibit marijuana sales. We hope the wording of the ballot measure is the result of incompetence rather than intent to confuse voters. If you SUPPORT recreational marijuana in Great Falls, you will want to VOTE AGAINST the ballot measure.
by WTF 406 Staff | Oct 13, 2022 | Abortions Rights, Elections
By K. T.
Section 4. Qualifications. A candidate for the legislature shall be a resident of the state for at least one year next preceding the general election. For six months next preceding the general election, he shall be a resident of the county if it contains one or more districts or of the district if it contains all or parts of more than one county. The Montana Constitution
Steve Gist is currently serving as the Representative for HD 25 in Great Falls. Gist’s filing with the Commissioner of Political Practices lists his residence as an address in the town of Cascade. He doesn’t live in the district he represents. Nothing unusual about that. State law allows any resident of Cascade County to run in a district which is entirely within the boundaries of the county. And, it is pretty common that individuals from a given county run in districts they don’t live in.
But this whole residency thing gets more complicated when you look into public records. True enough, Gist owns a couple residences in Cascade. He also owns one in Whitefish. The company he owns is a firefighting contracting company, Gist Enterprises LLC. The registered agent for that company is his spouse, Virginia Gist. The address of the company is in Whitefish. Interestingly, Steve Gist is registered to vote at his address in Cascade but has his absentee ballot sent to his Whitefish address. His wife Virginia (Ginny) is also registered to vote at the Whitefish address, and her Facebook page says she lives in Whitefish. In addition, the bank for his campaign is First Interstate Bank in Whitefish. So, let’s see, his wife lives in Whitefish, his business is located in Whitefish, he has his absentee ballot sent from Cascade County to Whitefish so he can vote. But for purposes of getting elected he says he lives in Cascade County? Hmmmm.
Aside from the ethical implications of skirting the law, let us tell you why this may be a bigger deal than you might think. Gist’s business is contracting to fight forest fires. That requires equipment. And, in fact, if you go to the Gist Enterprises Facebook page, you see pictures of guys fighting fires and numerous vehicles with Gist Enterprises signs on the doors. Presumably those vehicles are registered in the county where the business is located. That would be Flathead County. So, while he represents Great Falls in the Legislature, the county share of the tax revenue from his vehicles likely flows to Flathead County. Maybe he ought to run there. After all, that is where his spouse and business are located, and he owns a nice house there.
If Gist wins the election his qualification to serve should be investigated. If it is found that he has violated the constitutional residency requirement for legislators, he should be removed from office.
by WTF 406 Staff | Oct 10, 2022 | Elections
By K.T.
You may not have heard much about Sandra Merchant, Republican candidate for Clerk and Recorder in Cascade County. But you probably have noticed that Trump cult members across the country are focusing on local election offices to advance their conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen from Trump. So the question we have is, does Sandra Merchant buy into that mythology or does she not?
So we looked around to see what she had to say about her reasons for running for office. First stop, of course, are her campaign materials. Her web site is https://merchantforcountyclerk.com. Not a lot of content here, but that is not unusual in a campaign. Though you don’t always see scrolling advertisements for gun shows on a candidate website as you will on hers. She also lets readers know that she organized a homeschooling group “in her community.” Hard to say where or when that was. Of course neither of these things have a hell of a lot to do with local election integrity.
So, on to her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/smerchant4cascadecountyclerk. Not a lot here either. Nice photo of Ronald Reagan and nice photo of her and a saddle horse. Always interesting to look at “friends” on these pages. Her friends list has some people from the right flank of the local Republican Party including local legislators, Jeremy Trebas, Steven Galloway, and Steven Gist. Far right county commission candidate Rae Grulkowski is also a friend. Interestingly the Clerk and Recorder’s office reported that Grulkowski accompanied Merchant into their office to file for office, introducing her to the staff saying Merchant had come to file for the Clerk and Recorder position.
Perhaps the more interesting thing about her friends list is that none of the “moderate” local Republican officials (like Fitzpatrick, McKamey and Buttrey) are on her friends list. Desma Meissner, who ran from the right against Wendy McKamey in the Republican primary, is on her friends list. Last but not least, the wackiest Republicans in Great Falls . . . Public Service Commissioner Randy Pinocci and Sheriff Jesse Slaughter are also on her list of friends. With that said, we don’t think many of us would want to be judged by the list of people on our Facebook friends list.
Next up, public statements in the media. Unfortunately local politics are simply not covered in the Great Falls Tribune, which is now a shadow of its former self. The Great Falls Electric is good but doesn’t cover local political campaigns. Neither of these papers provide for local editorial comment which is where most campaigns will put out pieces on issues of the day. This is a big problem in Great Falls and perhaps a topic for another day. For the purposes of this article, there is just nothing there.
So, what to do? Well, check the local right-wing rag. . .the E-City Beat. Interestingly E-City started this election cycle with bold proclamations about doing tough candidate “surveys” for their readers but backed off when Republican activists pointed out to them that it might damage Republican candidates. So now they are just taking puff pieces from candidates. . .all Republican. And, of course, they still publish hit pieces on local Democrats. . .particularly female Democratic candidates.
Bingo! E-City Beat has a piece by Sandra Merchant. Unfortunately not a lot here. The only thing we could find about the election fraud mythology was this statement, “Election security is a big topic right now. I will do all I can to be sure we have fair, accessible, honest, and accountable elections.” Meh.
OK, let’s try looking at her campaign’s contributor list. Some of the activists from the Great Falls election fraud promoter crowd appear here. See our post https://wtf406.com/2022/09/the-big-lie-in-cascade-county Lola and Steven Galloway ($500), Rita and Ron Staley ($800), Jan Wenass ($50), Desma Meisner ($50) to name a few. But hey, you can’t just assume that candidates share the views of their contributors. . .completely.
After looking through all of this stuff all we can really tell is that she doesn’t have any experience or education for serving as Clerk and Recorder. It appears she lived in New York and had a “horse business” there but nothing about how or why she came to Montana. She also worked as a medical coder for ten years and served in the Civil Air Patrol. None of that indicates any knowledge of the duties of the Clerk and Recorder. But probably most important her materials ignore the “elephant in the room,” election fraud.
So, we reached out to Sandra Merchant and just asked for her position on the election fraud myth. Here’s the email we sent:
Dear Ms Merchant,
We are preparing an article on your candidacy for Cascade County Clerk and Recorder. Unfortunately we have been unable to find much information on your positions on specific issues. In particular, we would like to know your position on whether or not significant election fraud occurred in the 2020 election and specifically whether you believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. We look forward to your reply. Thank you.
WTF 406.
Waiting. . . .waiting. . . .waiting
