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.
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?
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.
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
A reminder of Republican Senator Jeremy Trebas’ dirty dealings in a commercial building in Great Falls.
Jeremy Buys a Building
In May of last year, Jeremy put up a Facebook post announcing that he bought the old Church of Christ Scientists at 1300 1st Ave N. in Great Falls through a shell company, Rearview Mirror LLC. The building was purchased at a significant discount, because an automatic sprinkler system had to be installed to bring the building up to code.
Jeremy Scams on Property Taxes
The building has been classified by the Montana Department of Revenue as “exempt” because it had been a church. Jeremy rented the building to The Break Forth Bible Church, likely thinking this would preserve the property tax exemption. Problem is it doesn’t. The exemption requires that the building be owned by a church. He paid just $267 in property taxes for the first half of 2022. This for a 9,000 foot commercial building close to downtown. The property is still misclassified by the Department of Revenue. (Don’t worry folks, we’ll contact them).
Jeremy Goes to Helena (Can You Say Self-Dealing?)
Jeremy introduced Senate Bill 195 in the Senate. The bill exempted his building from being required to have an automatic sprinkler system. The bill was opposed by Fire Marshalls across the state and was heavily amended, removing all of Trebas’ language exempting his own building.
Jeremy Puts the Building Up for Sale. . . at an Inflated Price
Now, Jeremy has put the building up for sale on Craig’s List. Sale price? $475,000!
So let’s break that number down a little. The appraised value of the building is $359,505. Keep in mind that appraisals generally assume that the building complies with building codes and other legal requirements. In other words, they do not discount for needed repairs. But the market does and WTF406 is confident that Trebas purchased the building below the appraised value. Now, after failing to change the law to benefit himself, Trebas has a financial albatross hanging around his neck. Will he find tenants for the building? Will he find someone to purchase the building at his inflated price? We think the answer will be “no” on both counts. Too bad for Jeremy.
To read about the whole story follow these links to our previous articles.
This just in . . .Casey Schreiner announces bid for Mayor. Also announced at this point are Jesse Slaughter’s former Undersheriff Cory Reeves and former Republican Legislator and current City Councilman, Joe McKenney Both are running from the right. Don’t we have enough of that in Cascade County?
Merchant’s Election Plan Meeting shows insurmountable Incompetence.
Yesterday over 200 citizens attended a special meeting of the Cascade County Commission to hear Sandra Merchant’s election plan. The meeting started with Commissioner Rae Grulkowski acting as intellectual body guard for Merchant, and telling the audience only questions related to the presentation itself would be answered. Unfortunately for Grulkowski, Merchant wasn’t even capable of answering those questions.
Merchant’s powerpoint presentation read like a third grade book report, irrelevant images and bouncing text included. All it was missing was a star swipe. And, of course, an actual plan to hold the elections. But a plan was notably absent. Rather, Merchant proffered a list of excuses as to why she hasn’t prepared for the upcoming elections. She blamed redistricting, the closure of IPS, and harped on the possibility of a five hour trip to use a different business. (Note: A five hour trip is a regular occurrence for Montanans, and it doesn’t cost $40k+ to make that trip happen.)
Sprinkled into her excuses was overt anti-election sentiment. Instead of providing voters a timeline, costs, and transparency, Merchant used her time to present a list of why mail elections are bad and a “history” of school poll elections. Preventing mail elections is a popular voter-suppression method among election deniers like Merchant and Grukowlski.
Even more alarming than the pedestrian presentation, Merchant failed to answer even basic questions about the upcoming elections and her duties. Merchant would not answer simple “yes” or “no” questions, such as if the school and library elections would be mail elections. When pressed, Grulkowski continuously stepped in, tried to stop citizens from asking their questions, and allowed Merchant to sit virtually silent without providing a single direct answer.
Asked directly, multiple times, Merchant could not say how much poll elections would cost as compared to mail elections. She could not say if the library and school district would be responsible for those increased costs, or what the relevant contracts stated. Commissioner Briggs specifically asked about the increased number of election judges, and Merchant seemingly was not able to grasp the question whatsoever.
Essentially, the only information Merchant offered was that elections will take place on time. However, she provided no details as to how and at what cost. Voters asked in-depth, knowledgeable questions which deserve clear and transparent answers. Despite her opening statement about transparency, Merchant provided none.
After yesterday’s debacle, it is clear that Cascade County voters cannot trust Sandra Merchant.
What would it look like if Sandra Merchant just came clean about what she really is up to. Maybe something like this.
WTF406: Thank you for sitting down to talk with us Sandra.
Merchant: No problem. You know, I generally avoid the media, but it seems there is a lot of misunderstanding about what’s happening in my office that I would like to clear up.
WTF406: Well, why don’t you just charge right in?
Merchant: Okay and thank you. Let’s start at the beginning. Everyone knows that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. That’s the big reason I decided to run for Clerk and Recorder. I wanted to do something about that.
WTF406: You know that most people don’t believe that, and there is almost no evidence to support that claim.
Merchant: That’s what the woke media wants you to think. Truth is it was stolen using Dominion voting machines, which have secret transmitters in them which enables the Deep State to change votes. We need to get back to the way it used to be. Count them by hand.
WTF406: Wouldn’t that take a long time? What about human error with a system like that?
Merchant: That’s just not true. First of all everyone knows that people are better at math and counting than computers– faster too. Human error will be kept out of it, if we only allow patriotic, Christians to count the ballots. Everyone knows these people never make mistakes.
WTF406: So what do you think about mail-in ballots? People say that makes it more convenient for people to vote.
Merchant: Mail-in ballots have to go. They allow too many people to vote and a lot of them vote wrong. Donald Trump has been very clear that mail-in ballots were a huge problem in the 2020 election.
WTF406: But what about here in Montana? Republicans gained a lot of victories in mail-in elections.
Merchant: Just an elaborate cover. The Libs have made it look like that to give people a false sense of security about mail-in ballots. Give them time and they will use mail ballots to control people and implement their socialist agenda.
WTF406: What about the Library Mill levy election? It was all set and approved by the city commission to hold the election on June 6.
Merchant: Do you know what they have in that library? Books! Lots of them. And dirty ones too. And they have a lot of strange people in there. It just ought to be shut down.
WTF406: But is it your job to decide what and when things can be on the ballot?
Merchant: Well, elections matter. I ran for office with the support of a lot of people who know about the secret cabal running our country. I promised them I would reform the elections system to be just like the elections run by our founding fathers. No mail-in ballots and hand counting. We need to get back to the concept that only certain people can vote. Fact is too many people can vote in this country, and I aim to do something about it.
WTF406: Well! I guess that about says it all. Thanks for taking time to talk with us.
It didn’t take long. Less than three months after taking office, Merchant’s inability, or unwillingness, to administer elections is already creating chaos in Cascade County. There has been good, comprehensive news coverage in both the Electric and the Daily Montanan of what has been going on.
Obviously, Sandra Merchant has gotten herself into a hot seat. So far her response has been to say the problems at her office are a variety of factors beyond her control. She says the closure of IPS (a mailing company) is responsible. Staff shortages are the problem. Finding a printing company willing to print ballots is the problem. That her refusal to send ballots for the Library levy was a misunderstanding. And on it goes.
What she does not say is that she and her political supporters are election deniers who are fundamentally opposed to mail ballots. They want everyone to vote at a polling place and have ballots counted by hand. She doesn’t mention that her first hire in the Clerk and Recorder’s office is straight out of the election denier crowd here in Cascade County. Nor does she talk about her affiliation with Rae Grulkowski, our newly-elected County Commissioner and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire.
Maybe it doesn’t matter whether the current mess at the Clerk and Recorder’s office is the result of incompetence or Merchant’s belief in election denier mythology. What matters is that people organize to make sure she can’t impose her beliefs on the rest of us by denying free and fair elections.
