(C) Daily Montanan
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Are we really a red state? • Daily Montanan [1]
['Russell Rowland', 'Jim Elliott', 'Steve Corbin', 'Brian Schweitzer', 'More From Author', 'September', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline']
Date: 2024-09-10
In “The Spirit of 1889,” a new book by my friend Samuel Western, Sam asked long-time Wyoming Senator Simpson why Wyoming has such a long history as a Republican state. Simpson replied, “Well we can forget that notion. The longest-serving U.S. senator in Wyoming history was a Democrat, Joseph Mahoney. He was in office for more than 20 years. Look at Ed Herschler (another Democrat and the) only three-term governor we had. And he was just what we needed. Se we do not have a history of being a Republican-only state.”
Montana can say the same thing. As Western points out, from 1913-1989, Montana only elected one Republican to the Senate, the largely forgettable Zales Ecton, who only served one term and was beaten in the next election by probably the most famous politician in Montana history, Mike Mansfield.
I actually just happened to see Alan Simpson a few days ago, when I took my mother to the Billings Clinic to get some blood drawn, and he walked into the waiting room with what I assume were his wife and daughter. Nobody else seemed to recognize him, but I went up and told him how much I enjoyed a public discourse he had a few years ago with Max Baucus. It was just the two of them, with a moderator, asking them mostly about what’s gone wrong with the American political system, and why there seems to be such a divide between the two parties.
They had served together for 18 years, and became good friends, working to pass many bills that benefited both states. Simpson is 93, but shows no sign of losing his mental faculties, and we had a nice chat about how he hasn’t seen Max for a while, but really enjoyed that conversation.
It’s hard to imagine Simpson, who is still held in high regard in Wyoming, being elected today, in a world where a life-long Republican stalwart, Liz Cheney, was ousted by her own party because she had the nerve to stand up to a bully.
In Montana, we currently have a whole host of bullies, led by a body slammer, with an attorney general who filed a cease-and-desist order against this very publication for publishing a very relevant survey requested and carried out by his own office. The survey shed a very negative light on the lack of respect the people who work for Austin Knudsen have for him.
It seems that Knudsen doesn’t fall far from the tree as his parents have recently run afoul of the authorities in Sheridan County, where the Knudsens have been tampering with an easement road that was built under the authority of the Montana Supreme Court to provide public access to the American Legion Park in Culbertson. The Knudsens have apparently “destroyed about 1000 feet of the easement road and erected several obstacles, including gates,” to prevent public access.
This is, of course, the same Austin Knudsen who has pending charges against him for 41 violations of the Montana Rules of Professional Conduct.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Marc Racicot earlier this year, another Republican who has fallen out of favor with his party for speaking out against the behavior of people in his own party, and as many of you probably know, the state Republican party actually censured him from the party after he endorsed a Democrat in one of our previous elections.
Montana has long held the idea of personal liberty in high regard. To me, there’s nothing more important in terms of being free than being able to think for yourself and speak your mind without worrying about repercussions from anyone, let alone a political party. I know people in rural areas are struggling right now with feeling as if they are being heard, but I would hope that there are enough people in those areas, people whose parents and grandparents voted for FDR and Mansfield and Metcalf and Brian Schweitzer, who are paying close enough attention to realize that they are not being allowed to speak for themselves.
Their governor is lying about who raised their property taxes, blaming their own counties, and their attorney general has bullied his staff into submission, firing anyone who has the courage to speak against him. Two people have already won lawsuits against Knudsen for unlawfully dismissing them.
Montana’s recent history in politics includes a lot of Republicans, but its even longer tradition includes people who are willing to vote independently to ensure that politicians are listening to the people.
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