Democrats in the Montana legislature are determined to block two election law bills, even though Democrats are in the minority in each house. See this story, which explains the maneuver. Democrats want to block SB 408, the bill to ask the voters if they want a top-two primary. They also want to block SB 405, which would ask the voters to repeal same-day voter registration.
look like there should be some legal challenges to what happened yesterday. The Republicans don’t have the numbers to override any veto by the Montana governor, so the Republicans push these issues straight to the voters even though we elect them to represent us, the voters. Go figure. Many of these bills will be on a fast track before the end of the 90 day session. Saturday was day 72.
ALL houses of ALL State legislatures are minority rule gerrymander oligarchies — i.e. the votes for ALL of the elected members of each house are elected by about 60 percent of the voters.
i.e. indirect REAL control by about 30 percent of the voters.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Abolish Dark Age monarchy vetoes — i.e. some Dark Age tribal chief having any veto stuff is EVIL lunatic in 2013.
It is pretty reasonable that a change in the manner of electing legislators go before the voters. Politicians can be too self-interested. Governor Bullock is probably OK with plurality election.
I think the Democrats were also upset that the senate refused to confirm Pat Williams.
Same day voting was the major issue. Democrats do a better job at getting out the vote on election day. in 2006 Senator Jon Tester got help from the Libertarians and same day voting. Republicans would like to take that advantage away. But the only way to do that in this legislative session is put it before the voters using the laws of the legislature. Republicans want the top two to eliminate the competition. When you look at the 2012 votes in Montana, Romney had 267,928, but many of the other Republican statewide candidates didn’t get those votes. Congressman Rehberg could only achieve 218,051 and the candidate for governor, Rick Hill only had 228,879. Republicans couldn’t get out the vote, otherwise you’d think the Romney vote would have translated to more Republican statewide victory’s in Montana. After all Romney did endorse Rehberg and produced media that was broadcast to the voters.
The senate also passed on 2nd reading HB 30 eliminating same-day voter registration. If Governor Bullock signs the bill, I doubt that SB 408 will be passed by the senate. At this point, the Republicans would be foolish to push SB 408 through. The referendum vote would occur at the 2014 election when same day registration would still be in effect.
It would be better to promote Top 2 as a majority measure. In addition, it would be useful to have a lawsuit filed against Montana’s current primary system based on ‘Idaho Republican Party v Ysursa’.
The Montana Republicans know that HB 30 will be vetoed by the governor. This is why they passed SB 405, which is essentially the same bill, straight to the people. As of now SB 408 has passed the Montana Senate, barring a lawsuit of constitutional problems with what happened on Friday. Top two legislation would never make it passed the governor. Plus the Republicans could never override a governor’s veto on the issue. This is why Republicans will take their chances with the voters. Another Top Two bill was defeated in committee. Among other Friday bills I think were on 3rd Reading dealt with the issue of abortion and those would certainly not make it passed a Democratic governor. The Republicans are setting their goals on 2016. In 2014 they know that Senator Max Baucus will get re-elected and newly elected Rep Steve Daines should also get elected, since Democrats haven’t held that seat since former Democrat Rep Pat Williams retired in the 90’s. In 2016 several statewide seats will be open, but having the Top Two won’t help the Republicans much, until maybe 2018.
SB 408, and SB 405 still have to be heard in the Montana house so there is a chance that a number Republicans could vote with Democrats to kill these bills but that isn’t very likely, given the Republican woulds like a one-party state.
HB 30 passed the House 60:38, so SB 405 and SB 408 should have no problem.
On Thursday, SB 401, whose sponsor is Democrat Jon Sesso, was passed on 2nd reading 46-4. On Friday it was defeated on 3rd reading 9-21-(20 NV). On Saturday, the Senate voted to reconsider the Friday vote on a 26-24 vote. I suspect that the intent was to legitimize the Friday action. Sesso voted against reconsideration, and did Senator Kendall Van Dyk who was way out of control on Friday.
This whole process might have worked had democrats just kept their traps shut. No need to talk about it, just do it. That allowed Republicans to mount an offensive measure. It seems that the legislature should be using NV not voting rather then absent, since all but one Democrat was in the Senate chambers.
The Senate Rules Committee meeting on Monday was pretty interesting. I can’t imagine the courts getting involved.
The Senate rules committee is controlled by Republicans. Of course they would support the Senate leadership.
#11 The content of the rules committee meeting was interesting. Its decision was not unexpected.
Basically the Democrats are arguing for a nihilist adherence to the rules, and that the speaker could not have anticipated that when a senator rose at a particular moment that it was to make a dilatory motion.