Gianforte: How Much More Damage Can He Do?

Montana GOP Legislators
Worst of the Worst

Montana is in a dark place right now and it's getting really frightening to just pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV!

The Helena Independent Record recently ran a "Guest View" from Brady Wiseman, a former member of the Montana House from 2005-2010.

Since I will assume many of you across the state did not get a chance to read this excellent report on what the current governor is up to, I want to quote some of his salient points.  

"The leaders of Montana's new Republican government have been fond of saying that the are going to change how business is done in Helena. Who could have guessed that what they meant was corrupt, self-dealing legislation, political slush funds, and naked power grabbing to pack the courts?

The raft of self-dealing legislation is head-turning. Let's start with Speak of the House Wylie Galt, who introduced several bills to grant large landowners a 10-pack of out-of-state elk tags for them to sell.  Being that Mr. Galt's family is one of the largest land owners in the state, he is quite simply legislating cash directly into the own wallet.

In my experience, an organization's culture starts at the top, so we should not ignore the fact that our new governor's highest political priority for 15 years has been a tax cut for himself, which he has now arranged.  And finally, we have the court-packing bill that Sen. Regier of Kalispell has passed to permit the governor to directly appoint judges to vacant district court and Supreme Court seats.  This eliminates the current nomination commission that has been in place for more than fifty years."

Wiseman goes on with several other corrupt and self-serving pieces of legislation from this herd of rogue elephants, and concludes with this:  

"The reactionary right wing has failed for decades to elect Supreme Court Justices to decree their fundamentalist, corporatist agenda. . . This is what "changing how business is done in Helena," means.  Majority needs to rise up and put these characters on a leash before they break something we can't fix."

The rot in our 2021 Legislative Session started at the top and and has permeated down through the ranks. Every corrupt bill that has been passed - and those yet to be approved - have the governor's messy, grubby fingerprints all over them.

A lot of damage has already been done, and we can be pretty sure he isn't finished yet.

He's a body-slammer with an anger management issue, and because the media came down hard on him about it,  he's mad as hell and looking for vengeance!

It is downright terrible character flaws for a governor.