By Roger Koopman
At an early age, we taught our kids to learn from others and to think for themselves. I still remember telling one child, “Truth doesn’t fly in flocks. You need to seek and find it on your own. And never be afraid to test and re-examine what you believe is true. Belief has no value if you close your mind to the ideas and arguments of others. Living in truth involves not only faith, but also the courage to think for yourself.”
Unthinking animals either herd up for security, or run in packs to pull other creatures down. Politicians do both. In the worst example I have seen in 48 years in Montana, the cowardly pack mentality has been on full display in the sixty-nineth session of the Montana State Legislature.
Most of us are aware by now of the hostile takeover of the Montana State Senate by a coalition of every Democrat plus a wolf pack of liberal Republicans, who locked claws on vote after vote to deliver a functional majority for the Democratic Party. At one point, twenty separate pro-Democrat floor votes were recorded, all by 27-23 margins – an impressive show of Pack Power over their own Republican leadership. The nine GOP deserters are senators Vance, Gillespie, Kassmier, Lammers, Loge, McKamey, Tempel, Hunter and Ellsworth.
First, the Pack held the Senate hostage for many days, eventually forcing leadership to change its own rules so that liberal Republicans could be inserted onto key committees to shift committee control.
Then came the Jason Ellsworth affair. Sen. Ellsworth was caught arranging a sweetheart contract for a buddy of his by quietly diverting, at the last moment, over $170,000 from the unspent budget of the Judicial Reform Interim Committee, over the objections of its members. The project made no sense and would be performed from the friend’s home. When discovered, auditors were shocked, and the Senate Ethics Committee began an investigation, as was its constitutional duty. But the nine-member GOP wolf pack again locked arms with the Democrats and stopped the investigation in its tracks – thus assuring that the liberal Ellsworth would remain in the Senate for the entire session, doing the Democrats’ bidding.
Other reports of Ellsworth throwing his political weight around started coming out. Clearly, he should have resigned, but the “the Pack” continued to give him protective cover, and he remains there still – larger than life – seemingly incapable of shame or contrition.
Meanwhile, the pack of nine went about doing exactly what groups like Montana Conservative Alliance have been warning about for many years — voting with the Democrat block and against limited government conservatives whenever key legislation comes up. I call them Mutant Elephants: elephant bodies, donkey heads. There they were for example, joining with the Democrats to pass massive Medicaid expansion welfare, and to defeat a bill providing work requirements. (More than 6 out of 10 current recipients are able to work, but don’t.)
The state GOP publicly rebuked the nine Republican senators, but they missed the point. This undermining of the conservative Republican cause has been going on for over 50 years, with this just being the most obvious, leadership-smashing example. It’s really nothing new, but the media attention to the orchestrated aspect of this treachery is actually a good thing. Maybe GOP voters will finally take notice.
In a larger sense, what we have in our state legislature is a great many legislators who don’t read the bills, don’t read the fiscal notes, and don’t show any natural curiosity for ideas or constitutional principles. They follow their leaders and their lobbyists and rarely do the work of a legislator or think for themselves. The Democrats are the most obvious example – almost never having a party member show independence of thought. It is, after all, easy to be a loyal Democrat. All you need to do is want to grow government in every direction, deny the biology of gender, and make it easier to kill human babies.
But Republicans are supposed to be different. Some are – and I acknowledge those men and women as great legislators. Others are not. They run with the pack, and fail to do the deliberative, investigative work of independent-thinking legislators. They’ve put their own pride and positions above their constituents, and deserve to be sent packing.
Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance. He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner. He operated a Bozeman small business for 37 years.
