Good morning; on the Beacon today, while most Flathead lawmakers seem to agree that a special session in 2010 is unlikely, no one would rule it out completely, saying it depends on how much worse Montana’s budget outlook appears. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns – a ruling that could have vast implications for Montana’s campaign finance laws. A group of huskies and husky-mixes were rescued from a squalid trailer owned by Juanita McGranor in Evergreen in June, and now they’re finding new lives as pets and sled dogs. Contractors demolished a fire-damaged home in Stillwater Estates yesterday.
President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies are conceding for the first time that they may have to accept a less ambitious health overhaul bill than the massive one they’ve struggled for a year to assemble. The Schweitzer administration has decided to eliminate a pair of citizen advisory councils attached to the Corrections Department, and may look at eliminating other councils to save money. The number of acres of pine forest in Montana infested with the mountain pine beetle nearly doubled in 2009, but a forester says the epidemic is losing steam in some areas. Former Arkansas governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is scheduled to speak at Foothills Community Christian School’s spring banquet in Great Falls this March. Five out-of-state men have been convicted on multiple wildlife charges stemming from an illegal outfitting operation in northeast Montana. And Mike Dennison reports that the day after Republicans torpedoed national Democrats’ health reform plans by winning the Massachusetts Senate race, Montana’s two Democratic U.S. senators had no clear plan for moving forward on the issue – although they said reform still needs to be tackled.