I was sitting in one of my favorite watering holes the other day, getting some work done. It may be a sign of inconsistent diligence, but I’ve learned that bribing myself with IPA is a fabulous motivator when confronted by a stack of papers that need grading.
As happens in such settings, I struck up a conversation with some folks at an adjoining table. The topic was food, barbecue actually. It turned out one of the dudes was a certified barbecue judge and he’d noticed I was enjoying some take-out brisket with my beer. OK, so this wasn’t the most productive grading session of my academic career, but it was nourishing.
Then the legislator showed. I won’t name the guy because that wouldn’t be fair. This wasn’t an interview, just watering hole chit chat. Technically, I wasn’t even reporting, though I suppose on a certain level writers are always gathering info.
Well, it turned out the barbecue aficionado was also an outdoorsman, and an attorney. The legislator had inadvertently wandered into an ambush as the barbecue guy wanted to know why the legislator voted the wrong way on corner-crossing legislation. In other words, he hadn’t supported legislation that would have authorized crossing from corner to corner on checkerboards of public and private land.
The legislator’s answer was alarming. They were told (meaning the legislators) that this was a constitutional issue and they shouldn’t stick their necks out on unsettled law.
There’s a lot wrong with that statement. I get that the Montana Legislature is a part-time body and so members have to rely on staff, but it’s not as though access to public lands in Montana is some obscure issue.
Corner-crossing bills have become a regular feature in Helena every two years. A version even passed in the Senate back in 2013, though it was killed in the House and never made it to the governor’s desk, where it likely would have been signed into law.
Of course, corner crossing is a constitutional issue. What law isn’t? Some are just more contentious than others, but the idea that you don’t pass a law because it might be challenged in court would mean that no law would ever be enacted.
It’s not so much that the law might be challenged. More importantly, it’s about choosing sides. The fight is going to happen regardless. Elected officials should make sure they’re on the right side.
Leaving the issue for others to settle is what happened on Mitchell Slough on the Bitterroot River. It took a collection of rabble-rousing access advocates to stop landowners from blocking access to the river. The Montana governor at the time prevented the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks from intervening in the case.
Fortunately, one of the first actions of Brian Schweitzer after he followed Judy Martz into the governor’s office was to get FWP involved in the case. The rabble-rousers say that helped push their effort over the line as the Montana Supreme Court rendered a stinging, unanimous decision in favor of public access.
The access fight on the Crazy Mountains highlights the threat of letting these issues sort themselves out. The district ranger who had been a forceful advocate for public access in the Crazies was reassigned when landowners complained to Sen. Steve Daines and Sonny Perdue, the new Secretary of Agriculture. The ranger recently got his job back, but in the meantime challenges to public access in the mountain range only got worse.
Getting sued while fighting for access beats standing idle while the little guy gets steamrolled any day of the week.