Congratulations to Montana Republicans! In the November 2020 elections you had the largest Republican victories in the history of Montana. Republicans won control of all five statewide offices for the first time, elected only the third Republican U.S. senator in our history, and the largest Republican majority in the Montana Legislature ever.
Montana Republicans rightly celebrated as they entered 2021, the year to start governing. But in the last 10 months they must have discovered some very nefarious deeds in their election as they now suggest it was fraudulent. How could that be?
The people who run Montana elections are Republican by large majorities. The secretary of state, who oversees all Montana state local elections, was and is Republican. Most of the county chief election officers are Republican. More Republicans volunteer as election monitors in Montana than Democrats. There surely couldn’t have been an election “fix” or “steal” that Republicans have discovered, could there?
But, I am sure that most of Montana, including grassroots Republicans, must have been shocked when they found that 88% of their elected Republican Montana legislators have signed a letter to investigate the integrity of this historic Montana election of theirs. Do they know something that we don’t know about how they won such a historic landslide victory? Do they know of operatives who are crooked in the secretary of state’s office or the county election offices? Are they accusing our good Republican neighbors, those who volunteer at local election offices, guilty of corruption?
Some or most of these legislators must have enough information or evidence of wrongdoing to ask the people of Montana to pay large sums of taxpayer public money to investigate their Republican historic election victory. Yet, they have provided no details in their letter.
But, Republican legislators must have plenty of information about who was crooked, who was improperly elected, or they surely wouldn’t be trying to launch an expensive, taxpayer-paid investigation into their own record Republican victory. Therefore, I propose that all the Republicans who were elected illegally resign immediately, confess their own misdeeds and reveal which other Republicans who work or volunteer in our election offices cheated, so they, too, can be arrested.
OR … Maybe these legislators are just looking for an excuse to reconvene in Helena so that they can all belly up to public money trough and get the taxpayers to pay them salaries while they play political games on your dime/dollar. Or, maybe they want to be filled up again with more thick steaks and old whiskey paid for by lobbyists who curry their favor.
Brian Schweitzer was Montana’s Democratic governor from 2005 to 2013.