I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I’m fed up with campaign season already. Yesterday, I had to sit through a full 60-second interruption of my music listening to a candidate list his complaints with our sitting state legislator, Courtenay Sprunger. In that seemingly endless 60 seconds, I didn’t hear a single idea or solution from him – just complaints about someone who, in my opinion, has shown she can get things done for my district in Helena.
That said, I decided to fact-check this candidate’s “complaints” with Sprunger’s record for myself. It was predictable. This guy running against her is just another politician manipulating the facts – I hear he’s already run and lost two elections, so apparently he thinks mudslinging will help him finally secure a win. As someone who likes to be informed (not manipulated or lied to), I decided to look up Sprunger’s overall record for myself – she voted with the Republican majority 94% of the time during the 2023 session. I also checked on the bills her opponent is trumpeting over the airwaves. From what I can find, he’s cherry picked a small handful of bills and chosen not to mention that when Sprunger voted against one of these five, she supported another, better bill, on the same topic.
I was particularly interested in his accusation that her vote on HB 402 allowed for illegal aliens to vote. Like most Republicans, I’m pretty in tune with the problems at our nations southern border and the complete disregard most liberals had until election time came around (I see you Jon Tester). It sounded far-fetched to me as someone in Sprunger’s district who has been watching for the last two years. I did some looking and here’s what I found. The bill title is pretty wordy, maybe a little confusing, but the bill itself is pretty straightforward.
Read the bill and you’ll see like I did that despite the confusing title, the bill does exactly the opposite of what Courtenay’s opponent claims. It amends existing law which, in its previous form, required that a person whose citizenship status was unverified be allowed to vote anyway, and replaced that language with rules requiring the Secretary of State to establish procedures for verifying United States citizenship and directs the Motor Vehicle Division of the Department of Justice to adopt rules, assisting the Secretary of State in that effort. HB 402 actually fixes the issue he is complaining about. The language allowing a person whose citizenship has not been verified to vote, including illegal aliens, was removed. I guess he didn’t read the bill.
So please, if you’re running just tell us what you’re going to do and why. We’re not idiots, we can read. Bring your own ideas and run on your merits as a candidate – spare us the negative propaganda. Mudslinging is not the Montana way, only pigs enjoy it.
John Parker
Kalispell