In soccer, nothing is worse than an own goal.
That goes double for politics.
There’s a difference in how athletes and politicians react to their mistakes, however. Most soccer players, burdened as they are with self-awareness, are anguished when they put the ball in their own net.
Now consider your average politician’s reaction to a mistake. They deny. They project. They pretend and delude, convincing themselves that their own goal wasn’t a mistake, but an act of civic virtue. They’ll never admit what they’ve done is screw over the people they represent.
So, it’s not a surprise Montana officials kicked the ball into their own net on corner crossing.
There were many options Montana officials could have taken following the 10th Circuit Court decision in Wyoming that determined corner crossing was legal. They could have recognized the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, as it is the most thorough, substantive ruling yet on the issue. Yes, 10th Circuit rulings don’t apply to Montana, but someone could always challenge it, leading to a Montana-applicable 9th Circuit decision.
Or they could have argued it was still unsettled law, and it was up to county attorneys and citizen juries to settle.
One could argue that waiting for a Supreme Court decision on the issue was prudent. But once SCOTUS decided not to hear the case, the only reason for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Christy Clark to double down on the dubious claim that corner crossing was “unlawful” is because she’s on the side of large landowners who prefer exclusive access to the people’s property, tax free, not hunters, anglers and everyone else who recreates and owns public land.
Montana Free Press reporter Amanda Eggert covered a May meeting of the Montana Environmental Quality Council. There, Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras pitched her theory on why she opposes corner crossing. She told the committee about Senate Bill 493, which made it illegal to fly drones less than 200 feet above private property. This proves, by Juras’ reasoning, that corner crossing is taboo, because, you know, the from-hell-to-heaven doctrine.
From hell to heaven means property rights run from the center of the Earth out into space, until, apparently, they collide with the claims of residents of the Alpha Centauri solar system, four light years away.
The fact that Montana had to pass a law banning drones less than 200 feet above private property puts the lie to “from hell to heaven.” According to the story, Juras told the committee SB 493 “provides clarity on the size of the buffer zone designed to protect Montana landowners’ ‘full enjoyment’ of their property.”
I’m all for protecting people’s privacy from invasive technology, but what’s that got to do with crossing from one piece of land a citizen owns to the next? Do we now need to create a 200-foot buffer zone around private property that abuts public land, so the private can reap full enjoyment from their property?
One could reach Juras’ opinion, if you received your law degree alongside “Super Genius” classmate Wile E. Coyote, from the Acme School of Law, or, more likely, if you have some unspoken motivation for imagining law where it doesn’t exist.
That motivation surely isn’t protecting the rights of the working-class folk — Montanans and citizens from across the country — who cherish public lands.
One good thing about political own goals is that they are reversible. Politicians can change and do the right thing. But that kind of self-awareness usually comes only when citizens force it on politicians.
There was a meeting in Glasgow earlier this week on corner crossing, with FWP’s Private Land/Public Wildlife Advisory Committee. That’s a good first step on the road to political self-awareness.
Here’s a good second step. Hold a public meeting in Helena. Let Juras and Clark explain to a standing-room only crowd why they have taken the side of the wealthy few against EVERYONE else.
Maybe even the governor can pop in, to explain why he’s letting all this happen.
End the own goals. Let freedom, self-awareness and a citizens’ right to use the land they own, ring.