Dear Braxton Mitchell – Representative HD 3,
I am writing to ask you to stop. Stop wasting Montana taxpayers’ dollars. Stop wasting the time of the Montana State Legislature. Stop burdening your fellow legislators with pointless, unnecessary bills that do nothing for Montanans, but instead are hurtful and hateful, and put innocent people in danger.
In the previous session you led the charge to make sure Jello shots were legal. Bravo. That was heavy on the minds of Montanans.
Now your most recent contribution to the future of Montana is HB 400. This bill is a blatant license to bully.
The bill gives students (and teachers) free rein to mock and humiliate children by allowing them to use any name they happen to choose when they talk to them. It prohibits school officials from so much as reminding students of a student’s preferred name. It gives bullies immunity for bullying in our schools.
Your community knows you, Braxton. You are the sort who responds to a peaceful and silent student memorial for children massacred in a school shooting by gathering your bully friends to threaten and intimidate. We know you. You are the sort who thinks your right to bully others is somehow a part of free speech. Read the Constitution, Braxton.
We remember the names you liked to call other children when you were a child yourself. You were young and unaccountable then. Now you are an adult – act like one.
HB 400 is a waste. A waste of paper, a waste of time, and especially a waste of Montanans’ taxpayer dollars.
As I understand it, every day that the Legislature is in session, it costs Montanans $40,000. And every bill that is introduced costs Montanans $3000.
You and your hateful bully cohorts (looking at you, Senator Fuller) have already introduced 25 evil and hateful bills this session. These bills target a group of people who represent about .33% of all Montanans, fewer than 4,000 people across the state. In the schools, your hate is targeted at 500 kids out of 148,500 (.34% of the total school population). Naturally, the group that all this bile is heaped upon is also likely one of the most vulnerable group of kids in our state.
So, by my math, you and the Bully Majority have spent approximately $75,000 of our tax dollars to spew your hate, just for the basic bills themselves, not to mention the days and days of legislative time you have wasted. How many things could that $75,000 been better spent on? How many good things could you have done, instead of putting innocent children in direct danger.
There are actual real issues that the voters care about. Things that impact all Montanans. Like tax relief. Like water rights. Like protecting our public lands and pristine water. Those issues are on the minds of Montanans.
But that’s how it works for bullies, isn’t it? It is so much easier to feel powerful by disempowering others than it is to do the hard work that you were sent to Helena to do.
It is always the vulnerable ones you turn your hate on. How funny it is to mock the disabled with insulting nicknames. And thanks to you and HB 400, you’ve given all of the bullies in all of the schools in Montana a free pass to use any name they choose.
You changed your name, Braxton. You probably had great reasons for it, and that is your right. You didn’t change who you are, of course. Your hate towards marginalized people shows up every day in your time in the Legislature.
Barry B. Conger
Columbia Falls