Page 29 - Flathead Beacon // 4.13.16

UNCOMMON GROUND MIKE JOPEK WIN OUR DELEGATES
GUEST COLUMN LESLEY ROBINSON
LET’S FIND SOLUTIONS TO LAND AND IWILDLIFE MANAGEMENT ISSUES
N PHILLIPS COUNTY, WE’RE WELL well managed. Our forests su er from known for our strong ranching com- beetle kill and we are subject to massive munity. However, we also have some wild res every summer.
IT’S MORE PROBABLE THAT THE race to win enough state delegates to secure the party nominations will travel through places like Montana come June 7. Democrats and Republicans are having an increasingly hard time picking nominees for the fall’s general election.
Thought improbable, there’s move- ment indicating that neither Hillary Clin- ton nor Bernie Sanders will win enough state delegates to secure a nomination without our establishment superdele- gates voting at an open convention.
Even Clinton, who’s won hundreds more delegates than Sanders, won’t com- fortably know until June if she wins with- out superdelegate votes. That’s when Cal- ifornia, the delegate-richest state in the union, votes.
Montana, with our 27 Democratic delegates can’t compete with Califor- nia’s 546, but Clinton and Sanders must visit our state and earn the vote like past candidates.
Clinton visited Butte in 2008 and her husband rallied thousands of people in Kalispell that summer. Clinton subse- quently lost that Montana primary to President Barack Obama.
Sanders racked up many wins in west- ern states like Utah, Alaska, Washington, and Colorado by big margins.
I’m hopeful Sanders and Clinton rally in Montana, preferably here in the Flat- head. Sanders rallied in Wyoming, and they have fewer delegates than us.
Donald Trump sure upended the Republican establishment. It’s hard to fathom that the establishment found a person whom they politically fear more than Sen. Ted Cruz.
Many Republicans haven’t forgot- ten how Cruz libustered the shutdown of government in a vain attempt to take away health insurance tax breaks from people.
Republican stewards gravely underap- preciated the political appeal of a person like Trump. If Trump wins the Repub- lican nomination, Democrats would be wise not to do the same.
But before their convention, any can- didate winning enough delegates to secure the GOP nomination is uncer- tain. If no one wins, thousands of dele- gates throughout the nation will decide their rules and vote at the convention. That sounds messy.
It’s probable Trump or Cruz will rally in Montana to earn Republican’s win- ner-take-all 27 delegates. John Kasich may join them unless Cruz succeeds in bumping Kasich o the Montana ballot because of qualifying signatures.
Secretary of State Linda McCulloch said that Kasich would remain on the bal- lot unless a judge orders otherwise.
When visiting open primary states, presidential candidates greatly boost primary vote turnouts. That’s a big deal across the state where bitter legisla- tive battles are pending, particularly in Republican primaries.
GOP hardliners are still blistering that their more moderate Republicans worked with Democrats in Helena to nd home- style solutions to matters like health- care, a balanced budget, and transparent elections.
In many districts, the ideological com- position of the 2017 state Legislature will be set with June’s primary nearly as much as the fall’s general election.
In White sh, automobile dealer and former Mitt Romney delegate Don Kaltschmidt will face House Majority Leader Keith Regier. Both seek the GOP state senate nomination with the victor facing political-newcomer Melissa Hart- man this fall. Hartman is a hardworker running in the newly formed swing district.
Regier led the 2015 opposition to com- promise against Gov. Steve Bullock in the Legislature. Regier frequently found himself on the losing side of many par- liamentary rules and votes as his more moderate Republican colleagues wanted to get some big stu done for constituents back home and worked with Democrats in a divided government.
Over 600 of Democrat’s April dele- gates will be determined by closed pri- mary states. Republicans were unsuc- cessful in convincing the U.S. Supreme Court that Montana primary elections should only be open to party faithful.
Many independents and Libertar- ians will join Montana’s Democrats and Republicans to select our best and brightest nominees to lead us toward fall elections.
All of the remaining ve presidential candidates should visit the great state of Montana and earn our primary votes and win our convention delegates.
terri c hunting that attracts sportsmen and women from all over the state and nation every fall.
We, as ranchers, have a tremendous appreciation for the wildlife, and we provide both habitat and water sources for that wildlife. From antelope to elk, to mule deer and whitetails, to upland game birds, we are blessed with a large array of game animals.
This is why our ranch, the Lazy JD Cattle Company, is proud to take part in the Block Management program and open our land to hunters. With a good local game warden, Block Management is a great example of how landowners, hunters, and state o cials can work together for mutually bene cial out- comes regarding public access and land management.
Hunting and public access are part of Montana’s heritage and part of why we love this great state so much.
Greg Gianforte and I share these val- ues. He’s an avid sportsman and a mem- ber of the NRA.
In a recent interview with Hunt Talk Radio’s Randy Newberg he said, “To be clear, I oppose any plan that would jeop- ardize keeping public lands public.”
This is an absolute. No one wants to see public land sold o . However, we have to be forward thinking and inno- vative when it comes to solving the current problems in our public lands management.
When it comes to the transfer of fed- eral public lands to state ownership, we are opposed. However, we do think that there are ideas worth looking at that would involve greater local control over public land.
There is currently a proposed pilot project in the Kootenai National For- est that would have the federal govern- ment contract with Lincoln County for management of part of the forest. These are the kinds of innovative ideas that we should be looking at for solving land management issues. Under this pro- posal, the forest sees greater local man- agement, yet very much remains public land.
Clearly, much of our public land is not
For southern and eastern Montana, many of my fellow ranchers and farmers feel ignored in the debate over the rein- troduction of bison onto public lands and the potential listing of sage grouse on the Endangered Species List. Bison, of course, do not respect private prop- erty boundaries, and the dangers of bru- cellosis leave those of us who depend on cattle for our living nervous.
I know many landowners who have pulled out of Block Management all together in protest of these measures. This is unfortunate, because it simply means less access for hunters.
What we need in Helena is an admin- istration that, once again, fosters a col- laborative relationship between the stakeholders in land management. Everybody wants good land manage- ment, robust public access, and respect for private property rights. We need leadership in Helena that will bring landowners, hunters and anglers, and government o cials together to reach common sense solutions to these issues.
We need an administration that will listen to what the people on ground are saying about land management. As a rural county commissioner, I can say that there has been a major break- down in trust over the last several years between state and local o cials over land management issues.
Unfortunately, the current admin- istration in Helena only seems to want the status quo. Our forests continue to su er from beetle kill and catastrophic wild res. Lawsuits tie up forest manage- ment projects. The agriculture commu- nity nds itself increasingly at odds with state and federal o cials. Landowners are needlessly pitted against hunters and anglers.
The lack of leadership in Helena has put us on a divisive path. It has taken us away from the principles of collabo- ration and will only lead to less access. Let’s get back on track with new lead- ers in Helena who will bring sportsmen and landowners together, and ultimately lead to more access for Montana’s hunt- ers and anglers.
Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.
“CLEARLY, MUCH OF OUR PUBLIC LAND IS NOT WELL MANAGED.”
Lesley Robinson is a fourth generation Montana rancher, a Phillips County commissioner, and a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Montana.
APRIL 13, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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