Page 29 - Flathead Beacon // 5.18.16

CLOSING RANGE DAVE SKINNER DAVE’S PRIMARY PRIMER
GUEST COLUMN NELS SWANDAL
BILL WILL ADD COMMON SENSE ITO FEDERAL SENTENCING
T’S NO SECRET THAT OUR Democrats and 15 Republicans) have nation’s prisons are overcrowded co-sponsored the Sentencing Reform and failing to keep our communities and Corrections Act of 2015 (SRCA).
MONTANA’S PRIMARY ELEC- tion is just around the corner, June 7. As usual, I’m having a hard time getting excited. Sure, Bernie Sanders air-dropped into Billings and Missoula, to talk about all the free stu he’s gonna hand out if elected – most likely the rst and last time he ever sets foot in Montana – but the agship race has been all but decided.
In our governor race, both parties have “contested” races, but the “contest” is a token, thanks to Montana election laws that let candidates raise and spend more money if they have a primary “opponent.”
Yawn.
Locally, it’s not all sleepy, thanks to a handful of contested Republican races. Even Flathead Democrats have a reason to stay awake this time, if only to cross over behind enemy lines in the voting booth.
First is the county commission race between incumbent Pam Holmquist and challenger Tim Harmon, a fairgrounds employee. This certainly isn’t the rst time a county employee has tried to replace his or her boss.
The other contested GOP races seem to be the usual RINOs versus elephants deal, or Democrats pretending to be Republicans, and/or Republicans pre- tending to be Democrats. Those few Highway 2 West Flatheaders gerryman- dered in with Sanders County should have fun voting in the race for Senate Dis- trict 7, currently held by Jennifer Fielder. Her support of transferring federal pub- lic lands management to states that want it has earned her the loathing of Demo- crats and Greens.
So, three “Democrats” are vying to challenge her in November. First to le was Elizabeth Retallick, an utter unknown whose ling fee was paid by one Jacob M. Brown – also known as in Jake Brown of the Montana Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. Sec- ond came Mark Sheets, who led for elec- tion six days after Retallick. Sheets seems the genuine Democrat article, as he lost to Fielder in the 2012 Senate general elec- tion 56 percent to 36 percent. Filing a day later, however, was Terry Caldwell, whom “Americans Against the Tea Party” outed in 2014 as, yep, Tea Party.
Better, the crossover-ing to prevent
crossover in SD 7 is bipartisan! Fielder is being challenged by Glenn Ferren, a former BLM employee who ran for state house from Helena in 2004 as a Democrat after abandoning an “independent” run for governor. The Helena Independent reported, “Ferren believes the Republi- cans should be thrown out of o ce.” So he’s Republican now? Yep, and he wants to legalize pot, too.
Oh, and the race for also-gerryman- dered HD-13 race has a fake Democrat, too. What fun!
The other two GOP legislative con- tests give me déjà vu all over again. In HD 11 (the west shore) contractor Derek Skees, a conservative former legislator, is matched with Jean Barragan, an FVCC education professor. Both are loyal GOP donors, but in looking at their current campaign reports (out May 3), the donors I recognize tended a hair more “centrist” for Barragan.
In upper west Flathead Senate District 3, White sh car dealer Don Kaltschmidt is running against Keith Regier, a situa- tion not unlike the 2014 Senate primary between upstart moderate Tammi Fisher and Mark Blasdell, an experienced con- servative House legislator who had been chosen by his peers as speaker, no less – a classic RINOs versus elephants battle.
Now we’ve got the Montana House majority leader (the number two posi- tion) vying against someone who has yet to climb Helena’s steep learning curve. I know both these guys, they are both Republicans – but why is Kaltschmidt challenging Regier rather than running to capture White sh’s House seat from the Democrats?
Another factor in the SD3 race is worth noting: For years, we all heard Bob DePratu’s unmistakable syntax on the radio, which helped DePratu develop nearly-universal name recognition in the valley. Did those “car ads” impact his races for state Senate? Oh, you bet. How about Conrad Burns in 1988, after his stint as agriculture radio personal- ity? Never mind that the guy who bought Northern Broadcasting from Burns, Tay- lor Brown, is nishing up two terms as a state senator from Billings.
Seems Don K has been selling more than just Subarus lately.
safe. Compared to peer nations around the globe, no country has more of its population behind bars. Our per-capita incarceration rate is ve times higher than Great Britain, nine times that of Germany, and 14 times higher than Japan. Almost one-quarter of the pris- oners worldwide are in American jails, despite the United States accounting for just 5 percent of the world’s population.
The reasons for our prison over- crowding are many, but one factor has been the tough “mandatory-minimum” sentencing laws that were enacted in the 1990s. The intent behind these laws was good – to bring consistency to sentenc- ing. At the time, judges were given wide discretion in sentencing criteria, which led to some disparities in sentences for similar crimes.
But over time those mandatory min- imum laws meant that some o enders could get very long sentences for rela- tively minor o enses. For instance, the federal mandatory minimum sentence for non-violent drug o enses is cur- rently 10 years.
In fact, most of the o enders behind bars today are non-violent drug o end- ers. Instead of using the sentencing to hold them accountable and treat the root of their crime, we are keeping them in jail, making their reentrance into soci- ety much more di cult.
I’m not suggesting we should sud- denly go soft on crime. What I am suggesting is that we need to become smarter about how we sentence crimi- nals. Because not only is our corrections system the largest in the world, it’s by far the most expensive as well.
And believe it or not, there is a very good chance that reform of our justice system could be passed by the U.S. Con- gress this year. Already, 34 senators (19
One of the most recent additions to that co-sponsor list is Montana’s Sen. Steve Daines.
The SRCA is good step toward reliev- ing overcrowding while focusing tougher sentencing on repeat and violent o end- ers. The SRCA would allow judges more discretion in sentencing for lower-level crimes.
Most signi cantly, it would allow a judge to lower the mandatory minimum from 10 to ve years for drug o enses for defendants who have never had a violent o ense, do not participate in gang activ- ity, were not involved in the production or “wholesale” level of drug tra cking, and had never distributed drugs to a minor.
The SRCA also expands the so-called “safety valve” which allows judges to waive mandatory minimum sentences altogether for some rst-time, nonvio- lent drug o enders.
Sentencing reform is never an easy task to accomplish. For basic public safety, we need to make sure that the people who should be behind bars are behind bars. But prescribing a sort of one-sized- ts-all approach to sentenc- ing and taking away discretion from judges has produced the new problem of expensive prison overcrowding we have today.
The SRCA is a measured approach that has attracted signi cant support from conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats alike. That’s rare in Washington these days. So let’s encour- age our congressional delegation to work to keep the momentum going.
Thank you Sen. Daines for taking a leadership role on a di cult issue. It really will make a di erence for Mon- tana and our nation.
“LOCALLY, IT’S NOT ALL SLEEPY, THANKS TO A HANDFUL OF CONTESTED REPUBLICAN RACES.”
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.
“THE REASONS FOR OUR PRISON OVERCROWDING ARE MANY, BUT
ONE FACTOR HAS BEEN THE TOUGH ‘MANDATORY-MINIMUM’ SENTENCING LAWS.”
Nels Swandal is a Republican state senator from Wilsall. He is the former Park County attorney and District Court judge for Park and Sweet Grass counties.
MAY 18, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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