Page 31 - Flathead Beacon // 11.23.16

UNCOMMON GROUND MIKE JOPEK GIVING THANKS
GUEST COLUMN GREG ZIMMERMAN
EXTREME VIEWS DON’T REPRESENT MOST MONTANANS ON PUBLIC LANDS
THE THOUGHT OF GIVING thanks this holiday season seems more unpalatable given our national political dividedness. Yet we’d better work to get along. When most everyone else is busy arguing, only the few succeed.
I’m thankful voters chose Gov. Steve Bullock to serve as a nal backstop to the bad legislation that’s surely to ow down from the third oor of the state capitol come January.
After elections, Republican caucuses chose veteran leaders like Speaker of the House Austin Knudsen and Presi- dent-elect of the Senate Scott Sales to lead the decisively GOP-controlled Leg- islature next year.
A decade ago, I served in the state House when Sales was speaker of the lower chamber of the Legislature. That’s the session where Sales allowed the breakup of the governor’s proposed state budget from its historically uni ed approach to a piecemeal plan.
When Sales was last in charge, the 90-day Legislature failed to enact the law that funded public services like edu- cation or highway patrol. Sales’ piecemeal funding scheme failed, no Legislature has tried it since.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer swiftly called a special session to extend that Legisla- ture. A group of responsible Republicans promptly helped pass most everything the governor requested, including a $400 per household property tax refund check.
In the last Legislature, Knudsen suc- cessfully blocked Bullock’s multi-mil- lion dollar infrastructure plan that was funded by both cash and bonds. Knudsen failed to stop the governor’s campaign disclosure law or expanded health insur- ance for people earning poverty wages.
Sales and Knudsen will do a strong job driving the upcoming Legislature. Hail- ing from Bozeman and Culbertson, their leadership will bring their regional per- spectives to policy.
Neither Sales nor Knudsen own a political track record of compromising on policy. A no-compromise attitude would serve everyone poorly. Bullock is gover- nor through the 2019 Legislature.
Neither Bullock nor Schweitzer was afraid of the veto pen. Schweitzer recently mentioned that he still owns the veto brand, which was registered with the state Department of Livestock, if Bullock needs help with a rambunctious Legislature.
I’m thankful voters in the Columbia Falls area sent Rep. Zac Perry back to Helena to represent their interests. Per- ry’s 5-point reelection margin is a great signal to the direction the fast-growing community, adjacent to Glacier National Park, is headed.
Columbia Falls has grown and is elect- ing more community-minded leaders at all levels of local government. That’s good news.
White sh again sent a Democrat to represent our House district in Helena, now with a 13-point margin at the polls. I’m thankful that Rep.-elect Dave Fern, after decades of local service on school boards, is headed to the capitol.
Perry and Fern, working with Bullock, will give the north end of the Flathead the support that all in western Montana deserve. Everyone deserves to get some stu done over the next several years.
I trust this upcoming Legislature will be as rambunctiously loud and policy kooky as ever. Perry, Fern and Bullock can o er much calm and needed balance. Democrats likewise chose Rep. Jenny Eck of Helena and Sen. Jon Sesso of Butte to lead the minority party.
I’m thankful that Sen. Jon Tester said he’s seeking reelection. Congress deserves at least one farmer in Washing- ton to help to steer the nation.
Hopefully, Thanksgiving and the hol- iday season bring us together, as family and as community.
I’m thankful I took the opportunity to visit my distant nephews and brother, along with my parents and family. I’m thankful to be back home in Montana.
I’m thankful that you, the newspaper reader, valued these kinds of words for many years. I appreciate that you take the time to consider another individual’s opinion. Nobody owns all the answers, yet maybe collectively we can move all Montanans forward.
IN HER RECENT OP-ED, MONTANA state Sen. Jennifer Fielder continued to perpetuate phony myths about American public lands in an attempt to prop up her naive attempts to dispose of them.
According to Sen. Fielder, Montana’s public lands are a trash dump, lled with pests and fenced o to the public. In her telling, the only thing that can save our public lands is for them to be given to the state.
Don’t tell that to the hundreds of thou- sands of Montanans streaming across the state’s public lands to hunt and sh, who certainly aren’t buying Sen. Field- er’s premise. On the contrary, public opinion research shows unequivocally that Montana voters value national pub- lic lands. And poll after poll shows that Montanans – like voters across the West – have little appetite for her misguided plans to “transfer” American lands to state or private interests.
This month’s election result further validates what the polls have been tell- ing us for years.
Gov. Steve Bullock, a strong advocate for American public lands, won re-elec- tion in a di cult political environment for Democrats in Montana on a pro-ac- cess and anti-seizure message. Con- gressman Ryan Zinke, who just won a second term to the United States Con- gress, is a erce opponent of e orts to “transfer” public lands to Montana.
And President-elect Donald Trump has strongly disavowed Sen. Field- er’s plans to hand national forests and other public lands over to the states. When asked by a reporter earlier this year about e orts to “transfer” public lands to the states, the President-elect responded, “I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do. I mean, are they going to sell if they get
into a little bit of trouble? And I don’t think it’s something that should be sold.” He is exactly right. Montana, which is required to balance its budget each year, would not be able to a ord the costs and liabilities of taking on millions of acres of public lands. What would hap- pen when one bad wild re burns across Montana’s forests? Where would the money to pay for suppression and recla-
mation costs come from?
The cold hard reality, which Sen.
Fielder consistently ignores, is that the money would have to come from somewhere. There are few but no good options for paying management costs; they include raising taxes on Montana workers, raiding other areas of the state budget, like education and law enforce- ment, and privatizing Montana’s public lands.
Even though Sen. Fielder falls far outside mainstream thought in Mon- tana, she continues to have in uence in some segments of Montana politics. She is currently the vice-chair of Mon- tana’s Republican Party and the CEO of the pro-land seizure American Lands Council. You can expect Sen. Fielder to team up with the small number of other anti-public land crusaders in Montana and across West to continue pushing their shortsighted and costly policy ideas.
But worry not, as sportsmen, con- servationists, good government groups, and concerned citizens across the West will be standing side-by-side to close the doors on any attempt to dispose of national public lands in state and private hands. And while we may never rid our Western state legislatures of so-called sagebrush rebels entirely, I remain as con dent as ever that Sen. Fielder and her political friends will remain on the wrong side of history.
“HOPEFULLY, THANKSGIVING AND THE HOLIDAY SEASON BRING US TOGETHER, AS FAMILY AND AS COMMUNITY.”
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.
“PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP HAS STRONGLY DISAVOWED SEN. FIELDER’S PLANS TO HAND NATIONAL FORESTS AND OTHER PUBLIC LANDS OVER TO THE STATES.”
Greg Zimmerman is deputy director at Center for Western Priorities
NOVEMBER 23, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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