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Montana may protect women better than any other state when it comes to abortion
The release of the proposed draft of the United States Supreme Court’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was, to be sure, a spoiler alert of sorts. For one thing, appellate court opinions are not supposed to be leaked. The process of opinion writing is tedious: Proposed drafts are circulated to the members of the court; […]
Protecting our environment? Not really.
George Ochenski’s recent essay graphically describes how we are despoiling our environment for not only ourselves, but also for future generations. He cites the inefficacy of laws passed to protect our environment, noting that these are jury-rigged by polluters to obfuscate and weaken science-based standards. What laws and rules that are adopted, are not enforced. […]
American Democracy — alive or dead?
Our democracy—is it alive, do we still live in a democratic republic, or is our democracy dead, no longer a governance of, by and for the people? How is the American experiment faring? As it turns out, not so well. On Nov. 22, 2021, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, based in Stockholm, […]
Voting is free speech
When we think of freedom of speech, the spoken word is usually what comes to mind. But the First Amendment of the federal Constitution (and, hence, Article II, section 7 of Montana’s Constitution) also protect symbolic speech. Symbolic speech is non-verbal action that clearly conveys a specific message to anyone who sees and reads it. […]
Two rights and a multitude of wrongs
Montana’s Constitution contains two fundamental rights that are distinct, yet, are connected in an important way. The first of these rights is Article II, section 7 titled “Freedom of speech, expression and press.” This provision states, in pertinent part: “No law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech or expression. Every person shall be […]
Clean water? It’s too demanding and expensive
There’s the old saw about obscenity: “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” Thanks to Senate Bill 358, enacted by the 2021 Legislature and signed into law by the Gov. Greg Gianforte, that’s close to the standard that the Department of Environmental Quality is now required to use for measuring […]
Illegitimate political discourse
In censuring Reps. Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger for their audacity in serving on the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the Republican National Committee declared that the Select Committee was “persecut[ing] ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Just so we are all on the same page about the event being […]
There’s no more activist court than the United States Supreme Court
In legal briefing and in public statements, involving litigation surrounding “Armstrong v. State”–holding that women have an individual privacy right to obtain a pre-viability abortion free from government interference under Montana’s Constitution–Montana’s Attorney General, Austin Knudsen, has accused the Montana Supreme Court of judicial activism and legislating from the bench. Ironically, Knudsen levels his claims […]
There’s no right to ban or burn books
It looks like the self-appointed morality police are at it again. Two articles in the Daily Montanan discuss the book banning wars in Kalispell and in Billings. The books at issue are about LGBTQ+ children, and, by some, are considered to be, in part, child pornography. If, in fact, that were true federal authorities would […]
Chipping away at our state’s constitution
During the last legislative session, while I was doing some legal research, I accidentally came across House Bill 651. This bill (which is now law) overhauled and imposed significant burdens on the Citizens Initiative process—guaranteed to Montanans by our Constitution, primarily at Article III, sections 4,6 and 9, but also at Article II, section 14, […]
What was Knudsen’s office trying to hide in the Smith restaurant assault case?
Even after sentencing, the Rodney Robert Smith case doesn’t pass the smell test. There isn’t room to repeat the details of the case here. Holly K. Michels for the Independent Record and KXLH’s Mike Dennison have done a thorough job of reporting the facts surrounding the case and Smith’s sentencing hearing on Dec. 9, before […]
Women: Collateral damage in the abortion war
On Dec. 1, The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. We likely won’t know the result of the court’s decision until sometime early next summer. But from the Justices questions and comments during the argument, it appears that the court will, basically, gut Roe […]