Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Updated. I think we can safely conclude that Republican State Senator Jason Priest won’t be filing for re-election. Yesterday, reports the Billings Gazette, he was charged with crimes that, if convicted of committing, could lead to his spending more than one Christmas in the slammer:
Priest, 45, faces a charge of felony assault on a minor and misdemeanor counts of partner or family member assault, assault and resisting arrest.
If convicted on the felony count, Priest could face up to five years prison.
As with each and every one of us, Priest is presumed innocent until proven guilty. So far, only the prosecution’s case is being presented. There may have been mitigating factors (I suspect the defense might argue that his estranged wife’s showing up with her boyfriend was an avoidable provocation).
Still, there’s enough evidence to justify arresting him. And he’s not charged with hippie punching, an act some Republican voters might applaud as well as forgive. No, he’s charged with throwing his four-year-daughter “like a sack of potatoes,” to quote his wife, an act, if proven, that’s unlikely to win cheers from the right’s self-appointed defenders of family values.
So, as they say in the south, he’s in a heap of trouble, the kind of trouble that gets fixed, if it’s fixable, by lawyers, money, and specialists in damage control PR (I suspect the judge will order him to stay away from guns). He won’t have time to campaign for office while he campaigns to avoid relocating to a little brick room with thick iron bars.
Here’s Warren Zevon singing what might become Priest’s theme song: