6 June 2016
Flathead GOP candidates Barragan, Garner, and Kaltschmidt refuse
to sign fellow candidate Taylor Rose’s anti-LR-121 decision screed
Legislative Referendum 121 — AN ACT DENYING CERTAIN STATE-FUNDED SERVICES TO ILLEGAL ALIENS; (official ballot language) — brought out the darker side of Montanans’ souls in November, 2012. Four of five voters checked the “Yes” box on their ballots. In the Flathead, almost 17 of 20 did, agreeing with the argument for LR-121 presented by Republicans Rep. David Howard and Sen. Jim Schockley:
The purpose of this referendum is to save Montana taxpayers money, honor the rule of law, and deny state and federal taxpayer supported services to those unlawfully in the United States. The ballot language requires the federal government to be notified and to enforce immigration control of illegal aliens who apply for state services, thus forcing them to leave Montana rather than use our services and take our jobs.
After being approved by the voters, most of LR-121 was struck down by Montana District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock. And on 10 May 2016, Montana’s Supreme Court unanimously struck down all of LR-121, ruling it was an unconstitutional attempt to usurp the right of the federal government to regulate immigration.
The legal outcome, of course, was a foregone conclusion: a similar measure in California, Proposition 187, that passed with 59 percent of the vote in 1994 was struck down by a federal court, but that history didn’t matter to Howard and the other legislators who passed HB-638, which put LR-121 on the ballot, or the voters, many of them Democrats, who voted for it.
After the Montana Supreme Court handed down its decision, Taylor Rose, the Republican running for House District 3 (map), wrote a press release, eventually published as a letter in the Daily InterLake, decrying the decision:
We believe these courts made a bad decision when they ruled against LR-121. It is the job of the courts to determine whether a law is being followed or not. It is not within the court’s authority to make laws. That power rests solely with the people, or the elected legislature.
Jeffrey Sherlock, a liberal District Court Judge in Helena struck down most of LR-121 in 2014. On May 12th, the Montana Supreme Court struck down the remaining provision that would have required state workers to report to federal immigration officials the names of job or benefit applicants who are in Montana illegally.
The adversarial court rulings seriously interfere with Montana’s ability to protect not only our state finances, but also our state sovereignty against a lawless federal government that is unwilling to enforce immigration law.
Somehow, Rose, who is so far to the right that Keith Regier and Derek Skees seem lefty by comparison, persuaded all but three of the Flathead Republican candidates in tomorrow’s election to join his denunciation of the Montana Supreme Court’s decision. Some of the signers voted for HB-638 in the 2011 legislative session, but others don’t have that excuse. Here’s who voted how:
