My Page: Greg Lemon

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NewWest.Net/Politics

A poll released today by the Center for Rural Strategies, shows that the GOP has lost ground in rural America since 2004, another indicator that the rural West and Midwest will be up for grabs in 2008.

The poll looked at 804 likely voters, asking them a series of questions concerning national issues and politics.

According to poll results, most rural Americans – 66 percent – believe the country is going in the wrong direction. Only 23 percent said the country was on track and 12 percent didn’t know or didn’t respond.

About 51 million people live in rural areas of the country, according to United States Department of Agriculture statistics. In 2004 Bush took the rural vote by 19 percent, but according to the poll, voters now would slightly prefer a generic Democratic candidate over a generic Republican candidate, 46-43 percent. [more]

NewWest.Net/Politics

Mitt Romney is coming to Montana in late June, but he may be the only presidential candidate to campaign in Big Sky country this year.

Though many of the Rocky Mountain states have pushed up their primary and caucus dates in the hopes of having more influence on the races, many other states have pushed forward as well. A front-loaded primary schedule, and the failure of the states to come together around a long-standing effort to create a regional primary, has put the smaller states in the Rocky Mountain West back where they started: too small to matter much in the nomination process.
[more]

montana legislature

It’s over.

The Special Session of the Montana Legislature ended early in the afternoon today with a state budget passed.

But it wasn’t all smooth.

The House adjourned just before 10 a.m. while the Senate was still wrangling over House Bill 2, the general appropriations bill. This left the Senate with some interesting choices. They couldn’t amend the bill, because the House had already adjourned and wouldn’t be around to approve or meet about the amendments. So they either had to pass the bills as they were or reject them.

Overall, Gov. Brian Schweitzer sounded pleased with the outcome. The legislature passed all aspects of his “Square Deal” with Montanans, he said. They repealed the water tax, put $10 million toward hunting and fishing access site purchases, capped college tuition for the next two years and passed a military family relief package. [more]

MT legislature | special session

Monday saw a flurry of activity in Helena, as legislators worked late on the state budget.

House Bill 2, the general appropriations bill has left the House and is in the Senate. Once this bill is passed the special session, which is beginning its fifth day, will be over.

But passing it will take a little more wrangling today, said Gary Maclaren, R-Victor.

House Bill 2 increases state spending, but it marks a compromise between Republicans and Democrats that was worked out, in part, before the special session started. [more]

Montana Legislature Part II

At the close of the day Saturday, lawmakers in Helena still had more work to do, so the special session will continue into next week.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer called the Special Session last week with the optimistic goal of getting a state budget passed within three days, but that’s not going to happen. The bills are complex and take time to work through, said Gary Maclaren, R-Victor.

However, lawmakers did pass Senate Bill 2 Friday, which is a school funding bill providing, among other things, all-day kindergarten. Mike Dennison, of Lee Newspapers in Helena has the story in the Billings Gazette.

The session will likely go to Wednesday, guessed Maclaren. [more]

Montana Legislature Part II

Lawmakers settled in Thursday at the capital in Helena for the daunting task of passing a state budget in the three-day special session. And the first day was a little scattered, said representative Gary Maclaren, R-Victor.

“There’s no real agenda,” Maclaren said, late in the afternoon Thursday.

It’s hard to know how things are going to go yet, he said. But as bills get scheduled and presented, the path to a budget will become clearer.

However, the special session is starting with a different tone, Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Thursday.

“It already has a better feel. I’m seeing cooperation break out all over the capital,” Schweitzer said. [more]

Montana Legislature Part II

Montana's 31st Special Legislative Session kicked off this morning at the state capital in Helena and both sides are optimistic they can hold to Gov. Schweitzer's timeline of three days.

The regular session ended April 27 with bitter partisan wrangling, but since legislators from both parties and Schweitzer's staff have met and struck a deal to pass a budget for the state.

The deal has a $400 rebate for homeowners, property tax exemptions for small businesses and income tax credit for renters, and some tax incentives for clean and green energy development. The deal is reportedly with 11 House Republicans, which would in effect break the stronghold Republicans in the House during the regular session. Republicans have control of the house 50 to 49, with one Constitutional Party member which caucuses with the Republicans. Democrats stood equally firm in the Senate, which they control 26 to 24. If the 11 Republicans vote with the House Democrats, it will give them a critical mass of votes – 60 – to blast budgets proposals out of committee The deal, which was struck over the weekend, didn'tinclude House Speaker, Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, who says he won't support all aspects of the deal.

Charles Johnson, Lee Newspaper bureau chief in Helena, has a comprehensive story of what lawmakers face on their first day and through the session.

Follow up

Trout Unlimited is reconsidering a recent proposal to pull itself out of the stream access debates around the country.

Last Thursday, Trout Unlimited’s board of trustees decided to pull the resolution presented by chairman, Bob Teufel, said Steve Moyer, vice president for volunteer operations and government affairs.

Instead the board recommended forming an ad-hoc committee to review the issue over the summer and make a recommendation to the board of trustees on Aug. 15, Moyer said.

Trout Unlimited’s involvement in stream access debates has long been a contentious issue. Teufel put forth his resolution earlier this month, as Hal Herring reported last week here at NewWest.Net.

Teufel rescinded his resolution after getting a number of comments from state chapters and Trout Unlimited members, Moyer said. [more]

The "Z" Word in Montana

Ravalli County commissioners adopted a two-phase plan to implement countywide zoning during a public meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Phase one would develop and implement countywide zoning. This would include drafting appropriate zoning regulations, an extensive series of public meetings, a land suitability and capability analysis, and zoning maps.

Phase two would develop more detailed zoning regulations and planning tools. The second phase may also be when specific community and neighborhood planning projects are developed.

Ravalli County isn’t the only high-growth county in Montana to look at countywide zoning. Zoning used to be a bad word only uttered under your breath or in whispers at the back of meeting halls. But places like Gallatin County, Lake County and Lewis and Clark County are all looking into zoning in one form or another. [more]

Planning and Conservation

Streamside setbacks have been a controversial issue in Montana for the last decade. In many ways it comes back to the old tension between natural resource protection and private property rights.

Some say it’s important to protect the riverbanks from development, which can degrade water quality or alter stream channels. Still, many people who own property along rivers and streams don’t want to be told where they can and can’t build a home.

In Ravalli County, the discussion of setbacks has been going for years, but it began in earnest after a bill in the 2005 Montana legislature that would have established statewide setbacks narrowly failed.

The grassroots effort to develop local setback standards in Ravalli County started as a cooperative movement between recreation proponents, conservation leaders and the Bitterroot Valley Board of Realtors. But the group was quickly divided by controversy. The infighting is too complicated to really delineate, but the cooperative group disintegrated and the Board of Realtors continued on their own and secured a $100,000 grant to map setback zones on small streams in the valley and develop a regulation.

The Board of Realtors now has a draft regulation and have unveiled it for discussion and presented it to interested groups and citizens at two recent meeting in Hamilton. The plan is to get some consensus on the regulation and present it to the Ravalli County Commissioners for approval. [more]

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