FOLLOWING MY SHOTS
Montana Legislative Scorecard
What happened to the three bills Wild Bill supported in the recently concluded Montana Legislature? Well, let's say, he shouldn't consider a career as a lobbyist.By Bill Schneider, 5-07-09
 |
|
 | |
|
I still have emotional scars from not making the basketball team. Back then, my coach told me, “Well, you’re short, but you’re slow.” And that was the end of my basketball career. I did learn something, though, to follow my shots.
The Montana Legislature passed its budget bill and went home last week. During the session, I wrote commentaries about three bills our state lawmakers deliberated. Here’s what happened on these three bills.
Cattle Barons still rule the West
Are Bison Wildlife or Livestock?
Sporting groups introduced this bill, HB 253, in an attempt to start clearing up the incredible quagmire of controversy over bison management in and around Yellowstone National Park and how it relates to the impossible mission of eradicating brucellosis.
Even though Montana has a bison hunting season, the livestock industry has always owned the bison/brucellosis issue.. If this bill passed and officially declared bison as a wildlife species, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department instead of the Livestock Department could manage the species in much the same way the agency manages elk, deer and other big game animals.
But the livestock industry is still in control, and the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee quickly and quietly killed the bill.
Close, but insane partisanship spikes symbolic bill
Bill Would Allow Bicyclists to Legally Roll Through Stop Signs
Assuming there is no oncoming traffic, bicyclists frequently--if not usually--slow to a safe and nearly complete stop at a stop sign, but don’t un-clip and put a foot on the ground before proceeding through the intersection. This bill, HB 68, would’ve legalized that common behavior.
Regrettably, the House Transportation Committee had an even split between republicans and democrats, and partisanship raised its ugly head. With no reason except that a democrat, Robin Hamilton of Missoula, had introduced the bill, the committee split 6-6 on a party line vote. Even after weeks of receiving emails and calls from cyclists supporting the bill, not one of the six republicans would change his or her vote, so the bill died an unceremonial death on transmittal day.
My $0.02? How insane is it that bicycling is a partisan issue? And a shame, too, because if one republican could have switched vote on this fairly minor, but strongly symbolic, bill, it probably would’ve passed. It would have been nice to see Montana’s legislature show us they could actually do something to encourage more people to ride bicycles to reduce health care costs and save energy.
Finally, a Victory
It started out as a bill proposed by retailers who had been raided by the Montana Department of Revenue and cited for selling beer made in other states that exceeded the Montana’s limit of 8.75 percent alcohol (by volume). The Montana Brewer’s Association joined the effort because the bill would allow Montana’s craft brewers to many a wider variety of beers and related products like barleywine.
The combined effort of retailers and brewers apparently worked well because this pro-business bill, HB 400, sailed through both houses of the legislature, passing by wide margins at every opportunity and was signed into law shortly thereafter by Governor Brian Schweitzer.
So much for my 2009 “lobbying.” Final score: 1-2 with a near-miss. I’ll try to do better next time.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
This statement is completely flawed and stupid. How does allowing people to roll through stop signs, which bicyclists do anyway, encourage more people to ride, reduce health care costs and save energy?
You can't be serious. This presupposes that people aren't riding bikes because they have to stop at stoplights/signs! That is just silly. But to attach health care costs and energy reduction to this bill is even sillier, ney, stupid. It is fair enough to say that riding bikes is a healthy alternative, which can lead to improved health and energy reduction. But to make the leap and predicate them on a stupid bill -- ever seen a rider get hit by a car, or worse, have to care for someone who has been hit, I have, it sucks -- is poor reporting and even worse logic.
What we've spent over the years on keeping a handful bison away from a handful of cows we could have paid those few ranchers around Yellowstone a princely sum to GO AWAY and raise their cattle someplace more conducive to cattle.
If brucelosis is so dangerous, I wonder why those handful of ranchers insist on endangering their herds by raising them so close to Yellowstone. Does that make sense? Sorta like building an elementary school next to a nuclear power plant.
If a nuclear power plants was built beside your house tomorrow, could we chide you if you couldn't afford to move?
Helena, on the lands belonging to the ranchers, they have every right to ask DOL or Fish and Wildlife to show up and get the bison off their property. But, the senseless slaughter of bison on PUBLIC lands is what has many of us frustrated. Those lands are leased, not owned by ranchers. Which I don't have any problem with at all, it is a very sustainable use on public lands, until it comes down to private interest cattle verses public interest wildlife, both bison and wolves. This issue is not really about brucelosis, it is about "rights" to grazing areas and access to grass. If it truely was about the disease, it would be far cheaper and more predictable to simply vacinate all the cattle. I'm even fine with the government (my tax dollars) paying for it. I find the hysteria over this dreaded disease facinating when they send the slaughtered bison meat to the Indian reservations without testing it. AND, DOL certainly has no right to slaughter bison on private lands where the owners welcome them...talk with the Horse Butte owners.
Does anyone know if the bill will be reintroduced this year?
And regarding bike riders - the rules of the road are the rules of the road. Disregarding what is a sensible rule, i.e., coming to a full stop at a controlled intersection being what all traffic should do, regardless of the methodology employed to provide motion, is a collective hazard to all. We share the roads, so share them equally, with equal protection for all.
Allowing "California Stops" eventually leads to the outright running of both signs and lights, and when the inevitable and thus more likely collision occurs between man and iron beast, the operator of the iron shall be the person villified. Further, the speed at which the bicyclist chooses to "slow" for the intersection becomes wholly subjective given the individuals involved, and the temptation to dare fate will rise when such foolishness is granted legal charter.
If the argument is that urban bicycling is a healthy alternative to driving, it is arguable that stopping at intersections is a "healthy alternative" to running traffic control devises because of the extra energy used to begin propulsion from a dead stop. Muscle burn, baby...
Inconvenient? Perhaps, but so is a trip to the morgue or the hospital. Frankly, obeying many traffic signs and signals is sometimes inconvenient, but, we all share the roads and should do so fairly, equally, and intelligently.
The root word of travel is travail, and the object of traffic control measures is to lessen elements of said travail. Besides, our valiant lawyers have enough on their hands making the world a better place without being handed a bevy of cases trying to determine who is at fault in cases where the injured was allowed by law to run a stop sign.
Bill, your actual legislative scorecard should have read "One win, one loss, and this one should have been left alone".