Category: Senate

Posted: June 18, 2013 at 5:47 am

Political Quick Hits

Immigration

Montana Organizing Project is hosting a series of open forums and screenings of The Dream is Now, a documentary by Academy-Award winning director Davis Guggenheim, across the state to educate and discuss this complex issue.

The documentary will be free and open to the public Wednesday, June 19 at 6:30 PM at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. Speakers will include Democratic National Delegate Jorge Quintana, Immigration Attorney Shahid Haque-Hausrath and Pastor Tyler Amundson.

Its worth noting that more than half of all immigrants to this county are women.

The group is urging Montanans to call their Senators in support of the bill, S. 744. It’s also worth telling them to remove the provisions which allow for outsourcing of tens of thousands of U.S. jobs, 1000 of which could come from Bozeman.

It’s also worth telling our Senators to remove a provision by Orrin Hatch, who is famous for screwing middle class Americans for the benefit of large Fortune 500 corporations. Hatch led the charge to amend the bill to more than double the number of outsourcing Visa’s (H-1Bs) allowed under the law– and Oracle’s lobbying team was right there with him, prodding him. Amending the H-1B law makes it easier to import workers, to help multinational companies import many more of them, and to lower the burden of proof (regarding shortages in the domestic workforce) that companies must meet to be granted the right to import a foreign worker. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois and champion of workers, railed against the entire H-1B scheme as nothing more than a scheme which allows the largest companies in America to circumvent the normal immigration rules–and the U.S. market wages.

Hypocrisy Watch

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who railed against expanding Medicaid to working poor Texans because he claimed he opposed federal spending, is now begging for federal funds.

Texas has the highest share of uninsured people in the U.S. — about 24 percent of its adult population — and confronts billions of dollars worth of uncompensated hospital care every year. Montana also comes in high – more than 20 percent of our population is uninsured. Montana sees hundreds of millions in uncompensated care costs.

Posted: June 15, 2013 at 9:54 am

Terrible

How disgusting is it that the U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the entire world that doesn’t guarantee some type of paid time off for employees, despite all the evidence that paid leave policies benefit workers, businesses, and the economy.

This is yet one more example of hypocrisy from the politicians squawking about how they’re the pro-family bunch.

Posted: June 6, 2013 at 6:25 am

Managing Expectations

Incumbent GOP Chair Will Deschamps says he has a bold vision that will lift his party like “a phoenix rising from the ashes.” But conspicuously absent from Deschamps’ win goals are the the U.S. senate race and a Daines’ re-election campaign.

Instead, the GOP is aiming a little lower this year. He wants to win school board and city council races, Deschamps said in an interview with the TEA Party blog about what his goals are if given a third term. Continue reading →

Posted: May 1, 2013 at 4:03 am

New Ad Up in Montana on Background Checks

by Cowgirl

This morning the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) has launched a new TV ad pressuring Max Baucus to support background checks for gun sales, something over 79% of Montanans support according to the post recent Montana-specific poll.

Starting tomorrow, the ad will run for a week in Montana, on broadcast and cable in the Helena, Missoula and Billings media markets. It will also run on cable in Washington, DC on MSNBC and CNN.

The PCCC’s initial expenditure is over $50,000 — and will increase with online fundraising from the group’s national membership–about one million members.

You can see the ad here:

The ad features Claire Kelly, a gun owner and grandmother from Stevensville, who is one of the of 23,000 gun owners supporting sensible gun reform at GunOwnersForReform.com

Lawmakers in the Senate have said background checks would come up for another vote this year, U.S. News’s Rebecca Metzler reports. After the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s full-page newspaper ads ran in 20 papers across Montana this past week, the NRA announced a newspaper ad last Thursday specifically attacking the citizen’s group and defending Baucus. As Greg Sargent at the Washington Post writes, this ad “suggests the NRA may still believe Baucus is gettable as a vote for Manchin-Toomey.”

Here’s the transcript of the ad:

I’m a grandmother, a hunter and a gun owner.

I’ve been the victim of a home invasion.

I hid my girls in a closet, called for help, aimed my handgun at the door and waited.

Guns can protect us but we’re less safe with guns in the wrong hands.

79% of Montana voters support background checks.

So why did Senator Max Baucus vote against us?

Senator Baucus, now that you’re retiring, please put Montana first.

Posted: April 30, 2013 at 1:01 pm

Common-Sense Immigration Laws Needed

by Cowgirl

A coalition of immigration reform advocates from across Montana is urging Congress to pass a bipartisan bill recently introduced in the US Senate. These folks are holding a rally in Bozeman on May 1–joining immigration advocates across the U.S. for a nationwide day of action to advance an immigration fix.

The ”Keeping Families Together” rally will feature a broad group speakers from various faiths, including people directly impacted by current immigration laws as well as American Indians, business leaders, labor leaders, and representatives of many other groups and interests.

Current policy make it nearly impossible for someone to enter the US and remain here legally on a path to citizenship. There simply is no “line” to join. Meanwhile, smart immigration policies would increase the GDP by $1.5 trillion over ten years, whereas the wrong kind of deportation procedures will cost $2.6 trillion a year.

March: Begins in Lindley Park at 1pm

Rally: Begins at 2 pm at the Bozeman Public Library where speakers will share their stories and their reasons for supporting these reforms

WHEN: Wednesday May 1, 2013

WHERE: 1 pm Lindley Park, 2 pm Bozeman Public Library

The coalition is sponsored by: Montana Organizing Project, MT AFL-CIO, SEIU, MT Immigrant Justice Alliance, MT Human Rights Network, and Salud y Comunidad: Latinos en Montana in partnership with the Gallatin Valley Human Rights Task Force.

Posted: February 20, 2013 at 9:55 pm

Baucus v. Schweitzer, in a New Poll

by Cowgirl

You no doubt have seen by now that Public Policy Polling, a national polling firm, released a poll measuring a hypothetical Baucus-Schweitzer primary contest. The poll shows that Schweitzer would beat Baucus by twenty points. Nate Silver wrote today in the New York Times that such a primary face-off might present a rare situation where a primary challenge against an incumbent could significantly help, rather than hurt, a party’s chances to retain a Senate seat.

I hate to throw water on it, but my take has always been that such a matchup will never occur. Baucus will either run uncontested with Schweitzer moving on to another career; or, if Schweitzer does decide to jump in, Baucus will jump out. A third scenario is that Baucus jumps out even without Schweitzer running, to take a job as a judge or ambassador. Any of these three scenarios are plausible. That being said, the fourth scenario, an all out war, would be great news for bloggers if nothing else.

Posted: February 10, 2013 at 5:02 pm

Stapleton Jumps In

by Cowgirl

Corey Stapleton, former state senator from Billings, has thrown his hat into the ring for US Senate, for the right to challenge Max Baucus in the race. Stapleton turned in a fair effort for Governor in 2012, but ran out of steam in the end. In his gubernatorial campaign, Stapleton informed us that he served in the Navy and once was a wrestler. The question is what, specifically, he will propose as a candidate or will criticize Baucus for. His first day on the hustings produced bland, empty charges of “big deficits in Washington” and the like. Generally speaking, the GOP field is shaping up to be seven dwarfs with no Snow White. Champ Edmunds, Scott Reichner, Stapleton–all are state legislators with little to recommend them beyond their service in the legislature. And as usual with Republican primaries in Montana, the field will likely consist of all, or nearly all, men. Continue reading →

Posted: February 5, 2013 at 12:47 pm

Baucus and Citizens United

Gearing up for the 2014 election, Max Baucus has announced that he wants to overturn the Citizens’ United decision of the Supreme Court, the ruling that blew the door open for corporations to spend unlimited money in elections. Baucus has put forth a constitutional amendment that would have the effect of reversing the ruling.

Baucus, however, has an enormous burden of proof to meet if he wants to be taken seriously on this issue. For starters, he voted for the confirmation of John Roberts, the Supreme Court chief justice who engineered the Citizens United decision. Continue reading →