Tagged: Carol WIlliams

Posted: September 5, 2012 at 6:35 pm

Kim Gillan has a New Ad Up

According to the Youtube notes:

She is” illustrates Kim Gillan’s bipartisan record of problem solving on important issues — including requiring insurance companies to cover autism and diabetes in Montana, expanding job training across the state, and standing up for seniors and women’s health.

“It’s time we had a problem solver representing Montana in the U.S. House,” Kim said. “My record is clear: I know how to work with Republicans and Democrats to get things done for families and small business across Montana. And in Congress, I’ll stand up to any party in order to do what’s best for Montana.”

Featured in the new ad are Laura Simonsen of Billings, who worked with Gillan to require insurance companies to cover treatment for autism and diabetes in Montana; Stephen Wahrlick of Billings, whose business has benefited from customer service job training programs; and Carol Williams of Missoula, wife of former Montana Congressman Pat Williams and Minority Leader of the Montana State Senate.

Posted: March 10, 2012 at 8:19 am

Mansfield Metcalf Preview

It’s the big night of the year for Democrats tonight, as the Party will be holding its annual soiree, the Mansfield Metcalf dinner. It will be held at the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds. This is the night where the rank and file may buy a ticket for $50 bucks for the privilege of drinking and dining and mingling with Democratic politicians, and can listen to them give speeches.

In past years the dinner has been well attended and raised good money for the Democratic Party. So pull out your checkbook and come down to the fairgrounds. This year’s featured guest is CNN analyst Paul Begala, also known as the Montana Cowgirl of Washington DC.

M&M, as Democrats like to call the affair, has become quite a party in recent years, especially when Hillary and Barack showed up in 2008 and debated each other in dueling speeches. Recent speakers have also included Tammy Duckworth, the VA chief; Jim Messina of the White House; and regional politicians like Ken Salazar and Mark Udall. Sometimes the speeches are interesting, and some have been real snoozers.

On one occasion there was even a wonderfully awkward situation, when the guest speaker was Jim Webb, a U.S. Senator from Virginia. Webb’s speech contained numerous references to Andrew Jackson, with Webb referring several times to Jackson as his hero. When Schweitzer then took the stage, he explained to Webb that Jackson might be a hero in Virginia, but not in Montana, because he slaughtered innocent native Americans. There was an audible gasp from the crowd, and Webb was visibly humiliated.

The usual mix of funny, inspiring, exciting, boring, predictable and weird political speeches will no doubt be served up, some appetizers from Denise Juneau, Linda McCulloch and Monica Lindeen, Carol Williams and Jon Sesso, followed by the main course from Schweitzer, Baucus and Tester and Bullock. Aspiring members of Congress Franke Wilmer, Kim Gillan, Dianne Smith, Bob Stutz and Dave Strohmeier will also probably get a few minutes of stage time.

Also creating some buzz tomorrow night will be the newest addition to the Democratic Party’s roster, General John Walsh, who was picked as a running mate yesterday by Steve Bullock, a pick that so angered and stupefied the Republican Party that they never bothered putting out a statement about Bullock’s choice. That says it all.

So what’s the theme going to be this year? Last year the crowd was fired up because Schweitzer had just vetoed, with his branding iron, a pile of lunatic legislation put forward by Tea Partiers. And the Democrats at the time were successfully standing in the way of the GOP’s efforts to revert the state to the Judy Martz era of deficits and incompetence. So the dinner was up beat and a much-needed catharsis after a depressing election in which the GOP took over the legislature by historic margins.

Speaking of which, there will be local candidates at the dinner as well, such as those running for the state legislature. Some of these folks are lucky to be running against Tea Party lunatics, and so will likely be in the legislature next year. Most of the GOP wingnuts who won legislative seats in 2010 did so only by the slimmest of margins–a dozen votes in some cases–and so we should expect not to see them back in Helena because 2010 was an anomalously large GOP turnout year.

And as always, a justifiable pride will be circulating in the ballroom on Saturday, from the fact that Montana Democrats control all six state-wide political offices. That’s a whole Happy Meal, whereas the Republicans are down to their last greasy french fry, Dennis Rehberg.

Posted: February 17, 2012 at 7:00 am

Female Elephants Need Not Apply

In the Republican primary for governor, six male candidates have now chosen six male running mates. It is a male-only field.

And it gets worse: Of the twenty or so Republicans who have announced a run for statewide office, only one is a woman.

At a minimum, you’d think at least one of the idiots running for governor would sense some political value in choosing a woman. Yet none did. Perhaps this is why the GOP has been relegated to a fringe sect in Montana. Perhaps this is why an ignoramus like Dennis Rehberg is now the Republicans’ lone statewide office holder, literally the last man standing.

Fortunately, Democrats give no quarter to such sexism.

For starters, Pam Bucy, an accomplished lawyer and deputy attorney general, is poised to become our next Attorney General. She would become Montana’s first female Attorney General and one of only six in America, and only the second woman in Montana’s 122 year history to occupy a top elected office in Montana (the others are Jeanette Rankin and Judy Martz).

And don’t forget Monica Lindeen, Denise Juneau and Linda McCulloch, who are sitting in the three other executive positions right now, as well as Carol Williams who was Senate President in 2009 and now Senate Majority leader. She is the only woman ever to hold the top legislative post in either house.

And the Democratic nominee for Congress will also be a female, either Kim Gillan, Franke Wilmer or Diane Smith. In the past, our nominees for Congress have included Tracy Velasquez, Lindeen, and Nancy Keenan for Congress, and Dorothy Bradley ran for Governor. On the Public Service Commission, we have Gail Gutsche and may also soon have Lynda Moss.

The only females of the species playing a role in the GOP gubernatorial primary are the numerous ex-wives and mistresses of a few of the candidates. I guess that’s better than nothing.

Posted: April 29, 2011 at 5:10 pm

Sine Die

The legislature adjourned Sine Die last night, which in Latin means “without day” (and in Helena-speak means “we’re outta here”).

Dramatic reversal of fortune for Democrats, who came to the session as heavy underdogs facing the real possibility of becoming road kill. The GOP, upon sweeping the elections and achieving record majorities in both houses, came to town ready to make Montana Right Wing History.

Instead, Dems ran circles around the GOP for the better part of the session.

Jon Sesso and Carol Williams, the House and Senate Leaders for the Ds, thoroughly outclassed Jim Peterson and Mike Milburn, who spent most of the session looking dazed and confused, as the radicals in the GOP caucus dictated the terms and humiliated the Republican Party, an effect felt so far and wide that even Denny Rehberg’s numbers sank as a result. Often the leaders could not even get commitments on votes from their own caucus, even when the GOP leaders had made commitments to Dem leaders that they would deliver votes. From day one, Dems were disciplined and had a plan. The GOP never recovered from their early advocacy of crazy and kooky bills that made their way onto national network news shows, Comedy Central, CNN, MSNBC and FOXNews. Strangely, the GOP seems not to ever have felt at all remorseful about the bad publicity this gave Montana.

Schweitzer supplied some theatrics to put the nail in the coffin, with his wildly successful cattle branding veto party, one of the funniest stunts in Montana political history, one that left the GOP looking stupid, weak and deflated, and “bat-crap”crazy unable to respond in any meaningful way.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room the whole session was a several-hundred-million-dollar surplus created by Schweitzer and the Dems during previous sessions and over the last interim, which was bad news for the GOP because they showed up with a hammer but found no nails. In the end, the GOP will do doubt try to brag about a minimal cut of government spending, hoping that nobody reads the fine print: the Schweitzer administration had already reduced spending–submitting a budget with a myriad of thoughtful cuts before the session even began. So it was a semantic reduction for the GOP’s talking points that was ultimately agreed upon.

On big ticket items, the GOP talked tough, like Tea Party types; but fortunately they got stared down, and blinked, in the end. Like their effort, wildly popular among the Tea Party, to refuse all federal funds. The funds were restored in the final agreement.

Also problematic for the GOP, and good for the state, is an overhaul of the work comp system. Working hard in the backrooms throughout the session was Rick Hill and his wife Betti. Evidently Hill believed that having his paws and prints all over a legislative fix of Montana’s very expensive worker compensation program (premiums were the highest in the nation as of the start of the session) would be beneficial to his upcoming campaign. That dream came crashing down when Schweitzer got Milburn and Peterson, in front of all the cameras at a press event, to admit that whoever the architects of the current work comp system were, they sure as hell screwed things up. Who was the architect of the current system? Rick Hill. At the signing ceremony, I’m told that Schweitzer commended the legislators who produced the work comp fix, commended them for “their courage in being willing to admit that Rick Hill and Marc Racicot created one of the worst and most expensive work comp systems in the country.”

On the lighter side, good news that none of the famous “nut-job” bills–like the spear-hunting, the birther bill, the legalize discrimination bill, the militia bill and the nullification bill, etc.–became law. They were all either vetoed with a branding iron or died in the legislature at the hand of a coalition of D’s and a few moderate Rs. Whether these Rs can survive the Tea Party wrath in the next GOP primary is an interesting question. I am sure Roger Koopman will weigh in on it. Unfortunately, so much time was spent on nut-job bills–and an 18th century social agenda–that there wasn’t time to put together anything meaningful on jobs.

Plenty is left to be ironed out, and the Governor will do doubt be busy vetoing or signing bills for a while, including the medical marijuana revision that is very controversial. It also looks like some crap referenda will be on the ballot next fall. But overall, in the 2011 legislature, it is safe to say that the donkey handed the elephant its ass, in a very unlikely upset.

Posted: March 9, 2011 at 7:51 am

Cattle

TEA Party Republican Representative Keith Regier has been comparing women to cattle again in an analogy that he claims explains our “value.”

Here is the audio of Rep. Regier’s comments in the Senate Judiciary committee this week, but as you’ll hear listening to the clip, the analogy was not well-taken.

As the Montana Lowdown reports, the Senate minority leadership have called on the Republicans in charge to formally censure Rep. Regier. How Senator Peterson and Representative Milburn respond will be telling not only of their characters, but of their ability to reign in the fringe element of their party.

A transcript of the text of the letter sent by Senate Minority Leader Carol Williams, Sen. Kim Gillan, and Sen, Lynda Moss can be read below the fold.

What The Lowdown doesn’t explain are the problems with Regier’s bill, one of a number of fetus-centered laws proposed over the last 8 years in the legislature under the auspices of taking violence against women more seriously by making it a separate crime if the woman is pregnant. But, there are reasons to question this claim. Listening to the legislative testimony for Regier’s bill will show you that the attention lawmakers and advocates have shown for fetuses has not been accompanied by true consideration of the causes, harm, and consequences of domestic violence against women more generally. Nor has there been any meaningful GOP support for legislation to deal with the problem of domestic violence. In other words, the woman is just the vessel, the empty box, the carrying case for the only thing of value, the fetus.

Anti-abortion activists deny that fetal protectionist homicide laws like Regier’s were created to erode abortion rights or to re-criminalize abortion. But these denials should not be accepted at face value. The only proponents for Regier’s bill are the anti-choice lobbyists that testify at all of this anti-choice garbage, while the domestic violence advocates oppose his proposal. And a bill by Rep. Noonan to provide for sentence enhancements for crimes against pregnant women (thereby recognizing that the woman is also a victim) that did not include the anti-choice provision in Regier’s bill was amended to include it in House Judiciary.

Continue reading →

Posted: January 19, 2011 at 7:49 am

Calling It Like It Is

The values that the Democrats and Republicans are talking about this session should lead to some common ground:

Governor Schweitzer is focused on higher paying jobs. So are Sen. Carol Williams of Missoula, the Senate Minority Leader, and Rep. Jon Sesso of Butte, the House Minority Leader, who co-wrote a guest editorial that highlighted the economic climate that brings higher paying jobs.

From the opinion in today’s IR:

We see a state that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranked No. 1 for entrepreneurs and business start-ups. We see a state that Forbes magazine called one of the fastest climbers among business-friendly states. We see a state with the fastest growing oil production in the nation. We see a state that just opened its first new coal mine in 29 years, producing 235 good jobs. In Butte, we’re proud of the new foundry and 60 workers that are making titanium parts for customers around the world.

Meanwhile, however, the GOP message is all over the place.

First, leader Millburn says Republicans aren’t focused on social issues. Right. Next thing you know, a chunk of Republicans runs out with a big media circus all about….chipping away at constitutional rights.

Then another Republican faction claims they are all about the Constitution and forms its own caucus. Meanwhile, some Republicans are working in committees to lie about the state of the budget in order to make massive cuts to essential services for schools, the elderly and the disabled.

Cuts that aren’t justified given, as Williams and Sesso point out, that last session Schweitzer and the dems:

Passed a balanced budget and left $300 million in the bank to ride out the downturn we saw coming. We’re still in the black today, and the budget we pass for the next two years will keep us there. At the same time, we will eliminate the business equipment tax for most small businesses, reduce homeowners’ property taxes, and keep a healthy balance (more than $100 million) in savings to protect against any more bumps in the road.