Barely a week after Montana Democrats thought they had won the right to organize the Montana House (after the courts threw out one or more votes of the Constitution Party candidate who'd been tied with the Dem), Rethugs have once again capitalized on the lack of our party unity to prevent the choice of the Democratic caucus from becoming Speaker. With a 50-50 split in the House, the right to organize leadership goes to the party of the governor, and after Brian Schweitzer's election last November, that meant the Dems.
The Dem caucus had selected Dave Wanzenreid, a former Minority Leader, and by tradition the opposition party does not interfere with leadership votes. But another Dem House member, Gary Matthews, threw his name into the ring. With the support of two other defecting Dems and all 50 Republicans, Matthews won the Speaker's chair 53-47.
The fighting within our party has already begun. More after the break.
The GOP is beside itself with pleasure over this turn of events, with their "Minority" Leader claiming that this shows the GOP's willingness to operate in a nonpartisan manner. They claim that Matthews is more "moderate" than Wanzenreid -- what they obviously mean is that he's more compliant.
Immediately after his selection, Matthews demanded from a newly formed Rules Committee that these other two Dems be granted more desirable committee assignments so as to protect them from retaliation. When Wanzenreid complained that this was patronage, Matthews shot back that "politics sometimes gets nasty." Wanzenreid replied, "Well, it's starting out that way right now."
The Dems tried to counter Matthews' candidacy for the Speakership by nominating various Republicans for the job, hoping that they would split the GOP vote. Five were nominated, in turn, and each refused the nomination in order to preserve their party unity.
And in what appears to be a most unfortunate coda (for now, at least), Wanzenreid said that while he felt disappointment at this whole turn of events, "We'll do whatever we have to do to put this behind us. . . . Whatever our concerns are, we have to get over them. . . . We've got to quit being mad." Sadly, he just doesn't seem to get it: the Rethugs stomp all over our party, and our response is to try to make nice. And then they do it to us all over again. Will we never learn?
The Missoulian and the Billings Gazette have the full story.