Secret organization infiltrated Montana Legislature

Republican Reps. Scott Reichner and Mark Blasdel are attempting to influence the Montana House of Representatives in the 2013 session of the Montana Legislature by advancing model bills that have been crafted by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. If you want to know about ALEC, Google “ALEC exposed” and you will find a number of articles describing the goals and functions of ALEC. Clearly there is a conflict of interest.

Reichner is the state chair of ALEC and is a member of an ALEC task force. As the state chair, his job is to make sure certain ALEC model bills are introduced in this legislature. In the Montana House, he is chair of the Ethics Committee, a member of the Business and Labor Committee and a member of Human Services Committee.

Blasdel is the Speaker of the Montana House and is on the Education Committee, the Judiciary Committee and the Rules Committee. Mark is also a member of ALEC and is a member of their Education Task Force. As Speaker of the House, he is going to work closely with certain members in the House that he trusts. ALEC members trust each other, and they work behind closed doors.

These two representatives have never mentioned in their bios that they are members of ALEC. They prefer that you don’t know this.

These two legislators, along with others, are showing us that their preferred constituents are out-of-state corporate managers who want to run Montana’s economy. They have been sucked into the world of billionaires who know nothing about what Montanans want or need. They don’t care about the wealth, health, education or environment of middle class Montanans. ALEC’s motives are all about self-serving privatization, self-serving deregulation and squeezing the poor out of public services.

These two legislators, along with many Montana GOP legislators, are puppets of this organization. ALEC knows GOP legislators in Montana are prime targets to receive these model bills that benefit corporations, with no thought, again, for the middle class citizens in our state. Did you vote for one of these puppets?

Many of the Montana GOP have sponsored or supported the following bills that have surfaced in the 2013 Legislative Session. These bills are clearly similar to the model bills that originate in the bill mill of ALEC. (They are popping up in other states as well.)

• HB 315 — Creates public charter schools in Montana. In this bill, the schools would be under the Department of Administration, not the Office of Public Instruction. Teachers would be exempted from state certification requirements.

Our taxpayer money would be used for this misnamed “public system.” It will not be a public school system. The bill says the schools will be opened to any student residing in the state but may limit admission to students within a given age group or grade level.

Enrollment preference will be given to children of school founders, governing board and full-time employees. A lottery system will be used for other students. Learn more.

• HB 213 — The bill allows tax credits for families paying private school tuition. (Data shows enrollment in private schools is declining.)

These two education bills will greatly impact Montana’s public education funding sources in a negative way. They are not good for Montana.

State ALEC chairman Reichner is busy making sure the following bills (along with many others) are sponsored and supported in the 63rd Montana Legislature. If you think the 2012 campaign season was troublesome, just see what Reichner and his ALEC friends have in store for you. Think how these bills will impact the voting in Montana. They are all ways to discourage or suppress voter rights. These are goals of ALEC.

• HB 229 — allows campaign contributions to be increased, eliminating corporate and PAC contribution limits in Montana to unlimited spending.

• HB 265 — raises or eliminates the limit on how much candidates can receive from individuals and parties.

• HB 221 — raises contributions according to inflation.

• HB 30 — eliminates same day registration.

• HB 108 — limits forms of ID that voters can use to register and makes it more difficult to register.

• HB 254 — requires a disclaimer on election materials funded by money from anonymous sources, for example “funded by anonymous source” is all that is needed.

• HB 255 — requires “anonymous” to disclose how the money was spent.

• HB 436 — Reichner’s secret bill that would create a top two primary system. This narrows the number of candidates to only the top two primary winners to advance to the general election. There would be no primary if there were only two candidates.

If you question whether Montana should be governed by bills generated by wealthy out-of-state individuals, such as the Koch brothers, the Wilks brothers or members of ALEC, then you need to stand up for Montana and make your feelings known to our elected representatives.

Edd Blackler lives in Bigfork.