Montana GOP passing law to make it illegal for Jon Tester to win re-election
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Not literally illegal of course. Just seriously illegal:
The last Democrat occupying a statewide office in Montana may have an even tighter path to re-election in 2024, under legislation advanced by Republican state lawmakers Monday night.
Senate Bill 566 would establish a top-two primary election for U.S. Senate next year, when Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester is up for re-election. It passed an initial vote 27-23 with no Democratic support on Monday, and must clear a final vote in the Senate to move to the House.
It would establish a version of a “jungle primary,” in which every candidate, regardless of party, runs in the same primary election. The top two vote-getters would advance to the general election, meaning third parties would almost certainly be kept off the ballot.
Democrats decried the bill as a “partisan power grab,” targeting just one specific race in just one specific election, as the bill would sunset the following year and applies to no other races. The race is widely anticipated to be the most expensive and one of the most-watched in Montana history. Tester is considered one of the two or three most vulnerable Democrats in the GOP’s quest to retake the Senate.
“This is just brazen partisanship, targeting a single race,” said Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade. “This isn’t fair, this isn’t what Montanans want. They don’t want one-party rule, they want us to have fair elections.”
Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, said his bill is only meant to ensure whoever wins the election must get the support of a majority of Montana voters. It will only apply to the Senate, he said, because of the importance of the office and the six-year term length. And Hertz said it will sunset in 2025 because it’s a “test run,” to see how the voters like the proposal before applying it more widely.
“These are six-year terms, and to me if we are going to send someone to Washington, D.C., they should have the majority support of our voters,” Hertz said.
If history is any guide, Tester’s race likely to be close. Tester is seeking a fourth term, and two of his three elections to the seat were won with less than 50% of the vote. In both of them, the Libertarian candidate drew enough votes to potentially swing the race. The Libertarian Party is the only third party that consistently qualifies for the ballot in Montana, and is typically believed to draw more votes away from Republicans than Democrats.
This is just straight-up one party authoritarianism, as in Hungary or Russia, but with some cowboy hats and pickup trucks thrown in, for that authentic rugged individualist frontier heartland feel. Somebody should probably go to a coffee shop in Bozeman to find out what’s really going on.