Montana Ballot Initiatives
Constitutional Amendments
Constitutional Initiatives
- CI-97 - State spending limit
- CI-98 - Allow recall of judicial officials
Citizen’s Initiatives
- I-151 - Raise the Minimum Wage
- I-153 - Prohibition of Lobbying by Former Government Insiders
- I-154 - Protect Private Property Rights
Constitutional Amendments
C-43
Change the name of the state auditor to the insurance commissioner — This issue, referred by the legislature, is a simple change. Montana’s state auditor does not really audit, but acts in the same capacity as other states’ insurance commissioner. This ballot issue simply changes the title to reflect reality. Read the full text of the ballot issue.
Constitutional Initiatives
CI-97
State spending limit — The so-called “Stop OverSpending” ballot initiative is modeled on Colorado’s disastrous TABOR amendment. Despite claims from backers that the idea is homegrown, the Montana spending cap initiative is one of three being pushed by shady out-of-state organizations trying to hide their influence in the organization. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, one of America’s most-respected policy centers, has done loads of research on state spending limits and their pernicious effects. As they demonstrate, Colorado’s spending cap had disastrous impacts on children’s health care, education, and every other area of government. Thankfully, home-grown organizations are already fighting the Montana spending cap through Not in Montana. The coalition includes AARP, MEA-MFT, the Montana Hospital Association, Montana State Council of Professional Firefighters, the Montana School Boards Association, and Montana AFL-CIO. Read the full text of the initiative.
CI-98
Allow recall of judicial officials — This initiative is particularly humorous because Montana law already allows for the recall of any public official, including judicial ones. Only the hair brains behind this effort would spend time and money collecting 45,000 signatures to legalize something that is already legal. Of course, the judicial recall initiative is one of three being pushed by shady out-of-state organizations trying to hide their influence in the organization. As with the others, backers claim that it is a home-grown idea. If true, it really would be monumentally stupid. My guess? National backers didn’t read Montana law before telling their local puppets which initiatives to file. Read the full text of the initiative.
Citizen’s Initiatives
I-151
Raise the Minimum Wage — RaiseMontana’s initiative to raise the minimum wage would increase Montana’s minimum by $1.00 and peg the wage to go up at the same rate as cost-of-living changes. The basic idea: Montana has a number of minimum wage workers stuck working full time and living in poverty. That’s simply not right. Washington, D.C., has failed to raise the minimum wage, despite Congress members increasing their own wages multiple times, in years. Montana deserves a wage. Read the full text of the initiative.
I-153
Prohibition of lobbying by former government officials — Governor Schweitzer introduced a bill during the 2005 legislature to prohibit government officials from turning their public service into private profit. The bill was killed by House Republicans, but has been revived as a ballot initiative. Montanans for Clean Government is the organization backing Schweitzer’s lobbying ethics reform initiative. The initiative is intended primarily to prevent legislators and other officials from using their government power as leveraging power to get jobs. In other states and in D.C., it is quite common for officials to hook up special interests with sweet heart deals, leave office, and accept cushy jobs with the same industry they helped. Read the full text of the initiative.
I-154
Protect private property rights — Written to take advantage of national displeasure over the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, this initiative exploits people’s fears that the government could seize property for the purpose of handing it over to private companies seeking to profit. In reality, the initiative goes far beyond that reasonable goal. I-154 is written in such a way as to gut land-use planning rules, allowing willy-nilly development that threatens farmland, open space, and water quality. Unfettered development also tends to place increased costs on taxpayers. Estimates are that the costs of I-154 could run into the millions depending on how far greedy developers decide to exploit the new law. Read the full text of the initiative.
