Tag Archives: State: Montana

NYTimes.com: In upholding the law, the court ruled that the United States Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which struck down bans on campaign spending by corporations and unions, did not apply because the Montana law was tailored to meet a compelling state interest and any burden on speech was minimal.

Today, the political advocacy group American Tradition Partnership, along with two other corporate plaintiffs, Champion Painting and the Montana Shooting Sports Association, have asked Justice Anthony Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court to put on hold and then the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the Montana Supreme Court, which upheld its law prohibiting corporate independent expenditures despite the decision in Citizens United v. FEC which held such bans unconstitutional.

ADF submitted legal opinion letter to Forest Service, will offer to defend memorial if attacked in court

Freedom From Religion Foundation: FFRF has readied a legal complaint and plans to file it shortly in federal court in Montana. In an official memo released today by the US Forest Service, it announced it will reauthorize a special use permit for the Knights of Columbus to maintain a Jesus shrine in Flathead National Forest for the next decade.

News from The Associated Press: The U.S. Forest Service says it will re-authorize a permit for a 57-year-old statue of Jesus that had been facing eviction from a northwestern Montana ski resort.

Eugene Volokh reports on Montana Code § 13–35-218.

The Associated Press: A judge has ruled that Montana’s medical marijuana law doesn’t shield providers of the drug from federal prosecution, delivering a new blow to an industry reeling from a state and federal crackdown.

Yesterday, the political advocacy group American Tradition Partnership, along with two other corporate plaintiffs, Champion Painting and the Montana Sports Shooting Association, have asked the Montana Supreme Court to not enforce its decision to uphold Montana’s law that bans corporations from independently spending money to support or oppose candidates for public office.

Robin Bravender at POLITICO.com: The conservative group American Tradition Partnership announced plans Thursday to appeal a Montana Supreme Court ruling that upheld a state law banning corporations from spending to directly support or oppose candidates.

How Appealing links to several reports and the opinion.

NYTimes.com: Hiram Sasser, a lawyer for the Liberty Institute, a conservative legal advocacy group, said that because the ski resort is already leasing much of the mountain from the Forest Service, the federal government has no right to ban the statue merely because some people might not like it.

The Denver Post: Denver-based anti-abortion group that sponsored an unsuccessful personhood amendment in Mississippi — declaring fertilization the starting point of life — is mobilizing again to push a fortified measure in Colorado, Oregon and Montana.

State Senator Jim Shockley and Margaret Dor at the Montana Lawyer at p. 8 (Nov. 2011): Attorneys Greg Jackson and Matt Bowman provide this analysis: If the idea of suicide itself is suggested to the patient first by the doctor or even by the family, instead of being on the patient’s sole initiative, the situation exceeds “aid in dying” as conceived by the Court. If a particular suicide decision process is anything but “private, civil, and compassionate,” . . . , the Court’s decision wouldn’t guarantee a consent defense. If the patient is less than “conscious,” is unable to “vocalize” his decision, or gets help because he is unable to “self-administer,” or the drug fails and someone helps complete the killing, Baxter would not apply. No doctor can prevent these human contingencies from occurring in a given case . . . in order to make sure that he can later use the consent defense if he is charged with murder. (Analysis of Implications of the Baxter Case on Potential Criminal Liability, Spring 2010, at www.montanansagainstassistedsuicide.org/p/baxter-case-analysis.html)

NECN.com: A Montana judge abdicated his responsibility when he dismissed a lawsuit by six gay couples seeking the same legal benefits as married couples, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday in an appeal to the state’s highest court. | ACLU press release and information page

Daily Inter Lake: A land swap has been proposed to defuse the controversy over a statue of Jesus Christ atop Big Mountain. Congressman Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., is seeking public comment on draft legislation to exchange approximately 625 square feet of land between Whitefish Mountain Resort and the U.S. government.

American Center for Law and Justice ACLJ: In just a few short hours, more people have taken a stand for the war memorial statue of Jesus that sits atop Big Mountain in Montana than the entire membership of the atheist group seeking to have it removed.

Calgary Sun: Normally, it’s Jesus who does the saving. This time though, it’s Canadian tourists being called upon to save Christ — or, rather, a six-decade-old statue of Jesus being threatened by a zero-tolerance atheist group just south of the border.

The State Column:
Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, today urged the United States Forest Service to reconsider its denial of a permit extension for an historically significant World War II Memorial statue of Jesus that has been located in the Flathead National Forest near Kalispell, MT since 1953.

KXLH.com | Helena, Montana: The Flathead National Forest Supervisor is withdrawing his earlier decision on the Knights of Columbus special-use permit for the statue of Jesus on Big Mountain near Whitefish.

NBC Montana: A Flathead service group is fighting the US Forest Service over a statue of Jesus Christ built half a century ago on public land.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: It’s almost as if officials at the University of Montana think religious faith is toxic … a kind of spiritual or philosophical asbestos that pollutes whoever breathes the air around it.

University prohibited work study at community center only because religious youth activities sometimes occur there; ADF letter prompts UM to reverse course

Barbara Coombs Lee at the Huffington Post: When legislators convened in Helena in January 2011, they considered two bills related to aid in dying. One would nullify the Court’s ruling and repeal the end-of-life freedom people had come to appreciate. The other itemized the steps to evaluate a request and provided civil and regulatory immunity for following them. Neither bill passed a committee or reached the governor’s desk.

Montana residents Doug Lair and Steve Dogiakos, and American Tradition Partnership PAC want to give a couple hundred dollars in contributions to candidates that they like for the Montana State House. Montana, however, limits their contributions to just $160, which is among the lowest limits in the country. The Lake County Republicans and the Beaverhead County Republicans, meanwhile, just want to make an $800 contribution to Republican candidates running for state office.

OneNewsNow.com: Casey Mattox, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defense Fund, says the student chapter of the Christian Legal Society was being discriminated against, as it was not included in the distribution of student activity fees. (See earlier story) “Every UM student and student group deserves to have their student fees distributed in a manner that complies with the First Amendment and doesn’t favor certain views over others,” contends Mattox.

Indian Country Today Media Network.com: Six students from reservation schools in Poplar, Montana took their lives last year and nearly 20 attempted suicide. The reservation’s Sioux and Assiniboine tribes have declared the situation an emergency—and it is on the rise, according to Indian Health Service statistics, reported the AP.

he University of Montana School of Law has agreed to several reforms to their system of allocating funding to student groups, prompting Christian Legal Society and Alliance Defense Fund attorneys representing the CLS student chapter to withdraw a federal lawsuit.

KAJ18.com: he American Civil Liberties Union is asking the Montana Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision to dismiss a same-sex domestic partnership case.

WSJ.com: Mr. Marbut isn’t basing his pro-gun effort on the Second Amendment, the one that talks about a right to bear arms, but on the 10th, which discusses the limits of federal power. “This is really about states’ rights and federal power rather than gun control,” Mr. Marbut says. There is “an emerging awareness by the people of America that the federal government has gone too far,” he maintains, “and it’s dependent on a really weird interpretation.” He is talking about the 1942 Supreme Court case of Wickard v. Filburn, which looms for him the way the Dred Scott decision denying rights to blacks did to antebellum abolitionists.

AP: A judge on Thursday blocked Montana from prohibiting commercial medical marijuana operations, saying that ban on profits from pot sales will restrict access to patients and deny people the right to seek health care.

The Volokh Conspiracy: Prof. Natelson, long time readers may recall, is no stranger to conflict with his former faculty colleagues. As noted here and here, he fought with the school over his teaching assignments, and some of his colleagues were not happy with his political activities.

EuroClinix.net: The organisation Planned Parenthood is suing the state of Montana because its low-income health insurance program does not provide birth control for teenage girls.

LifeNews: Governor Brian Schweitzer continued his abortion advocacy in Montana on Thursday when he vetoed a bill that would have protected girls and their parents on the issue of abortion on minors.

AP: Montana’s state House and Senate have passed a bill aimed at slashing the number of medical marijuana users and eliminating large pot businesses in the state.

A District Court Judge in Helena has ruled in favor of the State in a motion to dismiss the same-sex partnership issue in Montana. The ACLU asked the First Judicial Court in January to recognize same-sex couples as domestic partnerships in Montana to guarantee protection of their rights.

AP: epublicans have moved quickly to convert November election gains to legislative advances in the states. A look at some GOP successes, and setbacks, in the first months of the new order . . .

LifeNews: “Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed a bill yesterday that would protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions with their tax dollars under the Obamacare health care law.”

Great Falls Tribune: About a dozen picketers demonstrated outside the Helena Civic Center on Thursday to protest the Helena Independent Record newspaper’s decision to bar Planned Parenthood of Montana from participating in a health fair.

Care2.com: “The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) is urging Montana lawmakers to vote down a bill that would not only repeal a Missoula LGBT-inclusive employment protections law but would forbid Montana cities from enacting similar ordinances in the future.”

Yahoo News: “Montana House Republican lawmakers heartily endorsed a plan Tuesday that would force the state’s attorney general to join a lawsuit challenging the federal health care law, a move that sets up a possible showdown with an executive branch controlled by Democrats.”

Missoulian: “The Montana House voted 53-47 last Friday to remove $4.7 million in federal family-planning funds from the state budget for the next two years – money that’s been in Montana’s budget for decades.”

NBCMontana: “Close to 100 people lined up to testify at a Senate committee hearing to weigh in on a proposal to overturn a Missoula ordinance protecting gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people from discrimination. House bill 516 would prohibit municipalities from making laws protecting groups not already protected by the state’s antidiscrimination laws.”

Havre Daily News: Senate Bill 268, sponsored by Sen. Joe Balyeat, R-Bozeman, would place a referendum on the 2012 ballot. The proposal splits the state into seven districts, similar to the way representation by district is set up for the Public Service Commission. A judge must reside in the district for the seat up for election, with each justice selected from the separate districts.

Religion Clause Blog: “The Montana Supreme Court last week ordered a stay and expedited appeal of a trial court’s order that a woman with cancer undergo surgery despite her religious objections. In Office of State Public Defender on Behalf of L.K. v. Montana Fourth Judicial District Court, (MT Sup. Ct., March 2, 2011) . . . ”

Billings Gazette: “The state Supreme Court struck down the law in 1997. Senate Bill 276 would remove the language from state code. The Senate endorsed the bill Wednesday 41-9.”

Missoulian: “The Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Monday that would effectively overturn Missoula’s 2010 ordinance banning discrimination against city residents based on their sexual orientation and gender.
House Bill 516 . . . ”

Helena Independent: “A Bill that would prevent abortion providers from offering materials to students and force school districts to provide parents with an opt-in option for sex education courses passed the House. The House voted 71 to 29 to approve House Bill 456 . . . ”

NECN.com: “Leaders of the House Judiciary Committee backed a plan Monday that bars Missoula and other cities from establishing their own criteria for those protected from discrimination. . . ”

Billings Gazette: “A group of parents and community members filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Helena Public School District, claiming it violated open meeting law and prevented meaningful public participation . . . At the heart of the matter is the Health Enhancement Curriculum, which the district released in June. The document, which contained sections on human sexuality, caused much controversy in Helena, and in response the board slowed down the process and held two lengthy public hearings before approving the document.”

AP: “Montana legislators had been asked to choose between two proposed bills in creating a physician-assisted suicide law: Ban the practice altogether or create regulations for doctors and terminally ill patients to follow. Now it appears they’ll do neither . . . ”

Stuart Shepard reports at Citizen Link (Audio).

LifeSiteNews: “Personhood bills and amendments are gaining notice and approval across the United States, with a one such bill having passed the House in North Dakota and another the Iowa House subcommittee. Georgia, Montana, Texas, and Oklahoma have also introduced personhood legislation, reports Personhood USA.”

The NY Times Editorial, titled Danger Threats: “Representative Denny Rehberg, a Republican and Montana’s House member, boasts that he brings Made-in-Montana solutions to Washington. His latest, proposed last week in a speech advocating states’ rights to the State Legislature, is to put a judge ‘on the Endangered Species List.’”

Great Falls Tribune: “Republican lawmakers pitched new plans Monday to intervene in divorce, target abortion in the Montana Constitution and help parents deal with local sex education issues.”

Independent Record: “We are writing to express our disappointment and voice our concerns over the comments that Congressman Rehberg recently made at a joint session of the Montana Legislature. Although Congressman Rehberg didn’t identify by name U.S. District Judge Don Molloy — our dad — it was clear to whom he referred.”

PRNewswire: “The following is being released by ParentalRights.org: Last week, Planned Parenthood of Montana, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Human Rights Campaign spoke against a resolution in Montana’s Senate Judicial Committee urging Congress to adopt the Parental Rights Amendment (PRA) and send it to the States for ratification.”

Montana Standard: “Emotions ran high Friday at a hearing on a bill that would require all women to have an ultrasound before getting an abortion. Besides making ultrasounds mandatory, House Bill 280, by Rep. Pat Ingraham, R-Thompson Falls, would require medical providers to read the ultrasound results to women seeking abortions, although women could legally avert their eyes from the images.”

KXLH: “The American Civil Liberties Union appeared in district court in Helena for arguments on behalf of six same-sex couples seeking domestic partnership recognition. The case, Donaldson and Guggenheim v. State of Montana, was filed in July 2010.”

LifeNews: “The Montana state House has okayed a bill that would provide justice and protection for pregnant women and their unborn children who are victims of violant attacks outside the context of abrotion. More than 36 other states have similar laws as does the federal government.” For more background on the bill, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/state-montana+topic-legislation+category-sanctity-of-life/

Montana Standard: “More than 200 people gathered for an anti-abortion rally at the Capitol Monday, including two dozen legislators, as abortion opponents predicted the 2011 Legislature will approve bills to restrict abortion in Montana.”

“[Lawmakers] are being asked to consider two competing measures: one that would create rules for doctors who are asked to write a prescription for a lethal dose of medication and another that would ban assisted suicide altogether.”

MinnPost: “Sixteen Republicans in the Minnesota House introduced a bill Thursday that would offer ‘Choose Life’ license plates as an option for vehicle owners. HF91, if passed (and there is no Senate version yet), would require the vanity plates to have a brightly colored, crayon-like image of children and the words ‘Choose Life.’”

KTVQ: “A legislative measure making it illegal to kill an unborn child easily got out of committee despite being mired in the abortion debate.”

Daily Inter Lake: “Kelly Burris entered his plea during a federal court session in Missoula Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch.”

Bloomberg: “Republicans running the Montana Legislature who have launched bills aimed at undermining a federal health care law they believe is unconstitutional may themselves be running up against the state Constitution by trying to order the attorney general to take action.”

Great Falls Tribune: “Groups opposed to abortion say the bill, sponsored by Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, is needed to prosecute those who kill an unborn baby, perhaps during a crime against the expectant mother. ‘House Bill 167 does not include legal abortions or infringe on a woman’s right to choose,’ Regier said.”

LifeNews: “Vermont and Montana will form ground zero for the debate over assisted suicide in 2011 as legislatures in both states are expected to tackle bills related to the subject.”

Great Falls Tribune: “Republican lawmakers plan to introduce a broad range of bills aimed at restricting or even banning legalized abortion. Abortion rights groups say they are going to have their hands full fending off proposals from the ‘extreme far-right’ of the GOP, which they say will try to take advantage of large Republican majorities in both houses to accomplish its agenda.”

Missoulian: “Attorneys for seven gay couples are asking a Montana judge to rule, prior to going to trial, that they’re being discriminated against by the state because it’s not allowing them the same rights as married couples under Montana’s Constitution.”

KULR 8: “The ACLU is moving forward with a lawsuit against the state of Montana demanding same sex couples be granted the same equal protections as married couples. The response comes exactly one month after the state of Montana filed a motion for dismissal in the case.”

ACLU of Montana’s info page (including documents) for the case is here.

In 2009, a father and daughter concerned with runaway government spending started a group called Montana Shrugged.

The Missoulian: “With Republicans controlling both chambers in the 2011 Legislature, some GOP lawmakers are proposing a broad collection of bills to restrict or possibly ban legalized abortion in Montana.”

Religion Clause: “In a 6-1 decision last week, the Montana Supreme Court held that school officials violated the free speech rights of a graduating senior when it censored on the basis of viewpoint her proposed valedictory remarks. Griffith v. Butte School District No. 1, (MT Sup. Ct., Nov. 19, 2010)”

LifeSiteNews: “The Montana Supreme Court has reversed a district judge’s ruling that school officials could censor a valedictorian’s speech that contained references to God and Jesus Christ.” More information here.

“The Montana Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a former Butte High School valedictorian who was banned from speaking at her graduation because her speech contained religious references.”