On the Issues

Economic Security

Everyone wants a strong economy, but a strong economy should provide people with economic security, and as we confront the potential for environmental degradation, it should also do so without damaging the environment.

Economic security means that working people, especially working families, should be able to meet their basic needs, including food, housing, and affordable and accessible health care. No one who works to support themselves and their families should live in poverty, lack of adequate and affordable housing, or without basic health care.

In Montana we are fortunate that so much of our economy is derived from small and locally-owned businesses. The smaller the distance between employer and employee, between service providers and their clients, or between producers and their consumers, the more employers, producers, service providers are accountable to the people they depend on for their own economic well-being.

Small and locally-owned businesses include everyone from hair-stylists to health care professionals, from family ranches and farms to those who make all of the fine products that proudly display the Made in Montana label. These are our neighbors, and they are good citizens. Their quality of life is our quality of life, their communities are our communities.

Corporations and big businesses have a role to play, but particularly when they are owned primarily by non-residents, they must be held accountable. When employers, service providers, and producers are distant from their employees and consumers, they are less invested in the quality of life in the communities where employees and consumers live.

Environmental Protection

The choice between economic growth and environmental protection is a false choice. More and more businesses are going green and take into account their impact on the environment. Many businesses are directly involved in producing goods and services that will help to reduce air and water pollution, develop a variety of affordable and clean alternative energies, conserve natural resources, and develop and apply technologies that will not only help protect our environment and resources, but restore and repair the effects of past environmental damage. Good and innovative public policies will help promote these kinds of enterprises.

Nowhere is the need for new legislative leadership more clear than on environmental issues. The legislatures of the 1990s weakened our water quality laws, and in 2001 the legislature weakened the Montana Environmental Protection Act. We need to restore the authority and protection we had in both areas. But that just puts us where we were before.

We also need to protect the base stream flow of Montanas rivers and fisheries to prevent dewatering and sustain fisheries, strengthen stream access laws, work to create uniform and wide stream setbacks, increase fish and wildlife protection, expand state conservation easements, expand protected open space and link it to habitat sustainability.

I love the outdoors and enjoy a variety of outdoor activities. But there's more to environmental issues than protecting the environment as a commodity. Effectively addressing the consequences of environmental degradation and cultivating sustainable lifestyle practices are ethical issues. The choices we make now will determine the kinds of choices our children and grandchildren will confront. Unabated environmental degradation will create crises in the future.

The choices we make and the examples we set in city and county commissions and state legislatures can strengthen or weaken the national political will to make environmentally responsible choices and to reverse the destructive course our failure to do so will follow.

Education

No society can reach its fullest potential without well-educated citizens. Investing in education is investing in the future, in innovation and creativity in business, in solving social, economic, scientific, and environmental problems, and in the civic education of our fellow citizens.

Montanas K-12 education is highly rated on a national scale. We need to keep it that way. But our teachers are among the lowest paid. And for years the Republican-controlled legislature has cut the states share of funding for higher education, passing along increased tuition costs to students and their families. When increased prosperity leads to increased revenue, we should invest in public education at all levels, and where possible, find ways to make higher education more affordable for Montanas resident students again.

We also need to take into consideration the effects of population shifts within Montana, where a declining tax base in some areas threatens the quality of public education, while rapid growth in other parts of the state stresses the limits of schools built and staffed to serve a much smaller population. We need to keep the big picture, our whole state in mind since the quality of our education statewide affects all of us and our shared future.

Energy

America must develop affordable and clean alternative energies, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and become energy self-sufficient. Montana can lead the way. Renewable alternative energy technologies include biofuels, wind, and solar energy and Montana has the potential for abundant wind, solar, and biofuel resources. But they wont be cheap enough soon enough to meet existing demand and public policy can help move markets in the direction of sustainable energy on the demand and supply side.

All energy technologies those that make use of fossil fuels and those that are renewable have costs and benefits as well as a variety of short and long-term consequences and potentialities. Those who serve in the legislature will have to be knowledgeable and thoughtful in considering all of these technologies and in developing a strategic plan for our energy future.

We must also reduce our consumption by changing many of the things we do on a daily basis how we get to work, how close to home we shop, whether the products we buy are produced locally, how fuel-efficient our vehicles are and how energy efficient are homes and businesses are. Changing consumption will have the most impact in the longer-term. In my view, we need to choose a mix of technologies and consider their impact on the economy, our natural resources and environment, and their affordability and accessibility in the short-and long term.

We need to reform the structure of public utilities production and distribution of energy and, to the extent possible, offset the negative effects of the privatization that took place in the 1990s (volatile price increases and unreliable supply). My position on energy proposals will be guided by two things: (1) the need to make a transition to renewable energy, and (2) the need to make energy affordable and clean.

Human Rights

Human rights are those conditions that are necessary for human beings to live in dignity. These include meeting our basic human needs and living free from harassment and discrimination at all stages in life. Human needs must be met within the framework of our societys resources, and in a wealthy society like ours, no one should live without basic health care, including mental health care.

Governor Schweitzer, State Auditor John Morrison, and the Democratic legislators worked to expand accessible and affordable health care to more working Montanans by raising the ceiling on family income qualifying for CHIPS (Childrens Health Insurance Program) and by creating and insurance pool for many people who work in small businesses. The vast majority of people who remain without health insurance are working people. We need to keep working toward full and universal access to affordable health coverage.

The twelve Indian nations who live in Montana are the First Montanans. Their rights are human rights, and are recognized as such by Montana law and by the Federal government as well as under international law. I believe that all Montanans have a responsibility to know and respect the Indian nations with whom we share this beautiful place.