Racial tensions arise at vote-by-mail debate at Montana Legislature

[Newsjock]

Source: Missoulian

Racial tensions boiled over Friday afternoon at the Montana Capitol, as an Indian lawmaker ripped into House Republicans for their support of an amendment on a vote-by-mail bill.

"I feel so much hatred (coming) from your caucus," Rep. Carolyn Pease-Lopez, D-Billings, her voice breaking, said to a group of Republican lawmakers sitting in on a House Democrats' caucus meeting. "I feel like if it was up to you, we'd all be dead!"

"But we're going to keep having babies and continue to live and thrive ... no matter how much you try to oppress us."

House Democrats broke into applause as Pease-Lopez finished, and Rep. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, called out: "We got your back, sister!"

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_4687218a-2b5b-11e0-998e-001cc4c002e0.html

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http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_bf50f80c-2b33-11e0-9d0b-001cc4c002e0.html

The House on Friday killed a bill that would have switched most Montana elections to a vote-by-mail system, as 15 Republicans changed their votes to "no" after voting "yes" on a preliminary vote Thursday that endorsed the idea.

[xchrom]

1. Rep. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, called out: "We got your back, sister!"

:applause:

[COLGATE4]

2. The predictable response from the Rethug arguing on killing

the intiative: ""I have absolutely nothing to do with hate," he said, adding that he's a Christian and follows Christian principles". Christ, please protect me from your followers.

[freshwest]

3. Mail-In ballots work well where I live for those who are disabled or for some other reason...

Are unable to make a trip to a polling place within the 12 hours more or less time frame to vote at a place whose location may change from year to year. Where I live it has increased citizen participation by allowing a wide variety of issues to be put before the voters.

I don't see mail-in ballots as being the villain here. It's the cuts to give those on the reservations help in getting to the polling places, I think. The outreach to get people registered and help them to get to the polls used to be accomplished where I live by volunteers.

So I don't quite get this. It seems MT has a lot of hostility between the tribes and non-tribal people. I'm not familiar with MT politics. Someone who lives there might clue me in.

I'm also surprised that the Democratic Party members felt it necessary to include GOPhers in their own private caucus. Was this their regular state legislative meeting they hold together to work out bills?

But are the tribal folks within the same districts that would make a lot of local decisions, such as school, park, police, emergency medical service levies; bond issues; and property tax rates?

I thought tribal areas were exempt from these things. The main thing I imagine they vote on, are the federal and state races to make sure they have people in office that would treat them fairly.

Obviously, the GOP legislators who wanted to eliminate the outreach programs were elected by a majority state-wide. They need to simply fund the outreach program for this part of their population who can't vote by mail.

Maybe the outreach program had people drive to homes to collect their votes. Since driving into town to vote would be harder than mailing a ballot, this story just doesn't make sense to me.

I went to the link to read more, but I'm sure something was left out. Any help understanding the challenges mail-in voting created would be appreciated. I've seen it as a positive, progressive thing.

:dem: