Letters to the editor April 3

Supreme Court nomination

As promised, Biden has nominated a Black woman to the Supreme Court. The background for that specific requirement is interesting.

As reported by two reporters for Yahoo News, at the Feb. 25, 2020 debate in South Carolina, Biden had failed in Iowa and New Hampshire, coming in fourth and fifth, respectively. South Carolina was his last chance and South Carolina congressman and House Majority Whip Clyburn had extracted a promise from Biden to nominate a Black woman for the Supreme Court in exchange for his endorsement.

At a break halfway through the debate, Biden had not yet fulfilled his promise and Clyburn approached him angrily demanding that he better not leave the stage without the promised commitment. Biden promised a Black woman Supreme Court nominee in the second half of the debate and the next morning Clyburn endorsed him. This sparked Biden’s winning the nomination and defeat of Bernie Sanders.

I have not yet seen much information about the writings or court decisions of Ketanji Brown Jackson, his nominee. Her pedigree of Harvard undergraduate and law school, though impressive, is not decisive. I would hope the feckless Republicans on the Judiciary Committee will, unlike Democrats who resort to character assassination, will focus their questions on whether she believes that our Constitution is no longer relevant as the progressive left demands of their Supreme Court choices. If she is another Sotomayor or Kagan, who believe the Constitution is outdated, she should not be confirmed.

— David Myerowitz, Columbia Falls

Change with the times

Our Montana State Constitution makes the promise that, “All persons are born free with certain inalienable rights. They include the right to a clean and healthy environment.”

But now every summer we have excessive heat, drought, and wildfire smoke. Any physician, including myself, will tell you that breathing smoke all day is really, really unhealthy. Smoke also drives tourists away, a big hit to the economy.

The smoke from burning coal is even worse, because it contains poisons like mercury and arsenic, especially dangerous for pregnant women and children.

This month NorthWestern Energy also made a promise — to be carbon neutral by 2050. That’s like an alcoholic promising to quit drinking — but not until 2050, too little too late.

The problem is that NorthWestern enjoys a special “pre-approval statute” that gives them generous financial incentives to build and run big, expensive fossil fuel plants. For example, Colstrip has reached retirement age, is half closed, but NorthWestern wants to run its remaining share for another 20 years. They also plan to spend $275 million to build the first of a series of methane powered generating plants, a herd of cash cows.

NorthWestern is addicted to fossil fuels, and needs an intervention from us, their ratepayers. To this end, Missoula’s District Court recently heard a lawsuit challenging the sweetheart “pre-approval” deal. Should this challenge succeed, Colstrip may close long before 2042, and NorthWestern may start investing in more wind, as well as solar and battery storage, since this combination is currently the cheapest way to generate electricity, not fossil fuels.

All NorthWestern Energy’s ratepayers are asking is that NorthWestern change with the times, but to do it now, not in 2050.

— Jerome Walker, Missoula

Convention of States

The Convention of States followers believe that new amendments will magically remove corruption from government, when truly no amendment after the original Bill of Rights has ever done anything to further freedom, but only expanded government authority.

A Convention of States will most assuredly be populated with “delegates” that are already “beltway insiders” and connected in some way to the crony government corruption such a convention convened presumes to correct. Joe the Plumber is not on that list. It is my opinion that the national personalities being well paid to push this Convention of States are hoping to become historically notable figures (as are the signers of our original) as “re-founders” or some other such title of nobility in the history books.

There are currently five ready to publish on the shelf model constitutions waiting to replace ours, all left of center, designed to increase the power of government, either subtly or overtly. A Convention of States could very well determine to toss out the current constitution and replace it with one of those or an amalgam of those models.

Term limits question is moot if elections are honest and secured — repealing progressive voting laws and practice, along with close attention to security and accuracy will cure the problem — that is up to the states.

Balanced budget is only a dodge for increased taxation to make up differences. End pork spending on social programs and the budget shrinks dramatically.

Applying the current constitution is the solution. Stuff the overblown government back into its present constitutional constraints.

— Lark Chadwick, Thompson Falls