| Not much has been heard from Scott Sales this session. And that's a good thing. Sales, of course, was one of the main contributors to the vitriol surrounding the last session. We all remember Mike Lange's expletive-laden outburst against the governor -- but few remember Sales' rhetorical tantrum at the close of 2007's regular session, in which he called Democratic legislators "obscene" and "immoral" and -- again! -- compared legislating to a war. Sales' role as House Speaker was bad enough to provoke Republican state Senator John Cobb into calling the House leadership "a bunch of idiots" who "us[e] the rules to abuse people," who "think they can bully the governor," and compared them to Third World politicians.
So it's good to see Sales get shut out of this session, even by his own party:
Sales, long one of the chamber's most outspoken fiscal conservatives, tried every way he could to hack some dough out of House Bill 2 on Monday, during the day-long debate on the measure.
He targeted agencies from big to small, including the governor's office, the Revenue Department, the Justice Department, the State Prison, the Public Defenders Office and the university system. His amendments ranged from the $1,300 per-diem to $4.7 million in student loans and scholarships.
Sales also tried everything from humor -- he called an amendment to cut Gov. Brian Schweitzer's airplane a "green amendment" that would reduce the governor's carbon footprint -- to hectoring, scolding colleagues about spending more money in the midst of a recession.
"No one's had a reduction in their budget at all," he said. "This baby's growing by at least 4.6 percent over the biennium. I don't know of one department that is taking a cut. In fact, all I see is growth. I dare say that we have government out of control here."
...in the end, Sales couldn't rustle up a single Democratic vote in the 50-50 House for any of his amendments, let alone hold his own party behind him.
"This is your last chance to register a vote for the taxpayer ... and say that we take our job seriously," he said on amendment No. 21. It failed on a 31-68 vote.
For one, our nation's leaders currently subscribe to Keynes -- spending during a recession is exactly what we're trying to do to keep the economy from sinking. Is Sales unaware? Does he have a rational explanation for his desire to slash the budget? (And rational arguments against government spending during this recession do exist, although I suspect Sales would be against nationalizing banks.) Does Sales even have a coherent vision of the economy?
That no Democrat seems willing to work with Sales is hardly a surprise, given the Speaker's behavior in 2007. That a dozen or so Republicans are willing to work with Democrats is somewhat of a surprise: is this a rejection of their leader's dutiful and antiquated obeisance to 1990s Gingrich rhetoric? A rejection of Sales' leadership? Or simply a desire to get things done?
Still, you've got to wonder what this session would have been like with a clear Republican majority in the House. |
