Washington heeds Bullock in fight to save MT's small farms and ranches

by: Montana Cowgirl

Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 18:32:55 PM MST

The toothless anti-trust  regulations that Bullock is trying to reform have

"contributed to the exodus of about 150,000 cattle operations since the mid-1990s, which has, consequently, caused the hollowing out of rural communities all across America."

The proposed reforms would improve market transparency and further define practices that are unfair, discriminatory or deceptive, including efforts by big packers that would limit the legal rights of small producers.

The draft rules have been praised by industry experts across the U.S.:

John Crabtree of the Center for Rural Affairs said that the rule isn't perfect, "but it is the most aggressive, significant livestock market reform to come out of Washington, perhaps since the passage of the Packers and Stockyards Act itself.

"This rule will breathe some life, some competition back into our livestock markets," he said. "And we're going to work hard to keep improving it, and we're going to fight -- tooth and nail -- to ensure that the packers cannot weaken the rule."

AG Allows Initiative Backers to Play "Bait-and-Switch" with Constitutional Rights

by: Montana Cowgirl

Thu Sep 03, 2009 at 17:06:06 PM MST

So why would he allow Rick Jore and Trevis Butcher to put forward another fraudulent ballot initiative (Yep, this same Butcher is on the board of this initiative campaign)  --this time,  an initiative to amend the constitution to strip away the privacy rights of all Montana women without tipping off the voters as to what this proposed initiative  would really do and its exorbitant costs to Montana taxpayers?

First, there are some obvious problems with the latest Butcher/Jore amendment:

If passed, it would prevent a woman from getting an abortion - even if her life is in jeopardy - prevent treatments like in vitro fertilization, and allow legislators and the courts to dictate permissible activities and medical care for pregnant women.

I would think the AG would also be worried that the proposed initiative could seriously burden the court system by requiring court-appointed guardians to advocate for fertilized eggs and fetuses. Yet, the Attorney General didn't even bother request a fiscal impact statement on the potential costs to the state.

Maybe someone dropped the ball and this just fell through the cracks.

It couldn't have been a political decision--even arch religious conservative groups like the Montana Catholic Conference, Right to Life Montana and the Montana Family Foundation, have rejected this proposed initiative as too extreme.

It couldn't have been that he couldn't find substantive legal problems with the language. The Billings Gazette has already reported on some of the many legal problems with the language pointed out by Legislative Services Attorney David Niss such as

... the proposed ballot statements fail to make it clear that the three proposals apparently are intended to prohibit abortion.

You don't have to be an Attorney General to know that initiative language is supposed to tell voters what the initiative will actually do.   It has some other wacky legal implications too.  Implications that were pointed out for Bullock in this handy memo.

For example, the proposed initiative seeks to grant constitutional due process rights to all fertilized human eggs by amending the due process section of the Montana Constitution to define "person" as "from the beginning of the biological development." This definition is so broad that it could include unfertilized eggs and sperm, potentially impacting all sexual activity of men and women. Also, by requiring the Legislature to implement "this section by appropriate legislation," the initiative could remove every Montanans' current ability to pursue claims of due process violations.