Just who do they represent?

Virtually every day when Congress is in session, I get a press release or two from each of Montana's representatives explaining how they are looking out for our state.

Usually, those press releases are proud announcements of how the senator or representative wants credit for the U.S. government agreeing to spend millions more of taxpayer money in Montana. For some reason, these announcements never seem to reference the national debt that they are expanding.

Occasionally, there are also press releases from our senators taking credit for confirmation votes such as when the Senate approved the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as the nation's first Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court.

I've been checking my e-mail frequently today waiting for that kind of note from Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester proudly proclaiming that they have just voted to confirm the nomination of Cass Sunstein as the nation's regulatory czar.

So far I have been disappointed. Not a word has arrived from Max and Jon, as they like to be known in our 'small-town" state.

Maybe that's because, in order to be honest, the press release would have to read something like this one which I just made up:

"Sen. Max Baucus announced today that he voted to approve President Obama's nomination of Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, despite Sunstein's apparent antipathy to many beliefs held dear by Montanans.

"Baucus said he was joined in this "rally round the president" partisan vote by his fellow Montana Democrat Jon Tester. Sunstein was approved on a 57-40 vote.

Sunstein, who is a prolific author and law professor, holds many views that are the opposite of common thinking in Montana, most notably on animal rights and gun rights.

"Sunstein is widely noted for his animal-rights philosophy and for his belief that animals should be able to bring lawsuits against humans to protect their rights. An attorney for Americans for Limited Government said that, if confirmed, Sunstein 'could plunge the livestock industry into a litigation abyss from which it may never emerge.'

"Sunstein is also on record as favoring an end to hunting as a recreational sport, which - let's face it - the less said about that the better.

"In addition to his radical views on animal rights, Sunstein holds questionable beliefs about the Second Amendment rights which most Montanans cherish. In 2007, he said, 'The individual right to bear arms reflects the success of an extremely aggressive and resourceful social movement and has much less to do with good standard legal arguments that [it] appears.'

"Although Jon and I recognize that we were elected by Montanans to protect their traditional values, we thought we could vote for Sunstein and his extreme left-wing views without anyone noticing because the Mainstream Media has not paid any attention to this nomination and because neither of us is up for re-election for at least three more years anyway."

Please remember, that this is a FICTIONAL press release. But it reflects accurately the beliefs of Mr. Sunstein, and frames the question I think Montanans ought to be asking themselves:

Just who do Max Baucus and Jon Tester think they are? And this goes for Rep. Denny Rehberg and anyone else you voted for. Don't let their votes go unquestioned - or unpunished! - if they appear to be voting against your interest.

We call them our elected 'representatives' - after all, they vote on our behalf in Congress and state legislatures - but more and more you have to wonder, just who do they represent?

Is it you the voter? Or is it the political party whose initial (usually R or D) hangs off their last name like a brand on a beast of burden?

The blatant disregard of Baucus and Tester for the concerns of Montana in their vote to approve Cass Sunstein to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is a good place to start for Montanans who wonder if they just got sucker-punched.

You can bet one thing. Baucus and Tester know exactly what they did. Sunstein is not exactly a shrinking violet. He is a constitutional scholar, a University of Chicago and Harvard law school professor, a prolific author, and moreover a frequent witness before congressional committees. He also happens to be a close personal friend of President Barack Obama, and that apparently was all that mattered to most Democratic senators, even the ones who represent states where Sunstein could not be elected dog-catcher (Oops! sorry, but that human-centric position will be banned if Sunstein has his way!)

You might well ask, "What is the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs' anyway? Created in 1980 by the Paperwork Reduction Act, the federal office carries out economic analysis, sets policy on information technology, and generally oversees implementation and reform of federal regulations - all those administrative rules which the bureaucracy develops in order to carry out the laws passed by Congress and the wishes of the president.

Thus the 'regulatory czar" might or might not be an important office, depending on how it is used, but it should be noted that the Wall Street Journal reported that "although obscure, the post wields outsize power."

The Journal's Jan. 8 story also noted that, "Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases."

Sounds important to me, but you can decide for yourself.

The question persists, however, just what kind of person do you want to oversee this office, or for that matter serve the public interest in any kind of office? The Senate has the responsibility of offering its advice and providing its consent to all presidential appointees unless the Congress exempts them from such scrutiny (Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution). And that means senators are the gatekeepers of government, the ones who can protect "we the people" from the whims of presidents and the personal agendas of presidential nominees.

Sunstein has an agenda as long as ACORN's rap sheet. You can look it up for yourself on the Internet, but our poor overworked senators have lots of people to do that for them. I'm sure they discovered, for instance, that Sunstein's nomination was opposed by the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the National Wild Turkey Federation and numerous other outdoor groups who generally share common ground with our Montana values and, supposedly, our Montana senators.

Indeed, both Baucus and Tester are members of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. They use this affiliation to show their constituents that they are "on their side" - pro-hunting, pro-gun rights and generally pro-outdoors. Or is that just a political ploy?

Hmmmm… I guess I will just have to keep checking my e-mail for that explanation from Max and Jon. But so far, the silence is deafening.

n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com