House candidates want tougher DUI, marijuana laws

Editor’s note: Early voting for the general election begins Monday, Oct. 4, the first day that absentee ballots will be available. Election Day is Nov. 2.

Their politics might be miles apart on most issues, but Keith Regier and Jim Mahnke agree on two of them: Laws dealing with drunk driving and medical marijuana need some work.

Regier, the Republican incumbent, and Democratic challenger Mahnke are the candidates for House District 5, which stretches north of Kalispell.

Both agreed Montana needs tougher laws against driving under the influence, but that legislation isn’t an ultimate solution. It will involve, as Regier put it, “changing the attitude of the culture we’re in.”

The candidates also agreed that the medical marijuana law voters approved in 2004 has left much to be desired. Regier said he would like to bring a more clearly articulated version back to the public for another vote, and both he and Mahnke suggested tighter regulations for the drug.

“We have tight controls on prescription drugs. There ought to be the same types of controls on the dispensing of marijuana as well,” Regier said.

Mahnke, a retired neurosurgeon, suggested marijuana be prescribed by doctors and doled out in pharmacies like other drugs.

He acknowledged that abuses happen with prescription drugs, but with doctors and pharmacists under close government scrutiny, it’s easier to catch would-be thieves and abusers.

“Why not make [marijuana] part of a system that is already established?” he asked.

Beyond their views on drugs, the candidates’ platforms diverge sharply.

Mahnke said one of his priorities is getting the Legislature to meet annually.

“I think government is important enough to do it every year,” he said.

Mahnke also wants to establish a public bank of Montana “so that the profits of credit [and] loaning money stay in our community.”

“When capital is not local, when it comes from Wall Street ... where to do the profits go? They go east,” he said. “A public bank that is chartered to protect the economic health of local people is something that we should do.”

When it comes to managing the state budget, Mahnke proposes trimming government expenses and longstanding subsidies for dairy, cattle, sugar and other industries.

“We should look at all these wealth transfers or subsidies before we decide that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting the country,” he said. “Families and small businesses are hurting while big business and the financial industry are having their risks and losses covered by the taxpayers.”

He also said raises for state employees shouldn’t happen — at least for now.

“I don’t think anybody should be given a raise as long as people have lost their jobs and can’t find jobs,” he said.

Jobs are the No. 1 issue the state is facing, said Regier, a small business owner and retired teacher.

“Unemployment in the Flathead is much too high. We need to do things to attract businesses to the Flathead,” he said.

Getting rid of the state’s business equipment tax, lowering workers compensation rates and streamlining the environmental review process to make it easier for businesses to relocate to Montana would be good places to start, he said.

Tax increases are not the answer, he added. When people whose work hours and paychecks have been cut have trimmed their expenses, “government needs to do the same.”

“I know there are those that feel when the economy is down, the government needs to spend more to help get through it. That’s the wrong way to go,” he said.

Instead, state departments should have regular audits and automatic spending increases in various departments should be eliminated, he said.

Regier proposes putting a cap on property tax increases and wants to make sure the Department of Revenue has up-to-date property values to avoid repeating the shock many people experienced earlier this year.

“When [taxes go] up 100 to 800 percent in a year, that’s not reasonable,” he said. “I think 5 to 10 percent ... people would be able to stomach that.”

Energy is another important issue, Regier said. He supports using fossil fuels but also said the state should develop alternative energy sources.

“Coal, oil and gas are reliable, abundant and inexpensive. They have been vilified, and we can debate whether that is warranted,” he said.

But the state, particularly Western Montana, also should research biomass development to take advantage of forest products available here, he said.

Mahnke took a different stance. Long-distance electricity transportation is not at all efficient, he said, and as for clean coal, that description is “an unethical bit of propaganda.”

“The medical, social, ecological costs of coal is such that we should divert efforts being spent to develop it into alternative ways to scavenge energy,” he said.

Keith Regier

Republican

Age: 58

Family: Wife, Jolene; three adult children

Occupation: Small business owner; retired teacher

Background: House District 5 representative since 2009. Owner of Stillwater Sod for about five years. Retired from teaching in the Evergreen School District. Post-graduate work in elementary education at Montana State University-Northern; bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Nebraska. Moved to the Flathead Valley in 1975.

Jim Mahnke

Democrat

Age: 77

Family: Unmarried; two adult children and four grandchildren

Occupation: Small business owner; retired neurosurgeon

Background: Raises about 60 chickens and sells eggs to Montana Coffee Traders. Retired from neurosurgery at Kalispell Regional Medical Center; also was a neurosurgeon in Washington, Colorado and California. Taught at medical school at the University of California, Irvine. Earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard; medical school and residency at the University of Washington; surgical intern at the University of Minnesota. Moved to the Flathead Valley in 1989.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.