A distraction in Senate race?

One clear thing that has emerged from the fight over border control legislation supported by Rep. Denny Rehberg is that the issue has become thoroughly politicized, leaving Montanans guessing what may or may not be true about House Resolution 1505.

From our view, this is a controversy with a lot of smoke and little fire. While Rehberg is just one of many Republican co-sponsors of the bill, listening to the critics one would think he is the chief cheerleader for the bill, which has become a centerpiece issue in the Senate race between Rehberg and Sen. Jon Tester. A group made up of current and former Democratic operatives has spent $250,000 on television commercials deriding Rehberg’s support of the bill, calling it a “land grab” that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to “take over” millions of federal acres.

It’s a campaign that is thick on hyperbole, with a Tester spokesman saying that “If Homeland Security wanted to stop sales on Forest Service land, challenge tribal sovereignty, build watch towers in Glacier Park or build roads across the Bob Marshall Wilderness, (Rehberg’s) bill allows it.”

Technically, the bill does have language expanding Homeland Security authority on federal lands only, but its intent and application is aimed at providing the Border Patrol with better access to federal lands administered by the Interior and Agriculture departments, and it is aimed primarily at addressing problems on the southern border with Mexico.

It should be obvious that the bill would not lead to watch towers and new roads in Glacier National Park, or banning the public from the park and other federal lands. If such proposals were made, the park’s vast constituency simply would not allow it and the necessity of such measures would immediately be challenged, considering illegal immigrants are hardly swarming across the park’s border.

But that’s not the case for federal lands along the southern border.

Supervisors at 17 of 26 border stations along the Mexican border contend that border authorities’ access to federal lands has been limited because of environmental restrictions, and the bill is supported by organizations representing current and former Border Patrol agents.

Tester’s camp may be right in saying the legislation is not necessary for a northern border state like Montana, and perhaps that should be taken into account with the bill’s provisions targeting specific problems on the southern border. One-size-fits-all legislation from Washington is usually flawed and undesirable. But HR 1505 is hardly the mother of land-grab horrors described by Rehberg’s political opponents, and it shouldn’t be a central issue in a race for a Montana Senate seat.