Letters to the editor Aug. 18

Parental rights

The Montana Supreme Court just ruled to remove parental rights from all Montana parents. Your child may now obtain an abortion in Montana without parental permission.  

Your child cannot have a wart removed by a doctor without parental permission, but she can have an abortion. This is a slippery slope and Montana citizens need to understand that their choice in selecting new Supreme Court justices is critical to our future.

Please select carefully when you mark the box for Supreme Court justices. Montana has had an extremely liberal, ideologically driven Supreme Court for too long. We need common sense justices who respect the Constitution to replace the liberals who have seriously damaged the integrity of the Montana Supreme Court. 

If you want to have any hope of cleaning up the court, you need to vote for Dan Wilson. Dan would be a refreshing conservative voice, and I know he will work hard to restore the integrity of the Montana Supreme Court.

 ­— Linda Sauer, Dayton

Hypocritical and arbitrary

In a recent letter, Mark Agather complains about alleged “black robe dictators” — Montana state judges who he accuses of “arbitrarily interpreting our state constitution.”

Arbitrary refers to acting on a personal whim or random impulse, rather than established principles or rules. Mr. Agather’s own words demonstrate that he is guilty of the very offense for which he accuses others.

Initially, Mr. Agather complains that “[o]ur state Constitution has at least three subjective terms which should never have been included therein.”  While he is certainly entitled to that opinion, the fact remains that those terms (including the right to a “clean and healthful environment”) are in our state’s highest law, placed there by 100 delegates chosen by Montana citizens and ratified by  statewide popular vote.

Our state Constitution also includes multiple mechanisms for amendment, and it has in fact been amended more than 30 times since its original 1972 ratification.

Yet Mr. Agather apparently believes Montana’s popularly-elected (and therefore politically accountable) judges should just disregard language that is inconvenient to his personal political views. He would have them elevate his personal opinion that “this language should never have been included” above the language that is actually there. Is that not the very definition of arbitrary?

Worse, he badly misrepresents how these judges actually interpret our Constitution. He claims that “one judge took it on himself alone to approve of the destruction of our coal, gas and oil industries because of his, and solely his, personal interpretation of the word ‘healthful.’”  

The Held decision was actually written by a woman, Mr. Agather, and Judge Kathy Seeley merely ruled that a state law prohibiting even consideration of climate change impacts in issuing permits for fossil fuel projects was facially unconstitutional ... hardly a radical decision “destroying” an industry.

Hypocritical, hyperbolic and arbitrary, Mr. Agather.

— Roy Antley, Kalispell

Tax task force

Do you own a home and wonder what it’s worth?  You can easily look up your address on Zillow and see the estimated value is rapidly rising, translating to more property taxes. 

Too many Montana families cannot keep up with an annual $249 million property tax increase imposed by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte and his party in the Legislature. Yet, after months of analysis by the governor’s property tax task force, they recommended a complicated process that will raise our taxes again.

Why didn’t they consider the new taxes they already took from our wallets and give us our money back? Now they want to bill us for more  taxes over the next two years. More bad news. Zillow reflects your home’s current value, unlike the state’s property appraisal system, which is always two years behind.  

When will this end? Unless Gianforte adopts the simple solution to reduce the residential property tax rate that we pay, as other governors have done, Montanans will continue to pay more, and lose their homes while rich folks benefit.

Don’t be fooled by Gianforte’s rebate and the multiple marketing materials reminding you to apply to get a wee bit of your property tax money back. The truth is your home value is rapidly increasing.  

What can you do? Vote for the candidates that will truly lower your taxes or buckle up because you’ll be paying way more property taxes in the future with the current leadership.

— Jan Lombardi, Seeley Lake