If I Plan on Being the Crazy Politics Expert, I Might Have to Move to Montana.
Montana, maybe the sky is too big or something, but crazy grows wild and freely up there. Maybe it’s dripping down from Canada, in French. I dunno. But, it’s crazy.
Lavin: Looks the Role
Montana Rep. Steve Lavin has introduced HB485, subtitled “Mitt Romney on Steroids and Fertilizer.” Okay, okay, the bill is real but I just made up the subtitle.
Here ya go —
A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: “AN ACT REVISING ELIGIBILITY TO VOTE IN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS AND TO FILE FOR CANDIDACY FOR MUNICIPAL ELECTED OFFICE; ALLOWING A QUALIFIED NONRESIDENT PROPERTY OWNER OR DESIGNEE OF AN ENTITY TO VOTE IN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS AND TO FILE FOR CANDIDACY FOR MUNICIPAL ELECTED OFFICE; AND AMENDING SECTIONS 7-1-4121, 7-4-4104, 7-4-4301, AND 7-4-4401, MCA.”
Sweet Mother of Landowners, that means that corporations can vote. Maybe they can even run for office. Wouldn’t that be cool? Hey, my friend, are you voting for WalMart or Kodak?
But, don’t stop there. Lavine is skipping ladder rungs on the Tower of Nuts. He wants to allow people to salvage roadkill. Now at first glance that sounds dandy, until you go out to dinner. Yeah, you guessed it – roadkill deer meat in a restaurant.
You know, maybe Republicans are on to something with this smaller government thing. Maybe they should leave. That would be a great first step.
Thanks to Brian for the heads up.
It has happened in cities before. The Village of Telluride, Co, not the cityof Telluride, allow non resident property owners to vote in city elections. It was upheld by SC. Some non residents of Angel Fire, NM have proposed this.
1Not unheard of.
The good news:you could vote AGAINST Microsoft.
2So…a political manipulator, like Karl Rove, could then get his little gang of followers to vote as non-residents – not even Montana residents, inundating these elections to ensure the municipality is republican…and that means the would be mayor that they want to position for bigger and better offices would get his little track record.
There is a Sci-Fi channel show called Continuum, which includes the corporate take-over of American Politics in the future and the rebellion against it. Stuff like this makes me wonder how preposterous the premise really is.
3Non-resident property owners voting in property tax and bond elections might be legally reasonable, assuming we’re talking about people and not about corporations. I don’t like the idea, because some of those non-residents might not care much about local issues that the tax dollars will fund and such non-residents probably have more money than the locals, but I can see it. However, it’s a big jump from that to allowing corporate landowners to vote.
Gary, can you point me to the legal ruling? I did a quick google and all I could find was the Colorado Supreme Court upholding the village’s right to use eminent domain to take some land outside the city limits for a park. I can’t find anything about allowing non-residents to vote. But I might not be looking in the right place.
4Not a first. I’d swear that “Road Kill Catering” has been providing food service to the dorms at Texas colleges for generations.
5Huh. Kinda reminds me of ol’ H. L. Hunt, who thought that people should have a number of votes, based on income.
6A question: What if the non-resident property owners are Saudis? Or Spaniards? Or Chinese?
7Roadkill does not “go to waste.” Somebody eats it– just not usually humans.
8The ‘representative of an entity’ could, according to that bill, not only vote, but run for office. It would be entirely possible to have WalMart as the mayor and entire city council. That’s a pleasant prospect, huh?
9To Mary Jane Moore. I am not in College Station and dont have the source with me. Contact the city clerk in Telluride Mountain Village she can send you the information. Once again it is the Mountain Village and not City of Telluride. The Mountain Village was created by the owners of the ski resourt as a way of controlling development. You have to be a millionare several times over to afford property in the Village.
10OK, give the damn corporations the vote in elections and the right to run for office but when you do also make sure they realize that if they get all that they have to accept the fact that since they are now people they can be executed!
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