Jonathan Martin, the chairman of the Constitution Party of Montana, is making a call out to all willing participants to get petition signatures for an initiative to amend the Montana Constitution.

The amendment would recognize the "personhood" of all humans "at all stages of...development or life, including the state of fertilization, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency".

Click "More..." to see Jonathan's call for assistance and the full text of the constitutional initiative.

A prospective petition drive to present a citizens' initiative to the voters of the state of Montana is currently in preparatory stages. The initiative would legally recognize, in Montana, that personhood begins at conception.

This initiative was discussed at the October state-wide meeting, notes of which are available in the previous news item below. More detailed information will be available soon.

Click "More..." to read the notes of the meeting.

Oklahoma's governor just signed into law HB 1804 which (1) requires businesses to check the immigration status of new hires, (2) allows people who lose their jobs to illegal aliens to pursue discrimination claims, (3) forbids state agencies from allowing illegal aliens to apply for public benefits, (4) makes it harder for illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses, and (5) orders local law enforcement to detain and deport illegal aliens.

Click "More..." to get to the link containing the full audio of the interview.

Republican primary candidate for president and current U.S. congressman, Ron Paul, gave a very bold and inspiring (for true patriots) speech before congress last week, on the true definition of patriotism and on dissent in times of war.

The Montana Senate, today, passed HJ 25, by a vote of 32 to 18. The Montana House had already passed it by 35 to 15. This resolution opposes the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, a sovereignty-weakening entanglement which is being moved forward without the authorization of the United States congress.

Governor Schweitzer, today, signed HB 27. Though Idaho and Arkansas had previously passed resolutions rejecting the Real ID Act, this makes Montana the first state in the union to pass a LAW to that effect. Governor Schweitzer said that the message to the federal government was, "No. Nope. No way. Hell no!"

HJ 25, which would oppose the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" (SPP), passed in the Senate Judiciary committee yesterday and is now headed for the Senate floor. The SPP is a plan to lower borders between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It is being moved forward by the executives of those countries without congressional approval. HJ 25 would express Montana's opposition to that plan.

Though it's old news to some, it has recently come to our attention that award-winning movie producer, Aaron Russo's documentary about the IRS and Federal Reserve has been made available by Mr. Russo for free viewing in its entirety on Google Video.

Visit our Videos page for the link.

The New Hampshire House voted 268 to 8 yesterday to pass a bill which would reject the federal Real ID Act. If it passes the New Hampshire Senate, their state will be the second to do so. The first, of course, was Montana! (Though the governor still needs to sign it.)

Click "More..." to hear the New Hampshire Public Radio (*shudder*) report on it.

Rick Jore's Montana House Joint Resolution 38, rescinding all past calls for convening a constitutional convention, was passed by the Montana Senate Wednesday, by a vote of 43 to 7. It is now on its way back to the Montana House.

HB 340, which would've restored and clarified many of Montanans' rights to use firearms for self defense, failed in the Senate Tuesday. Numerous Republicans, some of which ran as pro-gun candidates in the last election, voted against it.

Montana House Bill 287, which states, "...Montana will not participate in the implementation of the REAL ID Act..." was passed today by the Montana Senate, on a vote of 48 to 0. It's next stop will be Governor Schweitzer's office where, if he signs it, it will become Montana law.

The bill also orders, "The department...to report to the governor any attempt by agencies or agents of the U.S. department of homeland security to secure the implementation of the REAL ID Act...".

This coming Wednesday (04/04), Rick Jore's HB 712, which is designed to return sovereignty to Montana and make it illegal for U.N. flags to be flown on government property, will be read before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The hearing begins at 8:00 AM.

If you can, please consider showing up and testifying in favour of the bill.

After printing a lengthy "guest opinion" article by four law-enforcement administrators opposing Gary Marbut's pro-gun House Bill 340, the Billings Gazette refused to print a letter of rebuttal by Gary himself.

After ten days of debate, HB 808 passed the house yesterday. In order to get Rick Jore and fiscally conservative Republicans to vote for it, Republicans cut back their proposed spending increases by over $200 million, essentially freezing HHS's funding at current levels. One of the few actual cuts in funding (rather than a mere cut in the INCREASE) amended into the bill was that of cutting in half the federal money going to family-planning services, removing all of the money commonly understood to be funding abortions.

Yesterday, after a very heated debate in the Montana House of Representatives, four Republicans joined Representative Rick Jore to reject a Republican bill which would give $3 billion to Montana's Health and Human Services programs. Since all Democrats also voted against the bill, it failed.

The four Republicans were Roger Koopman, of Bozeman; Tom McGillvray, of Billings; Jon Sonju, of Kalispell; and the House Speaker himself, Scott Sales.

A guest opinion article appearing in Kalispell's Daily Interlake Thursday chronicles differences in behaviour between government educators and home educators who were present in the Helena capitol on two occassions. The government educators observed were present February 10th, when HB 230 was being debated in the House. The home educators were present February 19th, when SB 458 was being heard in the Senate Education and Cultural Resources Committee.

The HB 230 hearing was "filled to capacity" with government educators, who "[stood] up in intimidating opposition to [Representative Koopman]" when he presented his bill. They also "several times...stood to their feet and made applause for legislators who spoke against the bill." They were then "warned by the Chair...that their behavior was out of line with House chamber rules... When it continued, [he] ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to Clear the House Gallery but then rescinded it after appeals from several lawmakers."

In contrast, though the SB 458 hearing began almost an hour late, the opponents, who consisted mostly of home educators from across the state, listened quietly and respectfully as Senator Ryan presented it. Opponents were only given fifteen minutes to testify. When this time had passed and only six opponents had spoken, though the line snaked out into the hallway, those in the crowd remained orderly and quietly resigned themselves to their lost opportunity to testify. Unlike the government-educator crowd at the HB230 hearing, this crowd also contained numerous children, who were very quiet and respectful.

A Billings Gazette article covers the passage of the first three Republican spending bills in the Montana House of Representatives:

"Jore said afterward he was willing to accept the level of budget cuts in the first three bills, 'understanding that we have other bills coming'.

"'My view is I'd like to see additional cuts, but I recognize at the same time that some Republicans are going to be stretched,' he said. 'I'm viewing the budget as a whole.'"

Also, according to the article, tempers between specific Republicans and specific Democrats flared to uncivil levels when personal attacks started flying.

An article by Helena AP writer, Matt Gouras, this morning says that House Republicans are threatening to cut the budget of Montana's social services to a mere $400. The article alleges that the motivation is to "force Democrats to start voting for the Republican budget bills" but fails to recognize that Republicans have been lowering spending increases in order to get Representative Jore to vote for them.

An article posted just before midnight last night on Kalispell's Daily Interlake website tells how House votes were locked up on Republican spending bills yesterday, with Representative Jore the deciding vote, just as predicted by many Montana news sites.

Jore is quoted as saying, "Here's the bottom line: I want as much reductions as I can get. I realize I'm stretching some Republicans, but this is the time for them to step up."

Editorial Note: An increase of 5% or less in dollars, as proposed by Jore in our "GOP to Reject..." news item from yesterday, would, over a two-year period, amount to an actual decrease in spending (and not just a decrease in the INCREASE, like House Republicans want). This is because Federal-Reserve-driven inflation, over a two-year period, is likely to decrease the value of the United States dollar by more than 5%.

An article in the Billings Gazette today continues to document the spending-increase saga occurring in the Montana House of Representatives:

"To win the crucial vote of an ultra-conservative member, House Republican Majority Leader Michael Lange said Tuesday that he stands ready to delete the full $2 billion in federal money from the bill outlining the state's health and human services budget...

"'We'll knock it down exactly where we need to be to get it where (Jore) wants,' Lange said...

"Jore, meanwhile, was noncommittal about how he will vote, but certain about one thing: 'These bills will have to be significantly reduced on an overall basis for me to even consider voting for them.'

"He said he won't vote for the bills unless their combined overall increase is less than 5 percent for the next two years combined."

In an article in the Daily Inter Lake today about Representative Jore, Representative Cordier, a Democrat and "career educator with the Columbia Falls school district" who has gotten to know Jore by working with him in the House Education Committee, is quoted as saying, "He is very upfront, he's transparent and he's good to his word. I would much rather work with a gentleman like Rick rather than someone who has an unstated agenda and is masquerading as someone else."

Cordier also said, "He's not sinister. It just happens he and I don't agree on how to view our education system."

Editorial Note: After all of the "sky-is-falling" rhetoric which hit much of the Montana press immediately after Jore was appointed to chair the House Education Committee (especially the fallacious distant-association tactics used by organizations such as the Montana Human Rights Network), it's a refreshing turn to hear, from someone who has come to know Rick personally, that he's not a "tyrant" after all. ;^)

A Missoulian article today claims that Republicans are saying that they will trim their budget bills down as far as they have to in order to get Representative Jore to vote on them.

Representative Jore was interviewed by the Billings Gazette Thursday about the current Republican spending bills which he is opposing and which would increase spending by 13.3% over the next two years. Below are some excerpts from the article:

Go, Rick, go!

Source: The Billings Gazette

William K. Shearer, the former chairman of the Constitution Party (national), died Saturday afternoon.

Source: montana's 3rd party news

We have worked out all of the kinks for the new domain name, cpmont.org, except for one--some elements in pages occassionally don't load. Please bear with us, as we continue troubleshooting it.

In the meantime, feel free to use the following links to enjoy any of the videos now available because of the new site's media capabilities:

• First reading of Rick Jore's HB 403:
  • Jore's introduction
  • Dr. Johnston's testimony (warning: small amount of graphic imagery)
  • Other proponents
  • Opponents
  • Questions from the committee
  • Jore's closing statements
• First reading of Rick Jore's HB 404:
  • Jore's introduction
  • Mr. Gatto's testimony
  • Other proponents
  • Opponents
  • Questions from the committee
  • Jore's closing statements

P.S. Please e-mail us, if you have any problems with the videos.

Yesterday was the deadline for the transmittal of bills from the Montana House of Representatives to the Montana Senate. The following bills, for which Representative Jore is the primary sponsor, survived the deadline by being passed by the House:

HB 466 (to make passengers who don't report a vehicular homicide accountable)

HJ 38 (to rescind all previously passed and still standing calls for a federal constitutional convention, or "con-con")

HB 712 (to protect Montana's sovereignty from encroachments by the United Nations organization)

Source: montana's 3rd party news

The domain name, cpmont.org, has now been registered for the Constitution Party of Montana's web site, though the site has not yet been moved there. The webmaster is in the process of setting up a new web server which will increase our multimedia (especially video) and dynamic-content capabilities.

HISTORY: For those unfamiliar with the history of the site, we were once cpomt.org, but during a very brief period of domain expiration, anonymous Internet "squatters" took the name, put a site on it containing offensive content, and demanded an exhorbitant price to get it back. Since we couldn't afford their asking price, we tried to wait them out while temporarily using the free domain, cpomt.webhop.org. However, since it now contains different content than the offensive front site that they originally put up, they MAY HAVE sold it to another party (for much less than they were asking us, no doubt).

Since cpmt.org, cpom.org, and cpmontana.org were already taken (though not necessarily hosting sites yet), we took cpmont.org and will be moving to it soon.

In the mean time, thank you for your continued patience with our unusual domain name.

Rick Jore's HB 712, which would establish that the United Nations has no governmental authority over the sovereign state of Montana, got a tie vote yesterday before the Montana House of Representatives. It is scheduled for a second reading today.

Also yesterday: Jore's HJ 38, which would cancel previously made requests by Montana for a United States constitutional convention (a.k.a. "con-con"), was passed out of committee and will likely have a reading before the Montana House within a week.

Source: montana's 3rd party news

HB 404, Rick Jore's bill designed to eliminate compulsory-attendance laws for public schools in Montana, had its first reading yesterday, before the Montana House Education Committee. Those who signed the meeting registry in favour of the bill were many times as numerous as those who signed in opposition to it.

When the hearing was opened to public comment, the 1991 New York State Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, who flew in from New York for the hearing, gave testimony of how his sometimes creative circumvention of New York's compulsory-attendance laws was one of the keys to his success in educating his students. After Mr. Gatto, many other proponents stood and spoke.

All who stood and spoke in opposition to the bill identified themselves as current or former administrators or employees of the Montana public school system.

Though the bill was discussed through questions from a few members of the committee, no action was taken on the bill at this time.

A life-time Republican recognizes Rick Jore's election as a sign of the times and is seriously considering switching to the Constitution Party.

SB 458, which would require all homeschoolers to register all of their names and addresses (including all homeschooled children) with their county superintendent of schools before June 23rd EVERY YEAR, will receive its first reading before the Senate Education and Cultural Resources committee, 3:00 PM, Monday, February 19th, in hearing room 303.

One possible enforcement result of this bill would be homeschoolers having to attend government school in any year that they fail to register by June 23rd.

Rick Jore's House Bill 403, "Constitutionally recognize life begins at conception", failed in the House today with a vote of 45 for and 53 against.

This just in from Rick Jore...

The House Judiciary Committee voted 10-7 to pass our Life at Conception Bill out of committee this morning.

I did amend the bill to clarify that it would not repeal the death penalty...

Rick

Click any of the following links to listen to a selected section:

Jore's Introduction

Dr. Johnston's Testimony

Other Proponents

Opponents

Committee Discussion