Montana Governor Trolls State SupCo in Hilarious Fashion

*Update: The Montana Secretary of State sent her own letter to the Montana Legislature talking about the "historic and unprecedented" vote being forced by the courts. That letter is below.

ORIGINAL POST

I got a kick out of the letter sent by Governor Greg Gianforte (R-MT) to the Secretary of State. He basically trolled the state supreme court in a hilarious way by pointing out that he wasn't going to go "rifling through legislators' desks."

What's the deal with SB 442? That is the bill that would have redistributed marijuana tax revenues in the State of Montana.

The bill was vetoed by the governor back in the Spring of 2023, and here we are nearly a year later and the courts are trying to force a vote by mail of Montana lawmakers? Isn't it a little late for that- especially since the Montana State Senate decided to adjourn before they could vote to override the veto? And, don't the courts have more important things, like a backlog of criminal cases, to be focused on instead of bogging down the courts by meddling into legislative affairs?

Those were just some of the questions I had Tuesday morning. Thankfully, Kyle Schmauch, the Communications Director and Policy Manager for the State Senate Republicans was able to join me on the radio and explain.

Kyle Schmauch: It's in some ways, a very complicated subject and in other ways it's a very simple subject. What we really have here is a majority of the State Senate all signing on to letters pushing back on judicial overreach. And the district court here in Helena followed up by the Montana Supreme Court doing its latest invasion into internal legislative rules and procedures, which are far beyond their constitutional authority to dive into the weeds of legislative process like that.

 

Aaron Flint: To me, this isn't a debate about the merits of Senate Bill 442. I mean, we can talk about the merits at another time. You're right, this is about legislative process and about the liberal mob on the Montana Supreme Court interfering with that process. But it appears they don't even understand the process. They don't even understand the basic legal mechanisms here. That's very concerning. And yet they're trying to interfere in it.

Here's the full audio of our chat with Kyle Schmauch:

As for the hilarious letter from the governor. Here it is: attachment-LETTER 240318 to SOS fr Gov SB 442

Click here for the letter from the Senate Majority also.

Full letter from the Montana Secretary of State: