Viewpoint: Meet the Montana GOP’s adolescent purity test
Doug James
Art Wittich created a purity test for the GOP.
It’s like 7th grade all over.
It was horrible the first time. Wittich’s redux isn’t any better.
Think of it as a chastity ring for Republican politicians. Sit with a Democrat at lunch, and you are out of the club. Gone.
Talk to a Democrat. Agree with one. Ruined for life. You lose your “Republican” pin.
Meet the adolescent purity police.
Wittich’s theology is toxic. If you aren’t at his table. You are the problem. Evil incarnate. A threat to America. A woke, liberal extremist. Supersized hate.
It is seventh-grade politics. What’s missing? Adult supervision.
These are small-tent Republicans. Small thinking. They can’t see or think beyond their lunch trays.
It’s not about Montana. Or governance. It’s about power, ego, vanity. You know, all seventh-grade stuff.
Wittich is no role model, but we have many in our history.
Remember our Constitutional Convention. 100 delegates. Role models. They realized that drafting a new constitution was too important for juvenile politics. They voted to sit in alphabetical order. Not by party. Smart. Refreshing. A lesson for our Legislature. Delegates who valued compromise and coalitions.
Sam C. Ford, Montana’s Republican Governor from 1941 to 1949. The war years. Before that, he was Attorney General and a Supreme Court Justice. He built coalitions. He was a big-tent Republican. He believed in a really big tent. Big enough to hold people who disagreed. My grandfather.
His youngest daughter married a Democrat and a member of the United Mine Workers Union. His son-in-law, Ted James, became a Republican. But remained a proud union member.
The Republican Tent had enough room then for a union member, former coal miner, and former Democrat. James served two terms as a Republican County Attorney in Cascade County and as Lt. Governor from 1964-1968. My father.
Wittich’s “purity” pledge is in sharp contrast to Governor Ford’s Big Tent.
Ford was close friends with Senator Burton K. Wheeler.
BK, to his friends. Bolshevik Burt, to his enemies. He served nearly 24 years in the U.S. Senate. He was a Vice Presidential candidate in 1924.
Wheeler was liberal and, like Montana, independent. He inspired a movie. “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Watch it. You will be inspired.
When FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court. Wheeler stopped him.
Pause for a minute. A liberal Democrat stopped a liberal Democratic President from expanding the Supreme Court. Wheeler opposed his party and his President. Wow!
Today, Senators Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy won’t even speak truth to Trump’s lies. Can’t imagine them ever opposing Trump or their party. Hasn’t happened. Won’t happen. They are rubber stamps. Lapdogs.
These Senators. They wear the title. But don’t do the work.
Wheeler did the work.
Despite different politics, Ford and Wheeler respected each other. Actually liked each other. Shared meals, together with their wives. Wrote personal letters.
Real friends. Imagine. A Republican and a Democrat. They disagreed. They argued. They remained close friends. When Ford ran for reelection. Wheeler supported him. Over a Democrat. Really. A Democratic Senator supported a Republican Governor’s reelection.
Politics then wasn’t tribal. It was intellectual.
As Governor, Ford appointed Wheeler team members to important government positions. The test was not one of political ideology, but effective and responsible governance.
It was who could best do the job. Not who will always agree with me. Radical concept today.
Wittich’s “chastity” pledge is different.
No deals with Democrats. Don’t talk to Democrats. Don’t vote with Democrats.
Wittich’s pledge doesn’t make anyone conservative. There is nothing conservative about being obdurate. It is just tribalism enshrined as middle-school cafeteria rules. And it is destructive. It’s hatred wearing a cowboy hat.
Many of my friends and family are Republicans. I agree with them about 95% of the time. I respect them. I want them at my table. Not because they agree with me. Because they don’t always. That is the point. I learn things from people who disagree with me. Sometimes, I learn that they are right.
What makes Wittich’s purity pledge insanely dangerous? Republicans want judges to wear team colors and pick a table. Red or Blue. They want to expand their partisan brand to our courts. No more independent justice. Imagine a judge who rules against the Wittich clan. That judge will be banned. Shunned. They will take away their “Republican” pin.
Adolescent lunchroom politics has no place in our Courts. We expect our judges to be impartial. To decide cases based upon facts and the law. Not based upon a political party's agenda or purity pledge.
Wittich’s political party purity rules have no place in our justice system. Let’s keep politics out of our courts. Out of our judicial races.
Doug James is a retired Montana attorney and an advocate for smart public policy.