For the last four months, I have been quietly reporting on the Montana legislature for my upcoming book in 2008. My book is not about the Montana legislature in specific, but instead uses the legislature as one of many examples that show just how movements are being built and in specific how movements operate in the shadowy world of state politics - a world that arguably impacts more Americans daily lives than federal politics, but a world nonetheless that most national political observers ignore in favor of obsessive focus on Washington, D.C. In the following story, let me tell you a little bit about what I've found - and how it tells the larger story of what's going on all over the country.
Here in Montana, as in many places throughout the country, we have a Skywalker-Vader clash of movements (you'll forgive the Star Wars reference - I realize it's overdone sometimes, but then again, at a certain level, Star Wars really does explain everything). On one side, there is a young, eager and aggressive progressive movement led by Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Democratic legislative leaders. On the other side is a slightly past-its-prime but still very powerful conservative movement led by Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled House. This side is particularly angry because its members can remember a time in the recent past when they controlled all branches of government and barely even had to think about - much less negotiate with - progressives.
The two sides are archetypal - it doesn't really matter who the individual players are or even that it's happening here in Big Sky country, because the act is all the same everywhere you go. And the question both here and in Montana is whether this show ends like Empire Strikes Back, (young Skywalker gets his arm hacked off, falls into the galactic version of a sewage pipe, and ends up looking forlornly out from a hospital window) or ends up like Return of the Jedi (Vader gets his arm hacked off, his breathing machine malfunctions, and ends up roasting on an open-pit bonfire in a forest while Skywalker wistfully stares off pondering his profound victory).
No one in Helena right now can honestly tell you how this will end, because no one knows. But anyone interested in politics should tune into what's going on here, because the standoff provides as pure a progressive-vs.-conservative test case as you can hope to find.
Why do I say that? Because of what is central in this standoff. Right now, there are no divisive social issues clouding the debate. When you dig through all the rhetoric about school funding and budget numbers and committee process and everything else that fills the papers here these days, it's easy to see that this is really a debate over the one issue that is the most fundamental issue facing every level of government: Taxes.
Tax revenue is money that society collectively sets aside to deal with collective societal issues like health care, infrastructure, etc.You can't fund anything unless you have tax revenue. But because conservatives have so thoroughly dominated the tax debate in heartland states like Montana, progressives have been unable to gain real political power and traction on all of the other budget issues that come after taxes.
That is, until now. Since Schweitzer was elected in 2004, Montana progressives have realized that if they are going to build this state, build their party and ultimately contribute to a real movement, they cannot continue to cede the entire tax issue - the fundamental issue of government - to conservatives. The problem of course is that taxes is the issue that most unifies the fraying conservative movement. Here in Montana, as in other legislatures and in Congress, there are libertarian Republicans, moderate Republicans, even some pro-education Republicans that can be peeled off into supporting commonsense proposals - but there are almost no progressive-tax Republicans.
Democrats preparing for this legislative session understood that standing 30 years behind a Grover Norquist-led anti-tax movement in a conservative state with a $1 billion surplus, simply opposing tax cuts would make them quick roadkill and that they needed to get out ahead and offer up their own progressive tax plan. Certainly there are strong policy arguments to be made that a state like Montana with such serious challenges shouldn't be cutting taxes and should instead be putting all of its surplus into public investment. But, to paraphrase Saul Alinsky, progressives here smartly accepted the world as it was, not as perhaps they wanted it to be - and so they went on the offensive on an issue that many Democrats in many states and in Congress are too afraid to even touch. They charged forward with a bold plan for a progressive property tax rebate targeted only at in-state homeowners - a plan that gives the same $400 property tax cut, no matter whether you own a moderately sized house in Billings or a mansion in Big Sky. And they proposed paying for the cut by beefing up tax enforcement - specifically, by giving the Montana Department of Revenue the legal resources to collect millions of dollars of taxes that go unpaid by out-of-staters (whether individual millionaires or giant corporations) every year.
Republicans were planning on using the usual conservative movement tactics that America has gotten used to. From the trickle-down playbook, they were readying an even bigger property tax cut - one primarily targeted at large corporations (many of which are based out of state). And from the anti-government playbook, they were prepared to pay for such closeted corporate welfare by gutting public services - for instance, by reducing the $3 billion Department of Public Health's budget to $300 at a time Montana is experiencing a burgeoning health care crisis.
So when Democrats charged forward and transformed the tax debate from one about the value of tax cuts to one about whether property tax cuts should go to average folks who live in Montana or big out-of-state corporations and landowners, Republicans panicked, tried to euphemistically repackage their regressive, steal-from-regular-folks-to-give-to-lobbyists as "permanent property tax relief," and then finally declared war. Literally. Here's the Billings Gazette one month ago:
"House Republican leader Michael Lange came into [Democrats'] office and said, 'It's war. The bloodletting has started.' Witnesses said he formed each hand into a pistol and pretended as if he were firing shots. Lange said permanent property tax relief is the key issue for Republican legislators, something they promised voters they would provide. He vowed Republicans will do whatever they need to do to make sure it passes, even if it means the House tabling every Democratic bill."
Today is the last day of the 90-day legislative session, and these same Republican leaders are drawing on the Gingrich government shutdown playbook in threatening to force a special session - ironic considering these same Republicans claim they would be making such a drastic move out of a desire to protect taxpayers, even though a special session would force taxpayers to cough up extra cash for legislative salaries/operations. And if you talk to most people at the Capitol, you will find that all that's really holding things up is Republicans demand to target property tax cuts to big out-of-state corporations, and even more intensely, their desire to kill Democrats tax enforcement legislation.
It is this latter proposal to make out-of-staters pay the taxes that they legally owe that I'm told by multiple sources is the one issue conservatives are willing to commit harikari over - and in specific, the provisions within this proposal that deal with entitles known as Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Progressives' tax enforcement plan includes measures to force REITs to pay their state taxes on their profits first before sending dividend income to their out-of-state owners - where it is very difficult to collect (millions of dollars a year in tax revenue from out-of-state currently goes unpaid because of this, forcing in-state taxpayers to pay higher taxes to make up the difference). This is the way every other corporation in Montana is treated.
But then, you may have heard about REITs before - they have been exposed by the Wall Street Journal as a favorite tax-evading scheme by big corporations (Wal-Mart alone has evaded more than $2 billion in state taxes through REITs) . Such corporations do not take kindly to anyone - even a state government - telling them they have to follow the tax laws on the books. And so the lobbyists who line the halls of the Montana legislature every day are marshaling all of their power to make sure Republican legislators will do absolutely anything - even forcing a special session - to prevent the tax enforcement bill from passing.
This is an old conservative movement trick (made famous by the K Street project) whereby lobbyists and Republican legislators drape efforts to enrich special interests as some sort of ideologically pure battle against the concept of taxes. And the pressure behind it is so powerful, that it's not only threatening to drive the state legislature over the cliff into a special session, but it has driven at least one Republican leader to a public meltdown.
After initially agreeing with Schweitzer to let the tax enforcement bill go forward in exchange for an education bill he was pushing, Lange held a now-infamous press conference to curse off the governor and claim he was bribed - a temper tantrum that made him a laughingstock on the front pages of every paper in the state. What likely happened was that after Lange made the deal, he was accosted both by the army of corporate lobbyists who lurk in the Montana Capitol and by House Speaker Scott Sales - leader of the lunatic wing of the Republican Party. Thus torn between a pragmatic deal he made with Democrats and the Big Money-right-wing-ideologue nexus that controls Republican politics, he performed a televised nervous breakdown. His behavior, said the Great Falls Tribune, "was reminiscent of The Scream that undid the presidential aspirations of Vermont Gov. Howard Dean" and his "accusation that Schweitzer's horse trading constituted bribery is ludicrous and insulting."
But while the yelling and screaming and profanity struck some as surprising, it was anything but. This is typical behavior from a movement that sees its own ebb. Whether it's a Republican state house leader like Lange being relegated to a cursing temper tantrum, or a multimillionaire TV personality like Bill O'Reilly berating the influence of billionaire political activists while drawing his own paycheck from a billionaire political activist, or a president like George Bush actually claiming the 2006 election was a mandate for him to escalate the war in Iraq, we are seeing the insanity that comes with the Right's realization that it is losing power and effectiveness.
In short, the old conservative movement playbook isn't working anymore - and worse for them, the new progressive team on the field is showing real skills - and that's driving right-wing ideologues to the brink of political suicide, whether they are here in Montana falling on the sword to prevent progressive tax cuts financed by basic tax enforcement, or in the confines of the White House, where they are willing to cause more American casualties in Iraq because one of the most unpopular presidents in American history can't admit a mistake.
As I said to start, what we don't know is how this will all turn out. Is Skywalker a full, disciplined and trained Jedi knight, all decked out in his black ninja costume and ready to finish the onslaught? Or will ol' Darth still be able to prevail for now?
You may recall that in Empire Strikes Back, Luke pushes Darth over the edge of a platform, and it seems like he's won the battle, only to have his arm hacked off a few minutes later. That same unpredictable situation is happening here in Montana, mainly because the Dark Side runs particularly strong among the zealous crop of GOP lawmakers who are leading that party's caucus. But one thing is for sure: The fact that the progressive movement here has had leaders with enough courage to duke it out on the issue of taxes and tax enforcement is a major beachhead in the larger battle. With the conservative movement on the mat, these progressive leaders are showing how the tax issue - and really, all supposedly "conservative" issues everywhere - can be our own if we have the guts to use the force.
UPDATE: As Lange becomes a nationwide laughinstock thanks to his YouTube outburst hitting the national AP wire, Republicans decided to follow him over the cliff late today, demanding a taxpayer-paid special legislative session at $38,000 per day in order to try to force Montana to accept new tax cuts for out of state corporations. Unfortunately, the battle of Luke vs. Darth will continue...