Welcome! Here are the topics for today’s independent commentary:
- MT Legislature Bathrooms
- Chronister Withdraws/Hegseth Next?
- Best & Worst Cities for Singles
MT LEGISLATURE BATHROOMS:
Lee Newspapers is reporting that Montana lawmakers narrowly voted down a proposal Tuesday that would have banned transgender women from using the women’s bathroom reserved for legislators between the House and Senate chambers.
According to the report, while the amendment to the joint rules that govern both the House and Senate garnered an 11-7 vote of support from senators on the Joint Rules Committee, it failed among House members 10-12. The proposal needed to pass both chambers separately to advance. Support came only from majority Republicans, while all minority Democrats and a handful of GOP lawmakers opposed the idea.
Rep. Jerry Schillinger, a Republican from Circle, brought the proposed change.
Last session the MAGAs ruthlessly attacked Montana’s first openly trans female lawmaker, Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula. The attacks continue today on social media from the MAGA crowd. Zephyr was reelected with 80% of the vote, which was the second highest percent for a contested state House contest. (Source)
The hate needs to stop. I’m glad the ban failed, but it has to be voted on by the Senate and House in January when the new session (circus) begins.
Check out the full report from the Helena Independent Record HERE. The Montana Free Press covers the story HERE. The Daily Montanan has the story HERE.
CHRONISTER WITHDRAWS/HEGSETH NEXT?
The Hill and several other sources are reporting that President-elect Trump’s choice to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Florida’s Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister, announced on Tuesday he is withdrawing from consideration just three days after Trump made his nomination known.
Chronister said in a post on X Tuesday evening that he would instead tend to his current duties overseeing an area of the Sunshine State that includes Tampa Bay.
There seem to be growing concerns about Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee, Pete Hegseth. One report said the concerns were growing with Trump’s allies. (Source)
I believe Hegseth will withdraw his name from consideration by the end of the week.
BEST & WORST CITIES FOR SINGLES:
Congratulations to Missoula (#36) and Billings (#94).
WalletHub reports that finding love can be tough. Nearly 46% of the U.S. adult population is unmarried (never married, divorced, or widowed), according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and dating has become progressively more expensive as the prices of dining out and other date activities have increased over the years.
To help America’s singles find love, WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 35 key indicators of dating-friendliness.
Check out the report HERE. Good luck!
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The Western Word 
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For what it’s worth I cleaned a lot of bathrooms in my youth, the women’s were by far the most disgusting. I don’t know how trannies would fit in. Maybe they should consider that the next vote.
Sorry guys, nationwide 51% to 46% want trannies out of women’s bathroom.
Nation wide of course, probably a larger percentage here in conservative MT.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/10/03/americans-are-divided-over-which-public-bathrooms-transgender-people-should-use/
Democracy rules, rest are fools.
That’s from 2016. I imagine that has changed. -JmB
Here is a poll on this issue from earlier this year:
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/48685-where-americans-stand-on-20-transgender-policy-issues
From your link. 50% support them using bathrooms of your birth, 31% oppose.
Question 13A.
And this UGov poll was overly weighted by Dems.
Yep. All I said was it was a newer poll. -JmB
Since when did public polls dictate anything? That might come as some surprise to the Republicans who keep passing laws against abortion, or blocking any reasonable gun control. This is a matter for the people actually affected to figure out amongst themselves. According to the Zooey quote there was no problem in 2023. What’s the problem now?
If female lawmakers truly are bothered (but too chicken to speak up for themselves so needing the Circle daddy to protect them), there appear to be plenty of options for both them and Zooey. Locks, other public bathrooms, private bathrooms for lawmakers in the basement, etc.
But there wouldn’t be any option at all for Zooey if there are no unisex restrooms in the Capitol and Schillinger’s rule that people must use restrooms that align with their birth chromosomes was adopted. Is the goal here simply to humiliate someone who was born male but now looks female, dresses female, identifies as female, lives as a female, and may have undergone some some reassignment procedures? To force them to walk into men’s restrooms if they need to pee? (Or vice versa, if we ever got a female to male legislator, force someone who looks and acts male walk into the girls?) Are Republicans truly that petty, un-Christian, and a-holish?
Zooey sounds reasonable and so do a number of the Republican lawmakers. If the actually affected parties have not yet figured it out amongst themselves there has to be some reasonable compromise approach that accommodates Zooey and any other trans people who might visit the Capitol, as well as any lawmakers or visitors who were/are uncomfortable.
Assuming everyone is grownups that is. One local rep pretty much nailed the childishness: “Rep. Ed Buttrey, R-Great Falls, asked whether a legislator would have to take a sort of test that would be made public in order to adhere to the language of the proposal, which defines females as having XX chromosomes and males as having XY chromosomes.”
If any of the Republican “gals” on the Senate or House Rules committees (including our own Wendy McKamey who voted “nay”) had a problem with the existing locking hall doors solution to the legislative bathrooms, why couldn’t they have introduced that bathroom bill themselves? Instead, a paternalistic jerk from Circle thinks he has to do it for them. Pathetic.
Very true. The NY Times has even picked up the story.
Can’t imagine how they would ever enforce a ban. -JmB
Unfortunately it is easily imagined, given this extremist crew of Republicans. Use our tax money to station a burly full-time guard outside the door, or install surveillance cameras and hire someone to monitor them full-time to run tattling to leadership if Zooey is seen anywhere within 15 yards so they have an excuse to kick her out again which is of course the end game here, or any number of other extreme solutions.
The simple solution would be to make some special accommodation like designate one washroom somewhere in the building if they’re truly all that worried about “guys vs gals” or ineffectiveness of the existing door locks. But since that’s not the real motivation at all of course they won’t.
One can only imagine the absolute terrified shock on the face of guys like Schillinger when they walk into one of the many businesses in Montana that have those unisex bathrooms. Or when he has to use a Porta-Potty at some event. “You mean, a GAL might have been in there before me? And I need to lock the door? The horror! The horror!”
Unfortunately the revamped legislative website makes it impossible to find anything about who voted how on committees. It would be interesting to see how our local rules “guys” Fitzpatrick and Buttrey voted on this.
I think the Daily Montanan article has some of the names and how they voted. -JmB
A jerk from Circle? A circle jerk? Oh, you mean the MAGA legislature. Very appropriate.
“ Rep. Jerry Schillinger, a Republican from Circle, brought the proposed change.”.
Yes, because Circle, Mt. is the state’s unofficial center of the intellectual universe, higher education, moral righteousness, civic mindedness, and freedom and democracy, with nightly discussions down at the Mint of the deeper philosophical dilemmas plaguing mankind, such as which crapper is most appropriate, and how to harass drag queens, and how to make the Ten Commandments our state motto, or whether to put in spring or winter wheat! And the guy with the most gas in his truck and able to reach Helena is the most qualified guy to represent this beating heart of Montana progress and recidivism!
Hard to read the news any more. I get an instant headache. As one MAGA commented in the articles above regarding this bill, Trump won, so we have a mandate! A mandate to do what? Commit thirty four felonies and molest at least twenty women and one adjudicated rape? Incite insurrection? That’s pretty strange logic.
But in any event, it looks as though it will be another black-eye-for-Montana legislative session full of the usual hate, misogyny, racism and christofascism that our MAGAs have become famous for. Place your bets now as to when they will hit the nightly comedy shows first. I give them a week. Given a choice between drag queens and dregs for representatives, I’ll take drag queens any day!