The

In this May 2, 2023 Montana DSA Podcast interview with Keegan Medrano, a queer Indigenous (Mvskoke) mixed race person who joined the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana as Policy and Advocacy Director in June 2021, Medrano describes the important struggles of the ACLU of Montana during the 2023 Legislature -- combating the ideologically far right Supermajority GOP's multi-faceted activities suppressing basic democratic legislative processes and promoting horrendous violations and injustices for vulnerable minority groups and individuals. As the 2023 Legislature adjourns, Medrano says the ACLU will be leading legal challenges against these unjust new laws, and he calls for renewed, sustained solidarity with community building efforts to build a new Montana which guarantees human rights and meets pressing human needs and overcomes the still-pervasive settler colonialist oppression of Montana's indigenous people, attacks on abortion health care rights, widespread sexism, homophobia, and transphobia.

"Join Us in the Urgent Work of the Montana Coalition to Solve Homelessness": Montana DSA and Helena Progressive Action Network interview April 13th with Sam Fortsag of the Montana Coalition to Solve Homelessness, founded in fall 2022 to advocate for policies and resources to effectively and compassionately support people living without shelter in Montana. Forstag describes Montana's affordable housing crisis and efforts to address it in the 2023 Montana Legislature. Forstag : "With Montana’s ever-growing housing crisis, the number of people living on the streets, in their cars, or on someone’s couch is growing. This isn’t the Montana we want. We can choose a different path by ensuring everyone across the state who needs shelter has it. Identified policy solutions include increasing access to shelter beds, especially for aging populations, increasing state funding for nursing homes, group homes, and other supportive housing options, providing Medicaid reimbursement for shelter services, and funding state grants to shelters to enhance and improve operations. "

The Montana Environmental Information Center (meic.org) has been one of the leading organizations lobbying the Montana Legislature to uphold our state's constitutional guarantee to a clean and healthful environment for current and future generations. Cari Kimball, MEIC's Executive Director, provides an overview of the bills the organization is focused on, while also advocating for the public in Northwestern Energy's rate cases currently before the Public Service Commission. Finally, Cari invites our listeners to join them for the 50th-anniversary celebration of MEIC's founding, to be held in the Bitterroot Valley on September 16, 2023 (see their website for more details).

HB 651, "Generally revise ballot initiative laws" passed by the Montana Legislature in the 2021 session, was just the beginning of the Montana Chamber of Commerce's campaign to end direct democracy in Montana. SB 93, "Generally revising ballot issues," again backed by the chamber and other business lobbies in the 2023 session, is designed to kill the ability of citizens to sidestep the legislature to pass laws that legislators cannot or will not. C. B. Pearson, perhaps the Montana citizen most responsible for passing progressive legislation using the initiative process since our 1972 constitution was adopted, is our guest today on the Montana DSA Podcast. He talks about SB 93 and how business interests call the shots, not the legislature, to the detriment of all Montanans.

Mark Anderlik, co-chair of Western Montana DSA's Labor Committee, most recently was a union organizer and central labor council officer for a couple of decades in Missoula. In this episode of the Montana DSA Podcast, Mark talks about the support work that socialists and progressives can provide for a possible Teamsters Union strike against United Parcel Service this summer. Mark also briefly outlines the history of labor organizing in America--especially the class struggle organizing exemplified by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)--and how organized labor needs to return to democratic, worker-centered unions.

Jim Nelson was an Associate Justice on the Montana Supreme Court from 1993 to 2012. Justice Nelson has perhaps most affected the State's privacy jurisprudence in the area of personal autonomy. As a result of cases like Armstrong v. State (on abortion rights) and Gryczan v. State (on marriage rights)—both Nelson-authored opinions—Montana's right to privacy now more fully encompasses personal autonomy and decision-making. Nelson most recently set the white Christian nationalist's hair on fire with his speech defending the Montana Constitution and our co-equal judicial branch, delivered on March 15, 2023, before several hundred people in the state capitol rotunda. The Freedom Caucus Republicans accused him in a press release, rightly ignored by the Montana press, of being a "jihadist." You can watch the speech at https://www.helenacivictv.org/on-demand/4391 (starting at 22:00).

Jonathan Motl is Montana's senior public interest attorney. He's written nine ballot initiatives and was from 2013-2017 Montana's Commissioner of Political Practices. He talks with the Montana DSA Podcast host Frank Kromkowski about how Senate Bill 93, "Generally revising ballot issues," continues the corporate attack on our citizen initiative process, an attack that was passed in the 2021 session as House Bill 651 and is being waged again this Tuesday morning in the State Administration committee of the House. He concludes with what electors—we the people—can do to force the legislature to recognize the constitutional separation of powers of the three co-equal branches of state government, as well as the constitutional right of Montana's citizens to make their own laws.

Danny Tenenbaum was a legislator in the 2021 session, representing a House district in the Missoula area. Now he serves as an Associate Justice on the Court of Appeals for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. He talks to Montana DSA Podcast host Frank Kromkowski about the importance of defending an independent judiciary, the Montana Indian Child Welfare Act, and bipartisan efforts to right the decades-long wrongs of exclusionary zoning that have helped exacerbate the affordable housing emergency in Montana.

Mary Caferro, representing House District 82 and the longest-serving legislator in the Helena area, talks with Montana DSA Podcast host Frank Kromkowski about where progressive legislation stands as the Legislature breaks to transmit bills from one house to the other. While Republicans focus on lining the pockets of their wealthy donors and three-pieced-suited lobbyists, additional legislation may improve working-class Montanans' lives--but only if we keep up the pressure. The second half of the session starts tomorrow, with budget issues and constitutional amendments likely to dominate the discussion through April 7.