by Pete Talbot
Writer John Adams has a side bar in the Missoula Independent (May 24-May 31 issue) on Missoula’s Republican Representative Bill Nooney. It paints him as a consensus building, moderate sort of fellow. If you look at his voting record, he definitely is not.
He voted lock step with the most radical elements of the Republican (and Constitution) Party – folks like Jore, Koopman and Sales. On the last day of the regular session, he voted against the Children’s Health Insurance Program and against a trust fund for Aging Services.
He voted against a bill that would have lessened Montana’s impact on global warming. He voted to recruit more conservative professors for Montana colleges. He voted not to go after tax cheats. He voted to strip money from mental health and at-risk student programs. And on and on and on…
Here’s another gem. The Independent article mentions Nooney as being one of the 13 Republicans invited to the famous “log cabin meeting,” held between the regular and special sessions, to meet with the governor’s staff and hammer out compromises. He went, he negotiated, then he voted against the compromise budget package (HB 2).
He basically voted the way the far right leadership told him to vote.
This is interesting because one of the reasons Nooney got to the legislature at all was because he was perceived as a moderate. John Balyeat was the incumbent legislator in Nooney’s district. John was a lot like his brother, Joe Balyeat, the Republican state senator out of Gallatin County – that is to say way, way to the right. Nooney handily beat John Balyeat in the 2006 Republican primary. He went on to defeat Democrat Marge Zaveta, by a smaller percentage, in the general election.
Before the election, folks I talked to in Missoula said Nooney was a reasonable guy. He’d represent business interests for sure, but wasn’t out in right field like his predecessor. I guess they were wrong. Missoula area legislators I’ve chatted with say the same thing. They went into the session thinking that Nooney was someone they might be able to work with. With a couple of minor exceptions, this just wasn’t the case.
In defense of Nooney, area legislators said he was civil and didn’t throw tantrums like others in his party.
“He wasn’t a jerk,” said one, “he just voted with the jerks.”
Bill Nooney did not serve his constituency well. In 2008, let’s hope voters in House District 100 do to Nooney what they did to John Balyeat in 2006. In the words of the Who, “we won’t get fooled again.”
June 4, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Nice post, Pete. I wholeheartedly agree that Nooney’s no moderate. I think his participation among the mutineers was a savvy move; in one move, he’s erased his extremist record and become the darling of the Montana media for having the guts to fix the budget mess.
That said, it should be fun to see what the Montana GOP does with Nooney. On one hand, he’s obviously vulnerable in the next election. On the other, he’s a mutineer. Do they primary him, risking ditching a “moderate” for an extremist who’s more likely to lose the seat? Or do they swallow their pride and back the mutineer?
June 4, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Nooney eventually voted no on HB 2, along with the rest of the hardcores, so he’s probably still OK with the GOP. The Republicans have enough problems without running a primary against him in ‘08, IMHO.
June 5, 2007 at 4:06 am
Wow. After reading your expose` of Mr. Nooney, it seems that he needs to get a lot of mail … thanking him for saving the taxpayers of Montana a lot of money on stupid stuff like “global warming”. (When the ice melts in a glass of water, is there a tsunami on your kitchen table? No!)
Having worked in a public school system (and, having helped to parent two children through such schools), the two words that most often describes “at risk” students are “lazy” and “rebellious”. Instead of the taxpayers throwing money at them, in the old days the teacher would throw an eraser at them to get their attention! It usually worked. (And, in the cases where it didn’t, most likely neither would any amount of extra money.)
I can see where liberals would consider Rick Jore to be a “radical element” — because he actually expects elected officials to obey the Constitution! (If re-elected on the CP line, such a “radical” might actually expect other politicians to do such unheard-of things as “keep their promises”, or even “have ethics”. What a radical.)
Apparently, this blog would’ve considered Mr. Nooney a “moderate” if he had voted the way the Far Left had wanted him to vote.
PS: The REAL reason that the Constitution Party is growing so fast in Montana is because — gasp! — they actually think that the whole government should follow the Constitution. The Republican Party decided to toss the Constitution out the window (President G. W. Bush called it “just a G–d— piece of paper!”) Now the Republican Party is imploding.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kovach/070603
It’s not about Right vs. Left. It’s about right vs. wrong.
Tom Kovach
June 5, 2007 at 6:39 am
tom tom, you are a looney, right? But in any even, tell us oh tom tom, just WHAT it is about the Constistupid pary you like! And tom tom, did you work as a JANITOR by chance in the public school system?? What was your field of expertise? Toilets?? Or sinks?!
June 5, 2007 at 10:03 am
The constitution party….”growing fast”? Man…you’re about to lose you’re only elected legislator to term limits, who slipped in b/c he changed parties after getting into office. The CP will once again fade into obscurity…
June 5, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Bill, I guess when you sit in the same row as all the ultra-conservatives, you would vote with them.
But remember some of your constituents have long memories and we will remember your voting record. I have little patience with a man who says, “I have to study the issue.” and then votes with the hard core right every time.
With no offense to the Dems who have run in Nooney’s House District, the Democrats need a strong and powerful person to run in the District that has put John Balyeat and Matt Brainard into the House for the last sixteen years.
June 6, 2007 at 6:21 am
“Before the election, folks I talked to in Missoula said Nooney was a reasonable guy. He’d represent business interests for sure, but wasn’t out in right field like his predecessor. I guess they were wrong. Missoula area legislators I’ve chatted with say the same thing. They went into the session thinking that Nooney was someone they might be able to work with. With a couple of minor exceptions, this just wasn’t the case.”
Who were the moderate Democrats that crossed the aisle and challenged the Governor? Who broke party ranks and voted against HB 2 or any other of the party flagships? Show me more than one centrist Democrat who was independent and moderate and didn’t toe the party line absolutely.
You can’t, yet here’s a guy from the Republican side who did, who was a “mutineer” and you excoriate them. Truth is, you’re just as radical as Jore, just a different flavor.
June 6, 2007 at 11:30 am
Montana Democrats are hardly “extremists.” Yet’s it’s indisputible that the state’s Republicans are.
Who cut the state’s health and human services budget to a hundred bucks? Who proposed an end to mandatory school attendance? Who defeated a bill to ensure that big business pay their taxes?
Yes, Nooney was one of the mutineers. And as you’ve demonstrated, conservative folks will bang that drum all day during the election season. But if you follow Nooney’s votes, you’ll see some radical thinking.
June 6, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Nooney won because we worked hard to get elected Balyeat didn’t. The people in the district were fine with either one of them, but Nooney was the one at their door.
June 17, 2007 at 9:02 am
For me and my neighbors in Grass Valley there’s one compelling reason why we’re going to work our butts off in the next election to make sure Bill Nooney doesn’t go back to Helena. And that’s his vote for HB557, a bill the Missoula County Attorney’s office called “pernicious.” The measure would have stripped Montana’s county commissioners of the power to prevent massive gravel, cement and asphalt operations in rural neighborhoods like ours. HB557 was written by the Montana Contractors Association after the Missoula BOC voted unanimously in December to deny the rezoning that would have allowed Jim Edwards and Riverside Contracting to tear apart the Trout Meadows Ranch downstream from Missoula in order to line their pockets. More than 2000 people signed petitions against this industrial nightmare, including scores of freeholders in the neighborhoods around the ranch. Nooney chose to ignore the will of his own constituents, claiming, in the sing-song jargon of the Family Values Party, that government should get out of the way of business. But thanks to our local government, including the very conservative Commissioner Barbara Evans, our streets were saved from parades of dump trucks, our rights to clean water and air were upheld, and the value of our properties was safeguarded. Only one lawmaker in Missoula’s delegation supported HB557. And that was Bill Nooney.
June 17, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Bill – I am soooooo tired of hearing elected officials justify their votes, that don’t support the people who elected them, with a “pro-business” stance.
I wouldn’t give Bab’s too much credit, either. While she voted on the good side this time, she likely did it out of fear of litigation and nothing more.
For my view on Barbara, check this out: link
June 17, 2007 at 9:43 pm
For the record, here’s one more vote I just heard about. Nooney voted against setting up a trust fund to buy some of the tens-of-thousands of acres that Plum Creek is putting up for sale. Now that Plum Creek is done logging much of Western Montana’s most pristine landscapes, they’re putting them on the auction block. It would be nice if the Montana public could get a hold of at least a portion of this land.
June 18, 2007 at 6:47 am
That’s a huge issue here in Missoula, Pete – PCT will be staying around in the Kalispell area for a while (lots to log) – but anything in their Clearwater Unit (Missoula area) is up for grabs.