Republican leaders want primaries closed to remove moderates

HELENA – Leading Republican lawmakers say in court documents that a lawsuit seeking to close Montana’s primary elections intends to keep moderates out of the Legislature.

Senate Majority Leader Matthew Rosendale and House Majority Leader Keith Regier said in depositions filed last week that certain, nonconformist Republicans thwarted the party’s agenda at the 2015 Legislature.

The leaders had lengthy complaints about the session that saw the passage of multiple initiatives they call “of particular importance to Democrats.” Rosendale named seven senators and Regier named 11 representatives they say can be held personally responsible for undermining the Republican majority in each chamber.

“These actions are demoralizing” to Republicans who embrace the party platform, Rosendale said.

Sen. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, responded, “Why does Matt Rosendale or Keith Regier have the right to say what the Republican message is?”

The statements from Rosendale, Regier and five other people were added to a lawsuit filed in federal court last September. The suit, signed by the Republican State Central Committee, asks U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris to strike down a state law allowing voters to participate in any party primary, regardless of party affiliation.

“I’ve always thought that closed primaries take away the choice for Montanans to be independent,” Jones said in a phone interview Friday.

He was among the 18 lawmakers targeted by leadership for voting with Democrats on new laws requiring more financial disclosures in elections, expanding Medicaid coverage and settling water rights on the Flathead Indian Reservation.

Jones said his first allegiance is to his conscience and his constituents and that his largely agricultural district supported the water compact. He was contacted by hospital boards urging him to expand government-subsidized health care. And Jones sees the move to disclose “dark money” in campaigns as inherently bipartisan.

“The urge to have transparency in politics is a Democratic bill? Really?” Jones said of the Republican leadership’s stance. “We should quit allowing them the right to define these as Democratic bills.”

Rosendale said such a “distressingly low amount of discipline” among Republicans will only get worse if primaries remain open.

The new filings also include complaints from Republican strategists and former candidates who say Democrats are encouraged to vote in Republican primaries.

“Mathematically, because that’s the world I live in, how would you not presume that the probability of crossover is equal?” Jones said.