Last November, Montana voters overwhelmingly approved LR-121 to deny some state-funded services and benefits to illegal immigrants. With nearly as many votes cast in its contest as in the most heavily fought statewide races among candidates, LR-121 triumphed by almost four to one.

It achieved landslide approval in every county, its “narrowest” margin being a 63.8-percent win in Big Horn County. Comparison with the presidential race in Montana, which Romney won with 55.4 percent of the vote, shows that LR-121 must have achieved majority support among Democrats, too, not just Republicans.

Thus illegal immigration is highly unpopular with Montana voters.

So one might expect our state lawmakers to take the hint and enact laws to further discourage illegal immigrants from settling here. The Legislature did just that when it passed HB 50 to forbid Montana jurisdictions from declaring themselves “anti-cooperators” with federal immigration law.

What does that mean? Despite the violation of federal law (8 U.S.C. Sec.1373), many jurisdictions across the country prevent their police from contacting federal immigration authorities when the police, while on duty, think they have encountered illegal immigrants. These are called “anti-cooperation policies” (or “sanctuary policies”).

Thus, illegal immigrants who could have been deported following their encounters with local law enforcement instead remain in the U.S., sometimes to create accidental havoc or commit horrendous crimes. Such events are legion (accidents caused by illegal immigrants repeatedly driving drunk are a frequent occurrence) and sometimes make the national news.

One notorious case occurred during June 2008 in San Francisco: A man and his two grown sons were returning from a family picnic. The father, who was driving, briefly blocked another car from turning left down a narrow street. After he backed up to let the other car pass, the other driver (an illegal immigrant) opened fire, killing the three. This 21-year-old driver and gunman had been in SFPD custody several times for prior crimes, but the local police hadn’t contacted the feds, because the city won’t allow it.

Los Angeles’s anti-cooperation policy, known as “Police Special Order 40,” forbids a cop from arresting on sight an illegal-immigrant gang-banger whom the cop knows has previously been deported. (Illegal re-entry after deportation is a federal felony. See 8 U.S.C. section 1325.) Only if the deportee has given the officer some other reason to stop him, such as an observed narcotics sale, can the cop accost him — but not for the immigration felony.

Such restrictions are perverse: Trying to build a homicide case against an illegal-immigrant gang member is often hopeless, since witnesses fear lethal retaliation if they talk with the police. In contrast, letting cops work with federal immigration authorities allows them to lock up the murderer on the federal charge, without putting a witness’s life at risk. Nevertheless, that’s not allowed for the LAPD.

But what does this have to do with Montana? Well, on Dec. 6, 2004, the Helena City Commission passed Resolution No. 19181. Section 4d reads, “The Commission affirms its support of policing currently followed by the City of Helena, including how the City refrains from using city resources to enforce federal immigration laws which are the responsibility of the federal government, except when an alien has been detained or arrested on suspicion of a criminal offense.

That’s the same type of restriction as imposed by LA’s Special Order 40: A Helena cop, spotting someone on the street who’s previously been deported, isn’t allowed to inquire about the person’s likely-illegal presence unless he sees the person commit some non-immigration crime.

Butte passed an equivalent resolution in February 2005.

Back to HB 50, which the Legislature sent to Gov. Bullock in late March. He promptly vetoed the bill, partly on the grounds that “[I]t has not been shown that there is a single city, county or other local government that has sought to enact anticooperation policies in Montana. ... HB 50 addresses a nonexistent problem.”

Oh? What about the plain English of Helena’s and Butte’s resolutions?

One advantage of a federal nation is that states can learn from the good and bad experiences of their sister states. But the big lesson about illegal immigration — take measures against it before it becomes overwhelming — has largely been ignored, although its baneful effects are in plain sight. In the case of HB 50, a modest deterrent against illegal immigration, that concept of learning from the bad examples of other states that let themselves be overrun by illegal immigrants evidently never occurred to our governor.

Renowned British Parliamentarian Enoch Powell once said, “The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.” But apparently blind to the burdens of illegal immigration and content to ignore the clear wishes of Montana voters, Gov. Bullock vetoed a sound bill, leaving the problem for later, more responsible, politicians to deal with. No statesman, he.

Retired physicist Paul Nachman of Bozeman is a founding member of Montanans for Immigration Law Enforcement: MontanaMILE.org