Well-known politicians spar for Senate seat
Jim Mann | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 6 months AGO
The Flathead Valley’s Senate District 4 race may be one of the most interesting primary election matchups in the state, with Montana Speaker of the House Mark Blasdel facing former Kalispell Mayor Tammi Fisher.
Both Republicans tout their experience in public service and in their professional lives. But the two tend to talk about different subjects in relation to their campaigns. The winner of the June primary election will go on to face Democrat Elizabeth Cummings in the November election.
As owner of the Vista Linda restaurant and catering business in Somers, Blasdel said that experience largely informs him when it comes to politics.
“My pitch is I’m a small businessman, and I bring that perspective to the decision-making process. You work side-by-side with your employees so you know the issues affecting them and the issues affecting your business,” he said.
There’s more to his pitch.
“I have the leadership and experience of serving four terms, and being Speaker of the House gives me the opportunity to go down on Day One and be effective,” said Blasdel, who most notably helped marshal an unprecedented unanimous vote for the state’s general fund budget, House Bill 2.
“My focus is on business issues and jobs,” said Blasdel, adding that he is interested in lowering and simplifying the state income tax, continuing to work toward the elimination of the business equipment tax, and continuing to seek property tax relief.
Blasdel is opposed to expanding the state’s Medicaid system under the Affordable Care Act.
“I think we have to look at the long-term costs to the state,” he said. “What happens if the federal government doesn’t live up to its commitment to fund up to 90 percent” of the cost of an expanded Medicaid system.
He points to how there are continuous threats for cutting or eliminating the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, which is a federal commitment to reimburse counties with federal lands that aren’t part of the tax base.
Blasdel said the federal government is saddled with deficit spending and a record $14 trillion in national debt.
“At some point,” he predicts, Medicaid “is going to fall back on the state of Montana.”
Blasdel said the state is currently in good shape financially, but he still considers public pension liabilities to be a serious concern, because those liabilities were only partially addressed during the last legislative session. He believes there needs to be structural changes in how the pension funds are managed in order to provide a long-term solution.
Blasdel regards the looming water-rights compact for the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes to be one of the biggest issues he has seen during his eight years in the Legislature. He is staunchly opposed to the compact as it has been proposed, because he believes it fails to protect state-based water rights and because it applies to off-reservation water rights, unlike previous compacts approved by the Legislature.
Fisher said she wants to see a more strategically focused, and less intrusive state government, and she wants to be a strong advocate for the city of Kalispell and its residents.
“We’re sending a lot of money to Helena and we’re not getting much of a return for it,” said Fisher, an attorney who works for Kalispell Regional Medical Center in addition to maintaining her own legal practice.
The last legislative session concluded with a $400 million surplus that Fisher regards as something of a slush fund with no strategic purpose.
She believes that a portion of unobligated funds should be returned to taxpayers, and that the Legislature should make a concerted effort to formally establish a reserve or “rainy day” fund much like the kind that municipal governments routinely maintain.
She said she fears any excess funds the state has will simply “be spent without any return to the taxpayer or having a reserve fund for a time of crisis.”
When Fisher came into office as Kalispell’s mayor four years ago, the city had a risky $242,000 reserve fund. She considers it an accomplishment that she helped guide the city to its current secure reserve of about $1.9 million. That was partly achieved through cutting full-time city positions through attrition.
Fisher said she’s a firm believer in less government, particularly a state government that she considers to be involved in areas it should not be.
“The state should not control what it doesn’t need to control,” she said. “Leave it to the local level.”
Fisher specifically objects to the way the state interferes with municipal governments in a variety of ways. State law requires, for example, that cities review their impact fees every two years.
She said that has turned out to be an unnecessary and expensive obligation.
“It’s none of their business,” said Fisher, who also objects to state law restricting a local option sales tax to towns with populations of 6,000 or less. “That’s completely arbitrary.”
While she does not necessarily support a sales tax for Kalispell, she believes the city’s voters should be able to decide to adopt such a tax if they choose to.
Regarding the water compact, Fisher said she is not sure if it will even be presented to the Legislature because a major component of the compact is related to on-reservation irrigation water rights and the Flathead Joint Board of Control, which no longer exists.
She believes that further negotiations are necessary between the tribes, the state and the federal government.
Fisher regards the Medicaid expansion issue as a “missed opportunity” for the Republican Party to “find a Montana-made solution” to make insurance available to more people.
She believes the state could have accepted federal funding under the Affordable Care Act and directed that money toward private insurance market subsidies, rather than expanding enrollment in Medicaid, which she considers to be a “broken program.”
Fisher points out that she lives in Kalispell, has represented the city as mayor, has a business in Senate District 4 and educates her children in the district — a not-so-subtle dig at Blasdel for living outside of Senate District 4 boundaries.
In response, Blasdel said that is only because the redistricting process left his home about four miles south of the district boundary.
He notes that about 40 percent of Senate District 4 falls within the boundary of the House district he has represented for the last eight years, and that he regularly does business in Kalispell.
“I feel I’ve always represented Kalispell, the Flathead and Northwest Montana,” he said.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.