The Montana Constitution Road Show travelled to Polson last Friday, drawing a full house in the North Lake County Library meeting room.

“We want to bring the special Montana constitution to the people of Montana,” said Rylee Sommers-Flanagan, the founder and executive director of Upper Seven Law Firm, the firm that sponsors the road show.

“… It really feels important right now in this time we’re living in to have a good understanding of our democracy,” she said.

According to Sommers-Flanagan there are three building blocks of Montana’s Constitution. She started with a photo of John William Waterhouse’s painting of Ulysses and the Sirens, which shows the Greek hero lashed to the mast, and his sailors with their heads wrapped as they faced the dangerous Sirens. If the Sirens’ mesmerizing beckoning song succeeded in luring ships to them, the unlucky sailors crashed their ships and drowned. If the Sirens captured them, they were either enslaved or eaten.

Seeking the shorter route home to Ithaca and his beloved wife Penelope, Ulysses planned to sail past the Sirens, something no man had ever done. He asked his men to lash him to the mast, to pay no attention if he begged, wheedled, or threatened to be released but leave him tied. He had his men put beeswax in their ears so they couldn’t hear the Sirens as well as wrapping their heads in cloth so they couldn’t see the Sirens.

Sommers-Flanagan portrays this Greek story as a metaphor for the constitution: Ulysses and his men made an agreement to bind themselves against the future temptations they might experience.

“Ulysses knows his future self wants to make bad choices and creates a set of confinements that stop him from doing that,” Sommers-Flanagan said.

Another second building block is the way things change around us. Cell phones, a fairly recent invention, are constantly changing and improving, just as people can change, adjust, and use new technology or new teaching methods, Sommers-Flanagan said, while politics moves more slowly.

Policy takes even longer, she added. A newly-elected governor may want to integrate changes to education policy, but those changes sometimes take longer than a four-year term in office.

Rule of law comes along slowly, too. Many bills are introduced in the Legislature, but they don’t all pass, some die in committee, and some make their way through the House and Senate more quickly than others.

The Montana Constitution moves slowest of all, she noted. As an example, during the 2021 Legislature, congressional representatives brought forth more than 50 constitutional amendments to be considered, and none of them passed.

 “There is a seriousness to the decision to change the constitution. It is the foundation,” Sommers-Flanagan said. “It’s not just a flimsy thing that moves with the wind.”

She then moved on to the third building block. To illustrate what happens when we concentrate political power, she chose an audience member to be “queen,” then asked the “queen” what would happen to everyone else in the room. The answer — they would lose an understanding of their destiny.

“What happens if you make the queen mad?” Sommers-Flanagan asked. “It’s off with your head; there is no barrier. The ‘queen’ decides; she makes the laws, tells us what it means, and enforces them.”

A history lesson: The copper collar

Various homesteading acts enticed people to Montana, and by 1870 approximately 20,000 newcomers had settled here. Native Americans, however, weren’t counted. Ten years later, the population had increased to nearly 40,000. By the Roaring 20s, lots of economic development was happening and 550,000 people called Montana home. Today, a little more than 1,000,000 people reside here.

In 1924, Native Americans were extended citizenship but not the right to vote. Only people who paid taxes could vote in 1975, and up until that time, most Indians in Montana did not vote.

Then Sommers-Flannagan brought up “a good villain story.” Copper King William Clark travelled to Montana in 1863, and Marcus Daly arrived about six years later. At first, they both lived in Anaconda.

A man named Gus Heinze lived in Butte. He annoyed Daly and Clark because he exploited the apex law, which allowed a mining company to follow a mineral vein or lode downward, even if it extended beyond the vertical boundaries of their surface claim, as long as the vein’s apex, the point where it outcrops or reaches the surface, was within their claim.

Since Heinze lived in Butte, any suit Clark and Daly filed had to be litigated in Silver Bow County; and Heinze had a judge in his pocket. The Legislature wasn’t helping them by agreeing to a change of venue law.

However, the dastardly duo controlled groceries, transit, and the local newspapers, so they shut down everything until the legislature acquiesced to their request.

This was an example of the “copper collar,” Sommers-Flanagan said. Clark and Daly had the power to manipulate the Legislature and to ”get into things and mess them around.

Clark also chaired two constitutional conventions, so things that made him money were not taxed.

Charting a new constitution

Skip many years forward to 1967, when a non-partisan group appointed by the Legislature found Montana’s Constitution was a “major obstacle to effective government” and could not be fixed by the amendment process. The commission, comprised of senators, representatives and judiciary members, recommended a Constitutional Convention, which was approved by the Legislature in 1969.

The convention opened March 22, 1972 in Helena. Convention delegates had to file for election to the position and campaign in their districts and could not be current elected officials.

Leo Graybill Jr. served as the convention’s president and guided the 100 members through a 54-day sprint, working on the huge task of drafting a constitution.

Graybill suggested the delegates sit in alphabetical order, which put C.B. McNeil, a staunch conservative, and Mike McKeon, second youngest at age 25 and an ardent liberal, sitting by each other, according to retired District Court Judge Jim Manley. But they got along, had conversations, and became friends.

Nineteen women were delegates, including Mae Nan Ellington, the youngest delegate at age 24, who went on to law school and is a member of the Friends of the Constitution.

No Indians were elected , which was a travesty, Sommers-Flannagan said. But two students from Fort Peck testified before the education committee, and were instrumental in the language included in Article X of the Constitution, Education and Public Lands: “The state recognizes the distinct and unique cultural heritage of the American Indians and is committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity,”

Article II is the Declaration of Rights, and Article III, Section 2, contains Separation of Powers, which spells out the requirement that executive, judicial and legislative branches remain separate.  

Sommers-Flanagan wrapped up the presentation by asking the audience to name their favorite parts of the Constitution. Answers called out included religious freedom, freedom of speech, gun rights, government transparency, separation of powers, right to privacy and a clean and healthful environment, education for all.

Sommers-Flanagan reminded people that “democracy takes a lot of work."

“As citizens, we are never off the hook,” she added. “We elected the people who are governing.”

She added that in 2030, we are all going to decide whether or not to keep our constitution or call for another convention.

As a party favor from the road show, everyone received a copy of the Montana Constitution.

“Read it,” she advised. “And see how it concerns you. Start conversations now; it is not a political conversation. There is no reason we can’t talk about the Constitution.”

    Montana Constitution Road Show presenter Rylee Sommers-Flanagan visits with Jeffrey Smith after last Friday's event in Polson. (Berl Tiskus/Leader)