Adjudicating Ties
Democrats win House on court decision
I'm not sure what exactly to make of this Montana decision, as the MT Supreme Court issued a ruling before offering the full text of their decision, which is promised for January. As it is, the Democratic Party of Montana has now made a complete comeback, winning control of the Executive and both legislative houses.
At issue here was whether it was proper for 7 votes to count towards the conservative Constitutional Party candidate that had votes cast for both him and the Republican candidate in a race where the counting of such votes put him up by one vote. The State Supremes ruled 6-1 that with more than one vote being counted improperly, the winner is now the Democrat.
Such victories are always a bit counterintuitive in that we seem to prefer our elections decided by actual masses of voters (we'll just ignore a few high-profile cases of the GOP's exception to thisfor the time being). I suspect that this is a seat that gets lost the next time around, having been won in a three-way contest this time. Still, there's this blurb from the sour grapes GOP leader in Montana to taunt:
Rep. Roy Brown, R-Billings, the man who until the top court's decision was his party's choice for new House speaker, said he's probably not going to even nominate himself for the position."I don't waste my time with things that don't seem attainable," Brown said, adding that he disagreed with the Supreme Court's decision. "What the Democrats can't get at the ballot, they get from the court."
How much would it take to get Brown a flight down to Austin in January so he can check out the three defeated Republicans trying to overturn elections by appealing to their peers?