When letters and phone calls started trickling in about Sen. Jon Tester's Saturday forest bill meeting in Dillon, we decided to investigate.
Tester behaved badly, according to his critics. He stayed only long enough to sing the praises of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, refused to take comments from the crowd and then hightailed it to Helena for seemingly more important pursuits — the coin toss at the Carroll-Western football game.
"Tsk tsk," we thought after listening to a voicemail. "What was the senator thinking?" Then we called Tester spokes-person Aaron Murphy and heard a whole different story.
"Everyone who wanted an opportunity to speak with Jon had an opportunity," Murphy said. "The Dillon event was billed to run from 9 to 10:30 a.m. The senator left the auditorium at 10:45." True, Tester did fly to Helena in time to launch the big game. And true, the floor was not opened up to comments after the presentations ended. But people had ample opportunity
to ask questions and voice opinions, according to Murphy.
He explained that they chose a format that would allow more people to have one-on-one contact with Tester or his staff. The senator and three staffers were available up front following the presentations to field questions and hear people out, rather than have just one open mike for a crowd approaching 400.
"We chose that in the interest of getting more input, not less, of allowing more questions, not fewer," Murphy explained, adding that the same format was successfully used at Monday's meeting in Bozeman.
"It was an effective process and we plan to use it in the future," he said.
We can see why those who may have wanted to cause a scene by publicly railing against the bill would have been disappointed by this format. They lost their chance to be in the limelight and try to get the crowd all worked up. Spectators who turned out mainly to catch the political fireworks would have been disappointed, too. Watching people form lines to ask questions or proffer comments isn't very exciting.
But it sounds as if the people who sincerely wanted to share their views with the senator or ask questions of the bill had the chance, and that's what's most important here — the civil give-and-take of democracy.
Tester has contended all along that introducing this bill represents the beginning of the dialogue with constituents, not the end. Murphy said there's definitely room to make adjustments and all the feedback from these first two meetings will be "duly noted," with more meetings yet to come.
The senator is attempting something new here — the first Montana wilderness bill in decades, coupled with a federal mandate to log a certain acreage every year — and that's bound to create strong feelings on all sides.
Those feelings deserve to be freely expressed, and Tester has an obligation to carefully consider them. The process is unfolding as it should.