Legislators react to GOP's break with Racicot

State legislators from Western Montana are  — like the former governor himself — unsurprised by the Montana Republican Party’s public break up with Marc Racicot.

The two-term Republican governor, who served from 1993 to 2001, earned a formal rebuke from the state party organization’s executive committee on Feb. 15. The decision comes after Racicot endorsed a series of Democrats in recent state and national elections, party leadership said.

“It was a difference between party platforms and principles and I decided I would choose principles,” Racicot said last week.

The former governor said he was unfazed by a text from the party chairman, Don Kaltschmidt, on Thursday, Feb. 16, sharing the group's decision before it went public.

“Out of deep respect for you I wanted to give you a heads up of a resolution that the executive board of the MTGOP made at last night’s board meeting,” the text read. “The resolution rebukes you for supporting the candidates you have in the last couple cycles and says that the MTGOP does not consider you as a person that speaks for the party.”

Racicot said he called Kaltschmidt after receiving the message and the two had a civil conversation.

“I feel sad about it and I’m sorry about it, but I think for me I did what I thought was correct,” Racicot said. “I did what I thought was right.”

Former Montana Secretary of State Bob Brown, who served in the Legislature as a Republican while Racicot was governor, experienced a similar political evolution. Unlike Racicot, Brown has publicly declared that he no longer considers himself a Republican.

The two have been outspoken in their criticism of GOP candidates, specifically regarding former President Donald Trump. Brown attributed the widening gulf between him and the Republican Party to policies and philosophies adopted during the Trump administration.

“Marc was a great proponent of fair and representative government,” Brown said. “The Republican Party is just becoming increasingly intolerant.”

SPEAKER OF the House Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, said he was more surprised it took the state party apparatus so long to denounce the former governor. Regier said that he wished Racicot would have been more transparent about his separation from the GOP.

“Calling himself a Republican would be dishonest to the public,” Regier said.

Sen. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, said he understood the frustration within the Republican Party, specifically regarding Racicot’s recent endorsements and public statements.

While Cuffe said he recognized a bipartisan streak in Racicot’s politics, the former governor once played a partisan role for the Republican Party. Racicot, Cuffe remembered, lent his support to George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign.

Racicot was loyal to partisan Republican politics at one point in his career, according to Cuffe.

But: “I always felt he was a populist governor, not a hard, conservative governor,” Cuffe said.

Racicot said he began his career by avoiding partisan politics and reminisced on not voting a straight ticket. He said his involvement with the Republican party came in 1988 after running and losing three times in a nonpartisan race for a judgeship. The GOP recruited him to run for state attorney general and he was elected.

When former Montana Gov. Stan Stephens had a stroke and decided against seeking reelection in 1992, Racicot’s Republican friends — including Brown — encouraged him to put his hat in the ring.

“I’m kind of a historical accident,” Racicot said.

Times have changed, said Sen. John Fuller, R-Whitefish. Like Regier, Fuller was unsurprised by the GOP’s decision to publicly cut ties with Racicot. The former governor, he said, might not be as in touch with “Montana citizenry” as before.

“It is very difficult for politicians, past or present, to resist the impulse to pontificate upon current matters,” Fuller said. “He obviously has not resisted that impulse.”

According to Fuller, Racicot violated former President Ronald Reagan’s “11th Commandment:” Thou shalt not to speak ill of fellow Republicans.

Brown, though, believes that Reagan would have remained a proponent of the GOP’s big tent mindset. But then Brown said that he doesn’t believe that Reagan would be easily accepted into the Republican Party as it exists today.

Rep. Dave Fern, D-Whitefish, raised the possibility that Racicot is a man without a party in today’s political environment. While the former governor may be uncomfortable being a Democrat, he no longer lines up with the “salient values” of the Republican Party, Fern said.

“You pick your battles, I think that’s where we’re at,” he said.

Fern was similarly unsurprised by the resolution and also expressed wonder at what took the Republican Party so long. But he said he respected Racicot’s public shift.

“He’s an asset to political thought,” Fern said. “We need more of them.”

THROUGHOUT HIS political career, Racicot maintained close ties with the Republican Party. After serving as attorney general and governor, he served as chair of the Republican National Committee and worked for the younger Bush’s reelection campaign.

Things shifted in 2016 when Trump became the Republican nominee for president. According to Racicot, this forced him to consider “matters of conscience.” He found he could not support then-candidate Trump.

Racicot said that the state party never reached out to express their concerns before publicly severing his ties with the GOP.

He remembered Kaltschmidt calling him when he endorsed Monica Tranel, a Democrat, over Ryan Zinke, a Republican who served in the Trump administration, for Montana’s newest congressional seat.

Racicot said he knew Zinke when the congressman was still in the Navy. But he told him that he could not support a candidate who backed and enabled Trump.

Racicot described his current efforts as “taking a path back to caring about one another.” Knowing he was going to get revoked from the party wouldn’t have stopped him, he said.

Brown compared partisan politics to an automobile. A car is pointless if it doesn’t move forward. The same goes if it can’t slow down or stop.

Internal conflicts can serve as a braking mechanism and a check against recklessness, he said.

“For a good functioning government and society, there needs to be mutual respect,” Brown said.

Looking out at the partisan landscape of politics, Racicot and Brown see an advantage in becoming independent. Staying true to personal philosophy is a good start to closing that gap of understanding, Racicot and Brown said.

“We need to get back to a place where disagreement exists without discouragement, where rivalry exists without oppression,” Racicot said. “That is when democracy functions best.”