Steve Daines Excoriated in Local Editorial for Going ‘Wherever the Political Winds Blow’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, March 1, 2024
CONTACT
gaby@montanademocrats.org
Helena, MT – A new editorial in The Daily Montanan excoriated Senator Steve Daines for his spineless political views, described as, “both hard right and yet extremely malleable, based on whatever direction the political winds blow.”
Well, the political winds are howling after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last week that frozen embryos created through invitro fertilization are children. Daines and the NRSC are now scrambling and urging Republicans to defend IVF, even though Daines has a record of supporting a bill that follows the same logic as the Alabama Supreme Court findings.
“When Republicans like Steve Daines tell Montanans they will protect IVF treatments, they are lying,” said Sheila Hogan Executive Director of the Montana Democratic Party. “Actions speak louder than words, and Senate Republicans proved that this week when they voted against legislation that would create national protections for IVF. Daines should be ashamed of himself for playing political games with the issues that matter most to Montanans.”
Read more:
Daily Montanan: Daines’ mild mannered image doesn’t match his ultra-right policies
By Darrell Ehrlick
February 29, 2024
Don’t let the ironed jeans look fool you, though: [Daines] is a master at appearing a moderate Montanan while supporting extremely right-wing causes once he gets out of earshot of the Treasure State.
Most Montanans couldn’t say what he believes about things like immigration or reproductive rights, other than to assume (correctly) that he’s against both of them, but only in the ways that most of his fellow GOP members are. Yet, Daines’ positions seem somehow even more surprising because they don’t seem to reflect Montana very well.
Two recent issues demonstrate Daines’ political views as both hard right and yet extremely malleable, based on whatever direction the political winds blow. Not that he’s unique as a politician, but it’s that Montanans don’t really see some of these things because, well, we really don’t see Daines publicly much.
As late as January, Daines was pressuring congressional Democrats to support and pass legislation that would help the United States’ southern border.
Then, less than a month later, Punchbowl News reported that a closed-door meeting of Republican Senators, led by Daines torpedoed the immigration deal because it would “kneecap GOP candidates in races.”
Translation: The border that had been such a crisis that it needed bipartisan effort was shelved because it might hurt the Republicans’ chances of winning in November by doing their actual jobs.
Then, Daines floated a new theory of border security: President Joe Biden didn’t need Congressional action to fix the problems at the border. Like some kind of Disney fairy tale, it turns out that Biden — poof! — had the power to fix the border all along.
The now-dead border bill was, by all accounts, the most comprehensive border reform and security bill in nearly 40 years, which included $20 billion for border security and manpower, and a requirement that the president shut down the border when the numbers are surging.
Regardless of political views and party politics, how many other jobs could you keep if your strategy was intentionally not doing your job?
You may recall the controversial yet logical ruling of the Alabama Supreme Court that determined that because life begins at conception, the embryos created through the IVF process should be afforded protection, meaning that destroying them could lead to criminal charges.
Daines, who heads the Senate Republican re-election committee, prepared talking points for GOP members to defend IVF treatments.
But take a look at Daines’ own record, including Senate Bill S.99, introduced by him in 2021, which said that unborn humans are entitled to full constitutional protections, affording embryos protection — the same concept that the Alabama court just upheld.
Daines’ carefully curated image of a nice, middle-of-the-road conservative is a brilliant, sublime piece of political theater that masks a politician that is just as rabid and radical as any of the other loud voices coming from Washington, D.C.
Daines just knows how to keep the quiet part quiet.
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