Rehberg, GOP State Legislator Embarrass Montana with National Press Attention

Republicans’ misplaced priorities put controversy ahead of job creation

Congressman Dennis Rehberg and State Representative Bob Wagner (R-Harrison) earned some embarrassing national press attention over the past 24 hours.  And it had nothing to do with the jobs they aren’t creating.

The nation’s leading newspaper today slammed Rehberg for his shocking comments last week, when he said he is “still working on” getting federal judges on the Endangered Species List:

“The idea that a judge should be singled out in political retribution because a congressman doesn’t like his rulings is outrageous… Rehberg, who likes to quote Thomas Jefferson when it suits him, should re-read the Constitution.”

A few hours earlier, CNN’s Anderson Cooper pressed Wagner on his controversial “birther” legislation requiring presidential candidates in Montana to prove natural born citizenship:

WAGNER: “A natural born citizen, according to the Law of Nations, and the Law of Nations, and the study of natural law in accordance with a book written by Vattel, which we believe to be the standard for natural born citizenship, requires that you have two parents of citizenship born in the United States—to be the son or the daughter of two parents born of citizenship in the United States.”
COOPER: “But that’s not what’s in the 14th Amendment.”
WAGNER: “Well sir, maybe you could do better at it.”
COOPER: “I don’t know what that means.”
WAGNER: “Well, I don’t know what you mean.”

You can see Wagner squirm in the hot seat here.

“It’s clear that Congressman Rehberg and his counterparts in the Montana Legislature are obsessed with pleasing the far right by wasting time and avoiding the real issues that Montanans have to deal with every day,” said Ted Dick, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. “They are focusing on advancing their political careers, and failing to meet Montana's greatest need – creating jobs. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in embarrassing all of us on the national stage.”