Opening the Gates
by: Sen. Carol Williams
In 1866, when my ancestors, Zaddock and Almira Allen, drove an oxen-powered wagon across mountains and prairies to come to Montana, to settle just a few miles from here in Jefferson City, they could never have imagined that female offspring of theirs would one day be given the opportunity to serve in the Montana senate, let alone be elected to be the first woman to serve as Majority Leader in the Montana Senate.
On the other hand, as a young woman coming of age in the 60’s, in Butte, I can’t conceive of why that took so long.
A number of remarkable Montana women have served here. Among them, Dorothy Eck, Pat Regan, Sue Bartlett, Emily Swanson, Toni Roselle, all these women were capable of assuming leadership positions. I feel blessed to be standing in their shoes and very grateful for this opportunity given to me.
We return to this session confident that our good work in 2005 helped Montana families and created opportunities for our children, and will be built upon and improved. We Democrats are committed to some core commitments that people have asked of us.
1. We will invest in a world-class education system from kindergarten through college. We will support offering all day kindergarten and hold the line on tuition increases for Montana university students.
2. We will work to extend health care coverage for low-income children, provide more access to health care for uninsured adults and more opportunities for small businesses to provide insurance for their employees.
3. We will, as in the past, work to improve our relationships with our tribal governments and to enhance the lives of our first Montanans.
4. We are committed to being good stewards of this state’s natural resources, its air, water, land and wildlife, - as is required by our constitution, and we will protect Montanans access to their rivers, streams, hunting grounds and fishing holes.
5. We will continue to work to move Montanans economy forward and invest in renewable energy to create jobs and lower heating bills.
We will do all of this in a responsible way, paying as we go and not saddling future generations, our children, with debt.
We all recognize something has gone wrong, don’t we?. We know that people who send us to these bodies believe that politics has replaced policy and and anger has displaced civility. Let’s all resolve together that this all stops now with us in this 60th legislative session.
I can assure you that as the Majority Leader of the Senate Democrats, we are committed to doing just that. Together we must make this session about policy not politics.
When I was a freshman legislator in 1999, an orientation presenter from legislative services said that both Democrats and Republicans would agree on the vast majority of legislation proposed in that session. She was right.
As our late president Gerald Ford liked to say, “we can disagree without being disagreeable”. That is our greatest challenge for this session.
Of course, we will have lively debate but we must work together in a respectful and civil way to ensure that when we adjourn the people who sent us here to do their business will have pride in our accomplishments and the agreeable manner with which we achieved them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “do not go where the path may lead - go instead where there is no path and leave trails.” I hope this session will lead all of us to new trails of respect and co-operation.
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