Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer only a few days after CBS’s 60 Minutes dubbed him “half Renaissance man, half rodeo cowboy”. The governor came to Charlottesville in an appearance sponsored by the UVA Center for Politics to talk about biodiesel and alternative energy. I liked him immediately.
He is a Democratic Governor in a Red state with less than one million residents, and with a Republican Lt. Governor. He is a rancher and an agricultural scientist. He has built roads in Africa and irrigated croplands in Saudi Arabia. He may be “the next best hope of the Democratic Party“, and now he has done something else great.
In February of 1918, when the U.S. was involved in what we now call World War I, that State’s Legislature passed the Montana Sedition Law. Although other states passed similar laws at the time, Montana’s was considered the harshest and served as a model for a federal sedition law passed by Congress later that year. Under Montana’s law:
“Whenever the United States shall be engaged in war, any person or persons who shall utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, violent, scurrilous, contemptuous, slurring or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the constitution of the United States, or the soldiers or sailors of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the army or navy of the United States…or shall utter, print, write or publish any language calculated to incite or inflame resistance to any duly constituted Federal or State authority in connection with the prosecution of the War…shall be guilty of sedition.”
According to a news release from Governor Schweitzer’s office: “During the years of 1918 and 1919, 78 men and women in Montana were convicted, imprisoned and fined for making remarks critical of America, the President, the Government, the Flag or the War.” Earlier this year, the Governor was presented with a petition from the Montana Sedition Project, and on May 3 2006, Governor Schweitzer signed posthumous pardons for all 78 citizens convicted under the act. “Freedom of speech is a fundamental and a constitutional right in times of war and peace alike,” said the Governor. “Neighbors spying on neighbors and hindering freedom is not the America or Montana way.”
An interesting move in interesting time. Keep an eye on this guy.