Republican Bob Wagner, a legislator from Madison County in Montana and a half-literate jackass of a Tea Partier who likes to draw national attention to himself, is in the news again.
You may recall that as a legislator, he sponsored a "birther bill" to prevent Obama from being legally allowed to run for president in 2012, on the theory that one is only a citizen if both parents were born here. Wagner even appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 to defend this idiotic piece of legislation, but forgot to rehearse answers to basic questions and ended up humiliating himself in front of a national audience and turning the Montana GOP into a national joke.
Now, Wagner is in a terrible pickle purely of his own making.
Recently, Democratic Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer used his line-item veto to remove, from the Montana state budget, some money the legislature had made available for Wagner's district, for local projects like a bridge or water treatment upgrade. Why? Because Wagner voted against the funding. Schweitzer no doubt assumed that when a legislator votes against a funding bill that would benefit his district, it is because that legislator's constituents have expressed to the legislator that they don't want the dough.
But it turns out that Wagner's constituents aren't too happy. Wagner was not voting their wishes, but was rather on some sort of frolic of his own. Indeed, it seems that Tea Partiers in the recent legislature were voting against any and all funding and spending of any kind, as a matter of principal, while quietly hoping that the votes of more moderate legislators would be enough to deliver the funds anyway.
And needless to say, the district that Wagner comes from is about as right-wing as they come. As are the local officials that are suing for their money, no doubt. Most of them probably consume healthy doses of FOXNews and Glenn Beck, which is great until you have a public project and need funds.
So now, The Madisonian reports, Wagner's constituents have sued Schweitzer to try to get their money, claiming that he had no authority to veto the spending. Several other Tea Party legislators did the same thing as Wagner, and now these imbeciles, like Wagner, are also feeling heat from local officials in their districts.
You gotta love these guys. And you gotta love the Governor calling them out. One wonders if these legislators, who apparently enjoy saying one thing when they are in their districts, but doing another when they are in Helena, will be invited back for another term.
This diary is cross posted at The Montana Cowgirl Blog