Big skies, big leaders: for the first time in 20 years, Montana Democrats hold the governor's office, the Senate, and have tied the House.

• Author: Dennison, Mike

On the final morning of Montana's 2005 Legislature, House Republican Floor Leader Roy Brown rose to deliver his last blast at a state spending plan Republicans had vilified all session.

"This budget is full of problems," he told the evenly divided, 100-member House. "It is not sustainable. ... There will be no property tax relief or no extra money for schools. The people who made this huge surplus possible, the taxpayers, are ignored."

Yet then, quoting a refrain from country singer Kenny Rogers' song "The Gambler," Brown announced he would be voting for the budget bill, bringing a three-day standoff--and the legislative session--to an end. The Democrats hold all the cards, Brown said, and while House Republicans could block the budget as long as they wanted, they could not win. Brown said he would be the one Republican "aye" to break the 50-50 stalemate, enabling the session to adjourn and other House Republicans to vote against the budget.

"You gotta know when to hold 'em, you gotta know when to fold 'em," Brown intoned. "As the song goes, it is time to fold 'em. We are short-stacked at the card table."

As swan songs go, it wasn't bad. But for those who've witnessed many a finale at the Montana Legislature, Brown's speech will be remembered more for its political significance than its cowboy color: For the first time in more than a decade here, Republicans came out on the losing end. In the words of Brown, Democrats now hold the dominant cards in the deck of Montana politics.

A SIGNIFICANT SWITCH

Breaking 10 years of solid GOP control over both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office, Democrats last November swept to power in the Senate, picking up six seats to forge a 27-23 majority. They also gained three House seats, one of them in a last minute court decision, to make it 50-50 between the two parties, and Whitefish farmer Brian Schweitzer, who'd never held public office before, became the first Democrat since 1984 to win the governor's seat in Montana.

When the Legislature convened in Helena Jan. 3, it was the first time in 20 years that Montana Democrats held the governor's office and at least one house of the Legislature.

What happened? How did Democrats win significant victories in a state where George Bush pounded John Kerry, and Republicans had held sway for so long?

Redistricting of legislative seats certainly played a role, as a Democrat-controlled commission rewrote state district boundaries that took effect in the 2004 elections. The new lines created many more "swing" districts winnable by both parties, almost guaranteeing narrow margins of party control in the years to come.

But Republicans also were swimming upstream because of their identification with former Governor Judy Martz, an extremely unpopular Republican who didn't run for reelection in 2004.

Schweitzer pitched himself as a dynamic breath of fresh air in a state weary from years of all-Republican rule. He even tabbed a moderate Republican state senator, John Bohlinger of Billings, as his lieutenant governor running mate--Montana's first bipartisan gubernatorial ticket in memory.

Schweitzer and Bohlinger won last November with slightly more than 50 percent of the vote, dispatching Republican Secretary of State Bob Brown and two other third-party candidates.

AN END TO PARTISANSHIP?

As the session began, Democrats said it was time to end partisanship and start addressing long-standing problems facing the state: Shortages in public school funding, thousands of Montanans without health insurance and an economy that had left rural areas behind.

Schweitzer and fellow Democrats also had an advantage not often seen in Montana politics: They began the session with a projected two-year budget surplus of nearly $300 million, buoyed by surging oil-and-gas revenue, a rebounding economy in Montana's cities and higher income-tax revenue because of changes in federal tax law. They also had another $100 million at their disposal, thanks to a $1-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes approved by voters at the ballot box last November, giving Montana one of the highest state tobacco taxes in the nation.

The Democrats' agenda called for a $7 billion two-year budget that expanded health care programs, increased state employee pay and upped state money for what would be the session's dominant issue: public schools.

The state Supreme Court last November declared Montana's state funding of schools inadequate and unconstitutional, and gave lawmakers until October 2005 to come up with a new system and, presumably, more money.

Montana lawmakers also had just four months to tackle that thorny problem and everything else, for the Legislature meets a mere 90 working days every two years, from January through April.

And for all the top legislative leaders of the 200S session, it...