A 'hard day's night' in Helena

Since I can remember, I've always had a negative view of politics and politicians. In fact, my entire concept of politics has resembled the Beatles' song "Piggies" more than anything else.

So I guess this perception, if not quite this song, was somewhere in the back of my mind when I went to Helena last week on a story project.

It didn't help that I was listening to George Orwell's "1984," often desribed as a book about a "totalitarian nightmare," on my way to the capitol.

My purpose for going to Helena was to spend a day with Rep. Mike Jopek (D-Whitefish), and Sen. Dan Weinberg (D-Whitefish), and to interview Gov. Brian Schweitzer to get an idea of how the Montana legislature functions, and what a day in the life of our state government is like.

"Hard Day's Night" seems like a more appropriate Beatles song to describe what I experienced in the capitol. Our senators and representatives are working nearly around the clock to hammer out this session's legislation.

In fact, the senate worked until 2 a.m. on Friday to come up with a definition for quality education. Many of those same senators had to be back in by 7 a.m.

Of course, part of their ambitious behavior is due to the fact that Montana's legislature is in Helena only 90 days every other year. If they want to get anything done - especially when they start the session with 2,000 proposed bills - they've got to work long and hard.

But the legislators also seemed genuinely hard working. There were several occasions when, by cutting corners and leaving some questions on a bill unasked, they could easily have shaved time from the often tedious meetings, but I did not see them give into temptation.

I believe that this type of hard work can only come from people who are genuinely excited and interested in the work they are doing.

I also got the impression that our governor was a hard working and genuine person, although I only spent a half-hour with him. He certainly seemed down-to-earth, and was defintely easy to talk with.

On top of all this flattery, I also got the feeling our elected officials are working with what they believe is the genuine interest of the people they represent in mind. You may not agree with what they're doing, but they do seem to have their hearts in the right place.

I'm surprised to find myself saying any of this, because I've always believed that the job of a reporter is to be distrustful of, and generally antagonistic to all politicians.

I'm sure that there are some "Piggies" rooting around in Helena somewhere, and of course we'll always be on the look out for them.

In the meantime, I'll be working on the task of developing my many pages of notes from last week into stories for the paper. I hope that I will be able to provide a glimpse into how our state government works, how our local elected officials are faring in the capitol and how the average citizen can get involved in their state's politics.

Paul Peters is a reporter at the Whitefish Pilot.