During a legislative listening to in 2011 that was a prelude to Montana’s debates on abortion, State Representative Keith Regier displayed a picture of a cow and made the argument that cattle had been extra helpful when pregnant.
The comparability drew a immediate rebuke from some ladies within the room, however Mr. Regier, a Republican, declined to apologize. Over the years, the previous schoolteacher and sod farmer has seldom demurred from his rising model of combative Christian-oriented politics, wherein the Ten Commandments are the inspiration of fine legislation and a few of the greatest battles have been with moderates in his personal social gathering.
Mr. Regier has now emerged because the patriarch of a brand new household political dynasty that has injected contemporary conservative depth into debates over abortion, range coaching and, this spring, transgender rights. Mr. Regier chairs the Senate’s highly effective judiciary committee, whereas his daughter, Amy, leads its counterpart within the House. Mr. Regier’s son, Matt, has risen to speaker of the House. The trio of legislators, every wielding an analogous model of unflinching conservatism, had been among the many strongest proponents of a set of payments that took explicit goal on the rights of transgender folks.
It was Matt Regier who led the transfer to bar one of many legislature’s solely transgender representatives, Zooey Zephyr, who had spoken out vociferously on the House ground final month in opposition to a measure banning hormone remedies and surgical take care of transgender minors. The proposal was one among a number of new legal guidelines that handed not too long ago, together with one prohibiting adult-oriented drag exhibits on public property and one other making a strict definition of an individual’s intercourse.
At the shut of the legislative session on Tuesday night time, fellow lawmakers gave Mr. Regier a standing ovation. “There were many times of sunlight, and there were also times of shade, but overall it’s been an incredible ride,” the speaker stated.
The Regier household hails from the Flathead Valley of northwest Montana, an imposing area of glaciers and fir forests round Kalispell that has develop into a vacation spot for conservatives trying to flee city life and liberal politics in different states. Militia teams and far-right spiritual leaders have additionally discovered a house within the valley, a few of them drawn to the notion of creating what is commonly referred to as a “redoubt” within the American Northwest.
Keith Regier and his spouse settled there in 1975 after he obtained a level in bodily training from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. At the time, Democrats dominated a lot of state politics, partly due to robust labor organizing within the state’s expansive mining and timber industries.
Keith Regier taught sixth grade in Kalispell for practically three many years. Matt was a quarterback for the highschool soccer group, taking it into the state playoffs. Amy earned a level in nursing and started working on the hospital.
Keith Regier stated he had not significantly thought-about working for workplace till he retired from instructing, telling The Daily Inter Lake news outlet in 2005 that he deliberate to concentrate on sod farming along with his son and maybe do some writing. But by 2008 he had received a seat within the State House, promising to decrease taxes, defend the dying penalty and undermine labor unions by changing Montana right into a “right to work” state.
In an interview, he stated he assessed all laws by means of two lenses: whether or not the proposed legal guidelines had been biblical and whether or not they had been good for the common Montanan.
“This country was founded on Judeo-Christian values,” he stated. “Just read the Declaration of Independence. It’s very obvious.”
His unyielding strategy gained traction within the state capital of Helena — together with his beliefs on abortion — and he rose as much as develop into majority chief in 2015.
That was a shock to Bob Brown, a longtime former Republican lawmaker from the Flathead space who as soon as ran for governor. At his dwelling the place he shows art work that includes former Republican presidents and a plaque thanking him for contributions to the social gathering, Mr. Brown stated he had observed a shift since his days on the State Capitol: Republican lawmakers now not wished leaders who had been in search of compromise, he stated.
“They just want to implement their own concept of what is right,” he stated. “I think Keith Regier is a pretty good example of that.”
The Regiers’ views appealed to the rising motion of utmost conservatives who had been gaining traction within the area, stated Frank Garner, a former police chief in Kalispell who later represented the realm as a reasonable Republican within the Legislature. That included not solely militia teams but in addition folks like Chuck Baldwin, a pastor with apocalyptic views and a Constitution Party candidate within the 2008 presidential election who had moved his household to the state searching for refuge from what he predicted can be escalating battle elsewhere within the nation. Mr. Baldwin used his pulpit to rejoice the Regiers’ model of conservatism in Helena.
“They were philosophically the right people in the right place at the right time,” Mr. Garner stated.
In 2016, Matt Regier joined his father in working for workplace, saying he was motivated to take action after the native faculty board added gender identification to its anti-discrimination coverage. He stated he feared that the rise of transgender advocacy was threatening conventional values.
Amy Regier ran in 2020, sharing her perspective as a nurse concerning the societal risks of coronavirus pandemic restrictions and vowing to chop taxes. In the first, she defeated a veteran Republican lawmaker, Bruce Tutvedt, who characterised the brand new Republican stance as “very authoritarian politics, top-down — no tolerance for a Republican like me.”
While the Democrats had held onto the governor’s workplace for 16 years, that resulted in 2021 as Republicans steadily gained floor.
The Regiers turned their consideration not simply to defeating Democrats however to ousting Republicans who didn’t fall into line.
In one race, the Regiers joined with anti-abortion activists to create a political motion committee referred to as Doctors for a Healthy Montana. Matt Regier was the treasurer, in keeping with marketing campaign finance information. Keith and Matt Regier accounted for 2 of the group’s 5 donors.
Among the committee’s targets was Representative Joel Krautter, a Republican from the japanese Montana neighborhood of Sidney who had voted to develop Medicaid. The committee leased a big billboard that confirmed an image of a child with the message: “Joel Krautter voted for taxpayer funded abortions.” Mr. Krautter, who opposes abortion, objected to the characterization.
“I thought it was bogus, but these people don’t care too much,” Mr. Krautter stated. He misplaced within the 2020 Republican major to a extra conservative candidate.
Then final fall, in a personal caucus vote, Matt Regier narrowly emerged as House speaker. It was a end result that shocked some Republican lawmakers. Some had been queasy concerning the path that the social gathering was set to take.
It didn’t take lengthy: A textual content message went out inviting Republican ladies to a gathering in Mr. Regier’s workplace, in keeping with two individuals who had been in attendance.
Mr. Regier wished to speak about Ms. Zephyr, who had been newly elected from Missoula. He requested the ladies what steps the House ought to take to handle the chamber’s loos in Ms. Zephyr’s presence.
Mallerie Stromswold, who was among the many Republicans on the assembly, stated she was stunned that such a difficulty was one among Mr. Regier’s first orders of business. But a few of the ladies within the room expressed issues about sharing non-public quarters with Ms. Zephyr, she stated, and a call was made so as to add locks to the lavatory in order that one particular person may use the entire facility, with a number of stalls, in non-public.
“I was the only one who openly had a problem with the conversation,” stated Ms. Stromswold, who has since left the Legislature.
Once the session started in January, Keith Regier induced a nationwide stir when he submitted a draft decision calling for Congress to research options to reservations for Native Americans; the decision stated the present system had induced “confusion, acrimony and animosity.” He later withdrew it.
Republicans additionally started advancing the payments on transgender points, shifting lots of them by means of the Regier-led judiciary committees. As the invoice prohibiting gender-affirming take care of minors moved towards passage, Ms. Zephyr warned that the measure can be “tantamount to torture.”
“I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” she stated. Matt Regier responded by refusing to acknowledge her in ground discussions. Later, a crowd started shouting, “Let her speak,” and Mr. Regier ordered folks to clear the chamber. Ms. Zephyr raised her microphone in solidarity with the demonstrators.
Ms. Zephyr was barred from the House chamber and spent the remainder of the session in a hallway. Matt Regier confronted her there final week and tried to have her moved to an workplace, however she remained exterior close to the snack bar.
Ms. Zephyr stated the trouble to “silence” her was an “affront to democracy” and vowed to combat it.
“The Montana State House is the people’s House, not Speaker Regier’s, and I’m determined to defend the right of the people to have their voices heard,” she stated in a press release.
Keith Regier stated he had lengthy been misunderstood for his remarks all these years in the past about pregnant cows, provided in help of his invoice to make it a murder to hurt a pregnant lady whose fetus then dies.
“If unfinished buildings and unborn calves have a value in Montana, shouldn’t unborn children have a value?” Mr. Regier stated as a part of his cow analogy.
But opponents noticed the 2011 laws as a again door effort to undercut abortion, and it was vetoed by the state’s Democratic governor. His successor, additionally a Democrat, allowed a diluted model of the invoice to develop into legislation two years later.
Republican lawmakers below the Regiers’ management have accepted a number of new abortion restrictions, together with a ban on the procedures after 20 weeks. The courts have dominated that the state’s constitutional proper to privateness protects entry to abortion, and new lawsuits are pending.
Keith Regier additionally defended Republican House members’ vote to bar Ms. Zephyr from the ground, saying her “blood on your hands” comment was inappropriate, and that she had taken it additional by encouraging protests within the chamber.
“We need to be careful of what we say,” he stated. “If we are offensive, you say sorry.”
Ms. Zephyr by no means apologized, however she did file a lawsuit, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana and others, to regain entry to the chamber earlier than it recessed. A choose rejected the trouble.
For this spherical, the Regiers had received.
Keith Regier stated he and his kids had been doing not more than what that they had been elected to do. “I guess people know our family and identify with our values and want us to come and represent them.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed analysis.
Source: www.nytimes.com