Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the state’s first transgender lawmaker, isn’t going to let Republicans in the Montana House of Representatives silence her. At least, not without a fight. Last week, you’ll recall, the GOP supermajority voted to censure Zephyr for speaking up too transly against bills banning gender-affirming care and writing trans people out of Montana law. Rather than expelling her like the jerks in Tennessee did to their meddlesome Democrats, the Montana House barred Zephyr from the floor and hearing rooms of the Capitol until the legislative session ends later this week, preventing her from participating in debate while allowing her to vote, remotely and silently, and to watch the same public stream of House proceedings as anyone else can on the internet. So generous!
Previously:
Montana Republicans Want In On That ‘Expel Democrats’ Thing That Worked So Well For Tennessee
Montana House Republicans Officially Punish Zooey Zephyr For Legislating While Trans
Monday, Zephyr, with help from the Montana ACLU, filed a lawsuit in state court asking for an emergency injunction returning her to the House floor for whatever days remain in the session, arguing that her First Amendment rights had been stomped on. The suit also names several of her constituents as plaintiffs, arguing that the House’s action effectively denied them and the rest of Zephyr’s 11,000 constituents representation.
The AP interviewed one of those plaintiffs, Anna Wong, who has a transgender child and said she’d voted for Zephyr in 2022 because she knew Zephyr would “speak out against the onslaught of bills targeting transgender youth.”
“Suicide amongst transgender youth is not imaginary,” Wong said. “It is not a game and it is not a political foil. It is real. It is heartbreaking. And it is the responsibility of my representative to speak out against bills promoting it.”
That’s exactly what Zephyr was getting at when she spoke against Senate Bill 99, which bans gender-affirming care for trans youth. Zephyr accurately said forcing trans kids to undergo puberty as the sex they don’t identify is “tantamount to torture” and said she hoped that those voting for the bill would “see the blood on your hands” the next time they pray during a House invocation. (Technically, the censure resolution only cited Zephyr’s refusal to leave the floor last week during a demonstration by her supporters. But c’mon, we know why she was silenced.)
While there are only a few days left in the session, the Legislature still hasn’t passed a budget, and Zephyr’s lawsuit seeks her immediate reinstatement so she can represent her constituents in debate on that and other last minute bills.
Emily Flower, a spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R), whose office will manage the defense in the lawsuit, dismissed it as “performance litigation — political activism masquerading as a lawsuit,” and said that the courts have no power to intervene, because separation of powers.
As Hayes Brown notes at MSNBC, that argument may win out, unfortunately, because the US Constitution gives the US House and Senate the power to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings,” and that generally applies to state legislatures too, because 14th Amendment. Montana’s constitution does indeed allow the Legislature to expel or punish legislators for “good cause,” with a two-thirds vote of the appropriate house.
Zephyr’s lawsuit acknowledges that, but also argues that the House GOP leaders applied the rules unfairly and capriciously, so they were
acting within the “color of the law” — technically allowed but acting against the spirit of the law and beyond the scope of its reach.
Brown notes that the argument that the House is depriving Zephyr’s constituents of representation may be more compelling than the First Amendment claim, since that’s “the most immediate harm that a court could rule on given the closing window for participation.”
But hey better a long shot than no shot at all. Zephyr has, since last week’s vote, been dutifully showing up and sitting on a bench near the entrance to the House chamber to work on her laptop, although yesterday when she arrived, she found the bench had been taken already. So she worked at a table instead, standing up for her community.
Some folks showed up early this morning and sat on the public benches near the entrance to the House, so Seat 31 has moved.
I’m up and ready to work. Plus, I hear stand desks are all the rage these days.
But who were those ladies who made a point of arriving early to occupy the bench where Zephyr had been sitting? Ha ha it was a very funny trick by the wives of several prominent Republicans in the state Lege, including Jolene Regier, the mother of Speaker Matt Regier and wife of Senator Keith Regier. Wasn’t that clever of them? It’s inspiring to see how every aspect of governing in Republican-run states is now given over to trolling the libs!
That is very humorous! Their husbands and sons kept Zephyr off the floor, and then the clever lady tricksters kept her off the bench, haha! Today, supporters of Zephyr made sure to be on the benches as soon as the Capitol doors opened, to save her a spot.
But also this morning, some unidentified opponent of trans rights took a less harmless approach to trying to silence Zephyr, calling the police in an attempt to send a SWAT team to the home of Zephyr’s partner, journalist Erin Reed. Such SWATting attempts have resulted in at least two deaths — one from a police shooting, one from a heart attack — and many incidents in which police arrived at someone’s door ready to use deadly force against a nonexistent threat.
Reed tweeted that the SWATting attempt against her failed, largely because “I’ve worked closely with the police in my community anticipating this,” so there’s one more tip for the journalist toolbox: If you write about issues that make the far-Right insane, let the police know they may get false reports of a hostage situation or other nonexistent crime at your home.
Update/clarification: The SWATting attempt may very well have come from outside Montana, because as indy reporter Alejandra Caraballo said on the Twitters, the dangerous hate troll site Kiwi Farms, which targets trans people and reporters for harassment in hopes that they’ll kill themselves or die in a SWATting, added Reed to its page shortly before the attempted SWATting. They’re pure evil.
This shit can’t be tolerated. Zooey Zephyr isn’t about to let herself be silenced, and neither should any of us who care about equality and freedom. Let your electeds, especially your Republican electeds, know that trans rights matter to you, and that if they think beating up on trans people will win them votes, it’ll also get them very loud opposition, to say nothing of how they may end up in the history books on the same page as the Bull Connors and the George Wallaces.
And if you have some spare Ameros for Zooey Zephyr’s 2024 reelection campaign, keep that in mind too. Montana needs her voice — and hey, she could use some company in the Montana House too.
[AP / MSNBC / Zephyr et al v. Montana]
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