Support for Tranel

by Wayne Adair, Hamilton

As a long-time resident of Ricketts Road near Hamilton, I was delighted to read that $1 million in federal funding has been earmarked to repair this cracked and pothole-strewn stretch of asphalt.

I was a little confused, however, by our Ravalli County Commissioners’ shameless praise heaped upon Rep. Ryan Zinke who was in town to deliver the supersized cardboard check symbolic of the funds.

Commissioner Greg Chilcott gushed, “Many thanks to Congressman Zinke for bringing these requests full circle. Our county is a great place to live, and we appreciate Congressman Zinke for helping us keep it that way.”

But wait, I thought, where did the funds come from necessary to keep that gigantic check from bouncing?

Unfortunately, the article was missing that detail.

The news story did briefly describe Zinke’s involvement.

Ravalli County made the request through the U.S. House of Representatives Community Project Funding policy, and the funding was approved by the House Appropriations Committee on which Zinke sits.

Now, as a fairly voracious consumer of news, I suspected this funding was part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act approved in Nov. 2021 by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Biden.

Easy to confirm, I told myself, if I contact Zinke’s office and ask.

I called Zinke’s Missoula office. No answer. Just a voicemail message. Called the Bozeman office. Ditto. Of course, his Washington, D.C., office will be staffed, I thought. Same story. I left a message requesting clarification. A week later, no response. Multiple calls. Multiple days. No joy.

So, from here on, I will proceed under the assumption that the $1 million are part of the $1.2 trillion funding package I referenced earlier. If I am in error, I apologize in advance. But I doubt I am.

Zinke is distributing federal funds he had no hand in passing. Remember, the infrastructure act was signed into law on Nov. 15, 2021. Zinke didn’t vote against this vital legislation any more than he voted for it. Zinke wasn’t in the House of Representatives when the vote happened. In 2017, then-President Trump appointed Zinke as U.S. Secretary of the Interior until 2019 when he was forced out of that job for numerous scandals. That is notable indeed, getting fired for bad behavior by Trump, the prince of bad behavior. Zinke won re-election to the House in 2022, barely beating Democratic challenger Monica Tranel.

Would Zinke have voted for the infrastructure act if he had been in the legislature? We will never know, but Montana’s other GOP lawmakers in Washington, Steve Daines and Matt Rosendale, voted no. Only Democrat Jon Tester voted in favor of the bill.

It’s telling that of the 213 GOP members in the House in 2021, 200 voted no (clerk.house.gov).

Zinke’s involvement in the $1 million for the Ricketts Road project so praised by our commissioners consists of rubber-stamping the county request and delivering a cartoonishly oversized check.

When drivers are enjoying the new pavement on Ricketts Road, they need to thank Democrats for the smooth ride, certainly not Zinke.

Please vote for Monica Tranel in November. We all deserve a smooth ride in more ways than on a newly paved road.