Missoulians to Weigh Iraq War Referendum

By LAUREN RUSSELL

Missoula is thousands of miles from Iraq, but city voters are being asked to decide a referendum calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that war-torn nation, an issue some say has no place in city politics.

The decision to put the referendum on the mail-in municipal ballot was made by six Missoula City Council members and Mayor John Engen, who cast the tie-breaking vote at the June 25 Missoula City Council meeting. Engen said that he wanted to put the issue before residents and allow them to express their desire for change.

Sponsored by Ward 3 Councilman Bob Jaffe, the referendum contains the following language:

“The citizens of Missoula, Montana, hereby urge the Congress of the United States of America to authorize and fund an immediate and orderly withdrawal of the United States military from Iraq in a manner that is fully protective of U.S. soldiers.”

If passed, this nonbinding document will be sent to Congress and the president. Jaffe said that though the measure is mostly symbolic, its passage would unite Missoula with other communities making a statement about the war.

Besides Missoula, Helena and more than 300 other cities have passed similar resolutions, said Karen Dolan with the Cities for Peace Campaign of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies.

“President Bush is deaf to the wishes of the American people to stop pouring money and lives into this failed war,” Dolan said in an e-mail. “Because federal representatives on Capitol Hill seem impotent to challenge him, citizens all over the country are forcing the issue in their town and city halls and state houses.”

The cost of the war and the strain on the country’s economy prompted the Missoula Area Central Labor Council to endorse the measure, said Mark Anderlik, the organization’s president.

“It’s costing trillions of dollars that could go to health care and other issues here,” Anderlik said. “From a labor standpoint, it’s what the representatives of the Iraqi Labor Federation and the Iraqi people are calling for.”

Others support the referendum because of the freedom of speech it represents. Major Dean Roberts, of the University of Montana’s ROTC program, said that though he supports the war, he also supports the right of the people to debate it.

“As an army officer, it’s neat that I get to live in a country where I get to defend the right to have these debates,” Roberts said.

Rob Harper, student political action director for student government at the University of Montana, said that the group debated its support of the issue and ultimately decided that its engagement of students was worth endorsing.

“We support it as an engagement issue because it gives 15,000 students all the way out here in Montana the ability to have a voice,” Harper said.

But some people don’t think a referendum on a divisive national issue has any business being on a city ballot because it won’t have an effect on the national political stage.

Ward 4 Councilman Jon Wilkins, a veteran and adamant opponent of the resolution, said that the issue was meant to split the council on partisan lines before the election and shouldn’t cost the city time or money.

Professor James Lopach, head of the University of Montana's political science department, shared Wilkins’ opinion that city government should stay out of national politics. He said that the measure represents the personal politics of City Council members, not the population of Missoula.

Council members are neither sufficient representatives of Missoula nor the state, said UM President George Dennison. Citizens, he added, should leave the decision-making up to elected federal representatives.

“I don’t believe in plebiscite government,” Dennison said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to make this decision because we really don’t have the information to make an informed decision.”

Missoulians’ concern with national issues is a good thing, UM College Republicans president Allie Harrison said, but it shouldn’t be expressed at the cost of Missoula taxpayers, who have no jurisdiction to deal with national issues.

“To me, it seems like a glorified poll that wastes a few thousand dollars of taxpayers’ money,” Harrison said.

But Matt Singer, a spokesman for Forward Montana, which supports the measure, said opponents are just grasping for reasons to oppose the referendum and that the homegrown response to a national issue is “wholly appropriate.”

“We’re building a chorus of voices,” Singer said. “People can make a difference individually and we must work together to demand that D.C. do a better job.”

Singer said that he is confident Missoula residents are ready to bring the troops home from Iraq. The question, he said, is whether these people will vote on it, since many people are unaware that the issue is included on the ballot.

This was the case Friday afternoon at the downtown Veterans of Foreign Wars club, where five of the eight customers said they hadn’t heard of the referendum.

However, Jim Bobbitt, commander of Post 209, had -- and he offered an opinion about it.

“Instead of wasting time and money, they could fill another pothole,” Bobbitt said.