House District 97: Michele Reinhart

Editor’s note: The following story was written by a student in John B. Saul’s graduate reporting class at The University of Montana. You are free to share or publish this story, provided you retain the reporter’s byline.

House District 97: Michele Reinhart BY LAURA LUNDQUIST Michele Reinhart says she is in a rare position, working as both a city-county planner and legislator. “I get to implement the laws that have been passed. So I get to see what works and what doesn’t work.” Reinhart is a Missoula city-county planner and has represented House District 97 for one term. She says her dual roles have given her insights into many issues that affect Montana, including energy and the environment, education, health care, jobs and budgets. Reinhart and her opponent, Carol Minjares, appear most at odds on the related issues of the environment and energy. Reinhart said she believes that drilling for oil is not the way to keep Montana’s economy productive. She wants to reduce dependency on fossil fuels because they are diminishing and their use contributes to greenhouse gases. “We’re not drilling our way out of this problem.” In her work as a county planner, Reinhart has also seen how hard drilling can be on landowners. Because mineral rights have priority over surface rights, landowners have little say on excavation and any associated damage, she said. In addition, drilling can contribute to depleting an aquifer, which affects more than just landowners. Reinhart emphasized the importance of preserving farm and ranch land from all exploitation, which goes hand-in-hand with protection of water. Reinhart said that if coal-fired power plants were approved, the state needed to require tough emission standards and the use of carbon sequestration to minimize the contribution of greenhouse gases. Other ways to minimize emissions, according to Reinhart, include encouraging people to drive more fuel-efficient cars and designing communities so the amount of driving required is minimized. Minjares has indicated she would support increased production of traditional energy and claims there are “too many tax credit incentives for alternative fuels.” Reinhart countered that the oil industry receives a number of tax breaks and has legions of lobbyists.

On state funding for education, Reinhart said that the state’s contribution to school funding was once more than 70 percent and has fallen to as low as 40 percent since the 1990s. Reinhart wants to see the state reinstate that lost funding. Also, she said too much of the funding is tied to annual enrollment, which is declining in Montana. In order to keep good teachers in Montana, Reinhart supports increasing teachers’ wages, particularly in more rural areas, and rewarding outstanding teachers with pay bonuses. She suggested that money for higher salaries could come from the savings that would result from making schools more energy-efficient. Both Reinhart and Minjares agree that citizens should have access to basic health care but disagree on what is considered “basic.” Minjares would eliminate required insurance benefits, or mandates, in order to reduce insurance costs, according to her comments on the VoteSmart web site (www.votesmart.org). Reinhart says that mandates are not a huge health cost and what is needed is a cost-effective insurance model, such as community health centers that operate through grants and sliding fee schedules. For Montana, Reinhart said it was important to address the shortage of primary-care providers, particularly in rural areas. She wants educational support for Montanans who would then practice medicine in the state. As for jobs, Reinhart would encourage more of them with small business grants and loans and by encouraging university research and business collaborations, which bring grants and private dollars from outside the state. Historically, Montana’s economy has been based largely on agriculture. Reinhart wants to expand this tradition by increasing value-added agriculture industries, such as bottling facilities for milk, or programs such as Farm-to-College, where local produce is shipped directly to state schools. The jobs created are also part of sustainable development that Reinhart supports. Reinhart wants to encourage business but not at the expense of the worker. She sits on the Economic Affairs Committee and defended the minimum wage in the 2007 legislature. In order to pay for the issues she thinks are important, Reinhart believes that Montana needs a “rainy day fund” and that part of the recent state tax rebate might have been kept for that. “The surplus this year will not be what it was, and there are still needs. Plus, we’ll not be getting as many dollars from the federal government.” But in general, rather than raise state taxes, she wants to close tax loopholes to get money already due the state. And further down the road, if improvements to education result in less crime, perhaps the part of the budget required for law enforcement could be diverted to other needs.

Reinhart wants the state to do more on some issues but pursues moderate changes because in her role as planner, she has seen how some state-directed regulation can do more harm than good. “I would like to see state law provide more flexibility, and where it’s causing problems, that it gets out of the way.”