Montana Senate kills bill to require Ten Commandments in every public school classroom

The Montana Senate on Saturday morning voted down a bill from a Lindsay Republican that sought to require the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom in the state.

It was the second time Sen. Bob Phalen’s Senate Bill 114 was killed in the Senate this month, but after Saturday’s vote, the body voted to indefinitely postpone the proposal, meaning it is effectively dead for the session.

Following about an hour of debate over religious beliefs, the historical killing of Native Americans, and religion’s role in government and lawmaking, eight Republicans joined every Senate Democrat to vote the bill down 24-26. The Senate on Feb. 5 also failed to pass the proposal in a 25-25 vote, but Phalen was successful in reviving it and having it sent back to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a hearing earlier this week, Republicans on the committee amended the bill so it no longer said districts were not required, but rather authorized, to spend their own money to buy the displays, which would have needed to be at least 11x14 inches in size and placed in every public school building and classroom.

Phalen, new to the Senate this year, said the bill was a copy of one that lawmakers passed and saw signed into law in Louisiana. But that bill was blocked by a federal judge in November in the five districts that were sued. The judge said the measure was unconstitutional on its face, rejecting the state’s argument that the Ten Commandments were historically significant to the basis of American law.

Despite a Legal Review Note from Legislative Services that noted Phalen’s bill could violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on the establishment of religion, the Montana measure’s proponents made similar arguments about its historical significance in another lengthy debate during the Legislature’s first Saturday floor session of the year.

“The Ten Commandments is part of our history, and for centuries, have been a historical source of universal obligations,” Phalen said.

Sen. Tony Tezak, R-Ennis, called the Ten Commandments a historical document that is part of the nation’s heritage, akin to the American flag and the Pledge of Allegiance’s “one nation, under God.”

Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, utilized the commandment of “thou shalt not kill” to tell the chamber that Americans and other settlers had long been violating what some Republicans called a moral and ethical document that has long guided the nation.

Windy Boy, a member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe, said American settlers had for hundreds of years killed and abused Native Americans in many arenas. Sen. Susan Webber, D-Browning, brought up that no Montana tribes had been consulted about the bill, which she believed would also violate the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

“We were known as savages. We were known as non-human,” Windy Boy said. “So, if we’re talking about equal protection under the law, let’s provide equal protection for everybody — especially my people.”

Senate President Matt Regier, a Kalispell Republican, also cited historical ties between Christianity and the nation’s founding and growth as a reason to support the proposal.

“God is mentioned in our Declaration of Independence. He’s on our money. He’s in our music — “God Bless America” — he’s in our religion, literature. We have to say the pledge every day here on the floor,” Regier said. “Why would we not mention God in our schools?”

Sen. Derek Harvey, D-Butte, said “irony” was flying around the chamber during the debate and that senators should have left the bill dead last week.

“I would take it more to heart in my moral compass if I believed the person residing in the White House that our colleagues across the aisle put in there didn’t break these commandments,” Harvey said.

Just before the vote that killed the bill, Phalen made a final plea to the body, saying his proposal was aimed at giving Montana children a quality and historically relevant education.

“We would be doing our kids a disservice by keeping the commandments out of classrooms,” he said. “… This bill will ensure that our children learn about the country’s founding principles and that we never forget the United States is one nation under God.”

After the bill failed to pass the second-reading vote, 29 senators voted to indefinitely postpone it.