If you post the Ten Commandments in a classroom, students will read the rule against committing adultery, and Sen. Cora Neumann had a question about that situation.

The Montana Legislature already has told schools to notify parents about anything related to sex — even teaching Romeo and Juliet — so parents can have their children “opt out” of the lesson in question.

Given that consideration, Neumann wondered how teachers would handle the situation with the Ten Commandments — from a practical standpoint.

“This is actually going against our own Legislature’s ruling of the last session of exposing children to explicit sexual references,” said Neumann, D-Bozeman.

Patrick Yawakie had a request rather than a question given that the Christian religion was used to justify enslavement, genocide and force Native American children into boarding schools.

“We would like to see an amendment … which would include the Indian Ten Commandments also be displayed in all public school classrooms,” said Yawakie, representing the Blackfeet Nation, Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation, and Fort Belknap Indian Community; he provided a copy to the committee.

The senator and lobbyist were responding to Senate Bill 114, to require public school trustees to post the Ten Commandments — on a minimum 11” by 14” poster or framed document — in each classroom in every public school in Montana.

It passed 6-3 on party lines Friday without amendment after it was heard in committee the same day.

Proposed by Sen. Bob Phalen, R-Lindsay, the bill is similar to a law in Louisiana — under litigation in federal court — and a proposal some legal scholars see as a test for whether the new U.S. Supreme Court is more amenable to government accommodation of religion.

Former legislator Keith Regier spoke in support of the bill and asked why Montanans would keep history from students by avoiding a display. He said everyone has a faith — some may put their faith in money or government or their own abilities.

Regier also said the Sabbath is observed in society — “we call it the weekend” — and God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, on money, in music, and he couldn’t see a reason God couldn’t be mentioned in schools, too.

“The courts need to understand that by removing God, they’re replacing it with nothing. No God? That’s called atheism,” Regier said.

Although the hearing Friday drew support and opposition from Montanans, it also pulled national heavy hitters in the debate to the Capitol.

Matt Krause, legal counsel with First Liberty Institute whose biography identifies him as having successfully defended people who allege their religious rights have been violated, offered a legal rationale for the bill. He said First Liberty Institute is the largest organization in the country dedicated to advancing religious liberties.

David Barton, identified by the Texas Tribune as a “staple of Texas’ Christian conservative movement,” also attended the hearing in person, holding up his own copies of the Ten Commandments. Barton, with WallBuilders, has argued the separation of church and state is a myth.

In introducing his bill, Phalen said it was drafted based on the legislation in Louisiana. Phalen said Christianity has played a prominent role in shaping western civilization, the Ten Commandments are part of the history of the country, and they should be shown in Montana schools.

A legal review of the bill by legislative staff said it may conflict with the First Amendment’s prohibitions on establishment of religion, but Phalen said that review should be disregarded given it is “a new day for the religious freedom America.”

He said the U.S. Supreme Court itself displays an estimated 50 versions of the Ten Commandments inside and out — an observation Barton shared at the podium as well. And Phalen said they are displayed on the state Capitol grounds too.

Just last week, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments about the law in Louisiana that requires displays of the Ten Commandments in schools. A lower court found the requirement violates the First Amendment’s protections regarding separation of church and state and free exercise of religion.

In Montana, the legal review by legislative staff pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 1980 in Stone v. Graham over a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms. The court found the purpose for posting was religious, and the law conflicted with the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

“The Supreme Court also stated that posting religious texts on classroom walls did not serve an educational function and thus violated the Constitution, in contrast to the Constitutionally permissible inclusion of the Bible in a study of history, civilization, ethics, or comparative religions,” said the legal review.

In Louisiana, the law is on hold in the five districts involved in the lawsuit, and it’s in effect in districts that are not among the defendants in the case, Roake vs. Brumley, according to reporting from the Louisiana Illuminator. The court is expected to rule in short order.

In Montana, both proponents and opponents of the bill pointed to the legal landscape to defend their positions. The ACLU of Montana — an affiliate of the national ACLU, which is representing plaintiffs in the Louisiana case — argued the bill would violate the separation of church and state.

However, under questioning by Sen. Laura Smith, D-Helena, the ACLU of Montana’s Henry Seaton said the proposal raised concerns beyond the legal problems.

The ACLU has been involved in litigation against the state, and Seaton said defending lawsuits has cost the state millions of dollars, and it’s money that could go toward lowering property taxes or helping lower income people with food.

“To spend it on something that we know is futile litigation doesn’t make much sense in my mind,” Seaton said.

However, also in response to Smith, who is an attorney, Krause argued a difference exists between mandating a denomination and displaying a document on a wall. Krause said the First Amendment has two relevant parts — an establishment clause and a free exercise clause.

“Are you compelling somebody to exercise their religion in a certain way just by reading the words of the Ten Commandments? I don’t think you are,” Krause said, and he said much case law backs up his position.

Smith, though, said legal findings mostly go a different direction. She said children in a public school setting where such a display is required are a captive audience, but Krause said they can assess the message, and choose to ignore it.

He also said the prohibition on hanging up a copy of the Ten Commandments was only in place the last 40 years, and the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door to revisiting the idea again in Kennedy vs. Bremerton School District — a case his organization worked on.

That case involved a high school coach who prayed on the field at football games. The school board argued the district didn’t want to be seen as establishing a religion, but the Supreme Court said the coach was free to express his religious ideas.

Krause also said the Ten Commandments qualify as part of history and tradition, which is why they should be allowed to stay in classrooms. However, he discouraged adding other documents to the bill that don’t “have the history of tradition.”

A high school student from Helena who is heading to Johns Hopkins University offered a different analysis, and Chair Barry Usher, R-Billings, asked the student to bring more of his peers to the Capitol.

The student, Charles Snellman, said although the Supreme Court placed more emphasis on tradition and historical practices, he still believes the bill would be problematic. It implies that one specific religion is superior, he said, and it could alienate students.

“Even from a historical lens, mandating the display of specific religious texts in public school classrooms is unprecedented and would be widely viewed as government endorsement,” Snellman said.

High school teacher Brendan Work, of Missoula, said he didn’t want to frighten anyone, but he has taught dozens, potentially hundreds, of Muslim students, many from other countries and many of them homegrown.

“Frankly, what this bill does is it incites hostility against members of faiths including, as I mentioned, my Muslim students, many of whom are practicing Orthodox students with a closer relationship to God than almost anyone else,” Work said.

But Work said Jewish students, Indigenous students, and students still figuring out their beliefs need the freedom to understand different faiths in a way that is not coercive. He said displaying a symbol of Christianity would alienate his Muslim students’ sense of being American.

“Nothing is more likely to harm their sense of being welcome than that,” Work said.

As for the commandment to avoid adultery, Steve Thennis, with Montanans Organized For Education, addressed the practical consideration raised by Neumann.

Thennis said the notification requirement has been met with pushback from parents because they were getting too many emails. However, Thennis said the Ten Commandments hanging on a wall in every classroom posed a special challenge.

“There’s no opt-out option anywhere, and that’s one of my concerns,” Thennis said.

In April 2024, a group of parents, teachers and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit over the parental notification law, Senate Bill 99 from 2021, and the case is pending.

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

A recently elected judge for district court in Lake and Sanders counties will not take the oath of office in order to focus on defending himself from criminal drug charges.

Kenneth Britton “Britt” Cotter, 48, faces three counts of felony charges, one count of solicitation to commit criminal distribution of dangerous drugs and two counts of attempted criminal possession of cocaine.

An affidavit filed by the state said Cotter has no prior criminal history.

His arraignment is scheduled for Jan. 8, 2025, according to the Montana Attorney General’s Office.

If convicted of the charges, Cotter could face a maximum 35 years in the Montana State Prison and a $60,000 fine, according to penalties in a court filing.

A Dec. 23 court document alleges the drug purchases, citing text messages from Cotter in 2022 and noting Venmo confirmed Cotter made two payments that year, one for $900 and one for $1,200.

In a letter dated Dec. 22, Cotter told Chief Justice Mike McGrath he made the “difficult decision” to not take the oath of office. He said he plans to defend himself and his reputation.

“It has come to my attention that I am the subject of criminal charges brought against me by the Division of Criminal Investigation and the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Montana,” said the letter, provided to the Daily Montanan by the Montana Supreme Court. “Defending myself against these charges will require my full time, effort and resources as I work to protect my family and myself from the harm these allegations have already caused and will continue to cause.”

Cotter is a defense and civil attorney who has had a private practice based in Polson since 2009.

In November, Cotter ran unopposed to serve as district court judge in Lake and Sanders counties after embattled Judge Deborah Kim Christopher announced her resignation in April 2024.

To fill the gap between the time Christopher resigned and the newly elected judge taking office in January 2025, Gov. Greg Gianforte appointed former Republican legislator and Board of Regents member John Mercer as judge for the district.

Mercer said Thursday the job has been challenging, but he is leaning toward applying for a reappointment in part because he believes the work is important public service.

“I think my time in the community will help with stability and confidence in the judiciary,” Mercer said.

Court documents and a news release from the Attorney General’s Office said charges against Cotter came about after the Division of Criminal Investigation launched a separate investigation into a contracted attorney for the Office of the State Public Defender.

That investigation, into fraudulent billing practices, started in spring 2024 and is ongoing, according to court documents and the news release.

However, in the course of the separate investigation, DCI obtained documentation and communication related to that attorney’s billing practices, and they included text messages with Cotter, according to a court document.

That attorney is identified as “A. Doe” in the court record.

A spokesperson for Cotter said A. Doe was not and never has been a client of Cotter’s.

The text messages in the affidavit include exchanges from 2022 about drug deals.

In March 2022, A. Doe asks Cotter, “3 balls, yes?” and Cotter says “Yes,” according to the affidavit; it notes DCI indicates a “ball” of cocaine is 3.5 grams.

On May 31, 2022, Cotter asks if A. Doe is placing another order, and she asks about getting “in on those blue vitamins,” according to the affidavit. It says Cotter replied, “I’ll get you some,” and it notes DCI indicates “blue vitamins” are a term for fentanyl.

The affidavit notes that in 2022, a search warrant issued to Venmo confirmed a $900 payment from Cotter to A. Doe for “Legal Fees” and a $1,200 payment from him to Doe for “Work.”

The affidavit outlines other exchanges in 2023 and 2024.

In May 2023, A. Doe and Cotter exchange texts about an Office of Disciplinary Counsel issue she was involved in, according to the affidavit.

In March 2024, A. Doe sends Cotter a text congratulating him on his judicial campaign announcement “and telling him about OPD trying to deny payment of late invoices.”

In November 2024, DCI agents met with Cotter at his office, and he confirmed A. Doe was a friend of his, but he said “it had been several years since he had seen” her, according to the affidavit.

It said he confirmed he knew Doe had a substance-abuse issue “but refused to discuss it further.”

“DCI agents asked the defendant if he had a substance-abuse issue. The defendant said, ‘No,’” said the affidavit. “When asked if he had ever purchased drugs from A. Doe, the defendant said no and ended the conversation.”

According to the affidavit, the agents said they had found evidence of drug activity and would like to interview him about it again.

It also said that in the course of the fraud investigation, Flathead County District Court Judge Amy Eddy reviewed an affidavit, was interviewed by DCI agents, and confirmed she had spoken with Cotter about the material in the affidavit “pertaining to his cocaine use.”

“She was greatly concerned by this information since she is aware that the defendant is the judge-elect for Lake County District Court,” said the affidavit filed in the case against Cotter.

The affidavit said she called Cotter on Nov. 18, and he admitted he “‘bought cocaine from (A. Doe) a long time ago’ and said he stopped when he decided to run for judge. The defendant also told Judge Eddy that ‘I want to do the right thing and not embarrass the judiciary.’”

Eddy told Cotter she would make a report to the Judicial Standards Commission, according to the affidavit. At a training for new judges on Nov. 19, Cotter asked Eddy if she wouldn’t file a complaint, but she said she “had an ethical obligation to report.”

The law office of Colin Stephens, representing Cotter, declined to comment on the case.

Through a spokesperson, Cotter declined to answer questions, including whether he has a substance-use problem or has sought treatment.

The case was assigned to District Judge Jennifer Lint of Ravalli County, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

Congresswoman Liz Cheney said police who defended the U.S. Capitol from violence incited by then-President Donald Trump prevented a massacre on Jan. 6 — but she said democracy is still in danger.

Cheney, who spoke Thursday to a full house at the Dennison Theatre of the University of Montana, pointed specifically to Rep. Jim Jordan as evidence of the ongoing political crisis.

The former Wyoming representative said Jordan helped Trump and failed to alert Capitol police of impending violence, and the Ohio Republican’s candidacy for Speaker of the House shows democracy remains in crisis.

Cheney, who served as vice chairperson of the Jan. 6 committee that investigated Trump, said when people think about that day, they should remember not just a date, they should look back on the fight to defend the U.S. Constitution.

“It’s important for the American people not to let the ferocity of that battle leave our consciousness,” Cheney said. “It’s important to go back and remember, to look at the video of that battle, particularly along the west front of the Capitol.

“And if the doors had not held, if those police officers had not fought so valiantly, we would have had a massacre that day.”

Cheney, a conservative Republican, represented Wyoming in the U.S. House from 2017 to 2023, but she earned the status of pariah in her own party when she became an unequivocal spokesperson against Trump after he tried to steal the 2020 election.

Thursday, she spoke to 1,100 people for the 40th Anniversary Mansfield Dialogues at UM, and the crowd in left-leaning Missoula gave her a standing ovation. For roughly an hour and a half, Cheney took questions from Gov. Marc Racicot, who served in Montana from 1993 to 2001, and then she answered audience questions presented by UM political scientist Rob Saldin.

Saldin said he wanted to start with an observation that came out of a conversation with his wife. She told him that if someone said 20 years ago she’d be enthusiastic to attend a political address by Liz Cheney, she wouldn’t have believed it.

Cheney interjected, to laughter: “It’s weird for me too.”

The talk honors the legacy of U.S. Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana, known for his respectful and bipartisan leadership. Up until this year when Sen. Mitch McConnell eclipsed his record, Mansfield was the longest-serving Senate leader. Cheney said her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, worked with Mansfield.

She said Sen. Mansfield and Gov. Racicot embody the type of substantive leaders the nation needs, and Racicot, in turn, said he’d work with Cheney if she chose to campaign. Cheney, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, has said she’s committed to working against Trump, but also has not announced her own political plans, including whether she’d run for president. (She said she wasn’t sure if she should use the present tense in describing herself as a Republican, but she also was certain she wouldn’t be serving politically as a Democrat.)

At the talk, Cheney said both parties exhibit vitriol and political toxicity, but she said just one candidate running for president has called for violence against his political opponents, and just one has called for the execution of the joint chiefs of staff chairman: “This is not moral equivalence.”

“We have to really make sure, as a nation, we think about what that means, and that we stand together to make sure that violence is not part of our political process,” Cheney said, in her advocacy against Trump.

Trump was indicted in August on four criminal counts, including conspiring to defraud the United States, in charges that reflect the findings of the committee on which Cheney served. He’s expected to be in court for the next year, including in a civil trial that started this month in New York.

Racicot, former head of the Republican National Committee, said recent polls show that as many as 70% of Americans believe the country is in crisis and at risk of failure, and he wanted to know Cheney’s views. Cheney, a lawyer, said she agreed.

Cheney said she believes there’s no question democracy will survive, but she also said it will be a struggle. To right the ship, she said society needs to do a better job of teaching both young people and elected officials about the U.S. Constitution, members of the media need to ask questions about what’s politically acceptable, and Republicans need to choose the Constitution over Trump.

Prior to Jan. 6, she said members of the Republican party, including just-ousted Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, kept acquiescing to Trump and agreeing to do “just one more thing” for him. She said that included objecting to electoral votes without any constitutional authority.

Their actions led to violence, she said, and Jordan, since endorsed for speaker by Trump, was on the phone with Trump and knew his plans in advance: “The notion that the Republican party is anywhere close to contemplating putting Jim Jordan into the position of Speaker of the House is something that tells you the level of risk we face in our democracy today.”

She reminded the audience that when police officers were fighting to hold off the mob, Trump was watching the battle on television in the White House. She said he not only ignored pleas that he tell the crowd to go home, he sent a tweet that led to a surge in activity and directly contributed to the violence.

“We need to remember that what Donald Trump did is as evil as you can imagine and as much a dereliction of duty from an American president as we’ve ever seen,” Cheney said.

But Racicot wanted to know why other Republicans stay silent, why there’s a “herd mentality,” and Cheney said it’s an important question. She said the number of people who truly believe the election was stolen is small (“maybe two,” she joked) — and “one of them might be one of your representatives here in Montana.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale has defended Trump, who stumped for him in Montana when Rosendale tried to unseat U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, in 2018. Rosendale, a popular hardliner who may take another shot at the U.S. Senate in 2024, also supported Cheney’s ousting from political office last year.

Cheney said some people cave to political pressure, and she also pointed to a lack of leadership. She said the situation is difficult to explain, but she also said it is due to “a complete lack of courage” in members of the Republican party choosing Trump over the Constitution.

She agreed with Racicot’s characterization of Trump as lacking character and being cruel and deranged, and she also said politics are driven in part by a “cult of personality” rather than regard for the rule of law.

But she said if Republicans abandon their values, “the party becomes dangerous to democracy.”

People who have taken for granted that political institutions held in the face of the crisis are wrong, Cheney said. She said they only held because specific people stopped Trump, and she said none of the people who worked for him then will work for him again.

As for how she views the current crop of Republican nominees for president, Cheney said she didn’t want to say too much to criticize anyone in case she inadvertently helps a candidate. But she said she believes former governors Chris Christie, of New Jersey, and Asa Hutchinson, of Arkansas, along with former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, have been honest with the American people; the three also are critics of Trump.

If Trump becomes the Republican nominee for president, she said the Republican party won’t be the Republican party anymore. She said politics are shifting, and she urged students and citizens in the audience to recognize their own power and work across party lines for the good of the country.

“One of the casualties, frankly, of the Trump era has been not having leaders who talk about the tremendous goodness of this country and remind us of the blessings of America,” Cheney said. She said the thought makes her emotional. “ … It doesn’t mean that we’re without flaws, but my God, what an amazing place.”

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com. Follow Daily Montanan on Facebook and Twitter.