Wednesday, November 2

Want to Read LEADERless?

Since last week, many people in Great Falls have been talking about a four page publication that has been appearing in businesses lately called the Great Falls LEADERless.

The name, a play on the old Great Falls weekly the Leader, is an election themed publication castigating hizzoner, Mayor Randy Gray. The Tribune ran a story about the publication, mainly questioning the motives of the author and intimating that the publication ran afoul of election law.

I think that it is worth reading. Agree or not, this is an open society and a citizen should be able to write about issues of public interest. The publication raises some very troubling questions about the ethics and judgement of our municipal leaders, and those questions do deserve to be answered.

So here it is
, in a high enough resolution that anyone can read the entire document. You will need a pdf reader to open the publication.

2 comments:

GeeGuy said...

Thanks for putting this up, Aaron. I meant to fix mine, but now I'll just link to yours.

A couple points. The Leader-less was turned into the State Political Practices Commissioner by none other than that bastion of free speech, the Great Falls Tribune. Nice, huh?

Second, the law that the State wants to enforce forbidding anonymous campaign literature is probably unconstitutional. The Courts of many states, including Florida, Idaho, California, New York, and Ohio have found similar restrictions on anonymous speech to be unconsitutional.

And, finally, you're right. These points should have been addressed in last night's Mayoral Forum, not poo pooed as Poor Richard's Almanac writ small.

Treasure State Jew said...

I don't think the publication is really anonymous. The name of the author was mentioned at least four times at the candidate forum yesterday, by the Mayor, Dona and Tom Kotyinski of the Tribune. When I asked the author about the publication, he was very forthright.