Books

Dusting Off the Old Ones

First Session of State Legislature

It should be of interest to our readers to learn that in territorial days in Montana, the two houses of the legislature were known as the Council and the House of Representatives, instead of the Senate and the House of Representatives as it has been since Montana was admitted to the union as a state of November 8, 1889. The first session of the state legislature convened in Helena on November 23, 1889, and adjourned February 20, 1890. At this session Custer County was represented by Dr. R. G. Redd in the Senate and by Charles H. Loud and Hugh M. Moran in the House of Representatives. Incidentally, this first session of the state legislature was rather unique in that the Republicans and Democrats maintained separate Houses of Representatives during the entire session. It seems that Butte politics in those early days were not much different than they are at present, and that the State Board of Canvassers certified to the legislature the names of five Republicans as House members, and the County Clerk of Silver Bow County certified the names of five Democrats as having been elected to the House. The Republican body, including the Butte Republicans, met temporarily in a building known as the Iron Hall House, and then adjourned to the Granite Building, where its sessions were held--while the Democrats held their session at the courthouse, and this body included the five Democrats certified by the county clerk from Silver Bow County. The Republican Senate co-operated with the Republican House, but in the absence of the Democratic senators were unable to effect an organization until December 19th, but the deadlock was maintained until the end of the session. This controversy was carried to Washington by the election of W. F. Sanders on January 1, and T. C. Power on January 2, as Unitd States Senators by the Republican Joint Assembly, and the election of W. A. Clark and Martin Maginnis as United States Senators by the Democratic Joint Assembly on January 7, 1890. Sanders and Power were seated in the United States Senate, however, on April 16, 1890. And so Montana politics have not changed much in the last 65 years.