Dear HCN,
Your Sept. 30 issue
profiling Walt Minnick was encouraging; let’s hope he prevails. But
Minnick’s strategy and Stephen Stuebner’s report misses the mark.
The politics of the New West are much more complex than the hope
that newcomers are liberal, pro-environment, urban
refugees.
Between 1985 and 1991, according to
Census Bureau estimates, 2 million people moved into the states of
the Intermountain West. In the Northern Rockies, Utah, Idaho and
Montana had 88,000 new arrivals between 1985 and 1991; only 20
percent were from California. And yet, overall population growth
remained stagnant. In 1980, Montana’s population was estimated to
be 789,690; in 1990 it was 799,065. This suggests a significant
population replacement is taking place and, in fact, when we
examine where so-called newcomers are coming from, it turns out
about half are coming from the same state where they are now
considered newcomers. It seems that a large proportion aren’t urban
refugees but rural refugees from the small towns that dot the
plains and valleys of rural states.
In other
words, many of these people are not bringing new ideas or values,
they are just moving them to more urban areas.
In
almost 10 years of surveys and study in communities in Idaho and
Montana I have found no statistically significant indication that
newcomers, no matter where they are from, think different
politically from old-timers. They are overwhelmingly conservative.
This makes some sense. Consider that 20 percent from urban
California: They sell a house and buy 20 acres in Montana or Idaho
and are suddenly landowners. With land ownership they have a sense
of private property they never enjoyed in L.A.; they are the
natural ally of a conservative political
agenda.
Finally, our modern forms of recreation
on public lands are increasingly conservative in nature. Jet skis,
four-wheelers, ORVs, hobby prospecting, downhill skiing,
snowmobiling, big game hunting (where the trophy is more important
than the meat), and even pastoral fly fishing (with helicopter
shuttles and global destinations) are all premised on cheap gas,
public access to large tracts of land and a sense of individual
freedom.
These are not folks who willingly
support wilderness and the closing of Forest Service roads. These
are people who buy the West’s trout streams and advocate expansion
of “ski country” into the undeveloped adjacent land. The
conservative anti-tax movements in Montana were organized and
supported by out-of-state newcomers.
The
potential for political realignment in the West is real. Walt
Minnick is evidence of the shift and many newcomers as well as
old-timers are beginning to change. But to assume it is going to
happen simply because of demographics is not only wrong, it is
going to encourage apathy among pro-environment voters. Greg Cawley
has it exactly right: Many local environmentalist organizations
have not made pro-environment issues relevant to local voters.
Until they do, my hopes for a regional Democratic turnaround in the
West are not very high.
Jerry
Johnson
Bozeman,
Montana
The writer is a
professor in the political science department at Montana State
University in Bozeman.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Newcomers turn out to be just like locals.
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