The legislative Revenue and Transportation Interim Committee (RATIC) has been a contentious subject ever since the regular legislative session adjourned earlier this year.  Democrats on the committee have been resisting the committee precedent that rotates the chairmanship of this committee between chambers and parties.  They'd prefer to give an additional term to Senator Jim Elliot (D-Trout Creek) instead of allowing House Taxation Committee Chairman Bob Lake (R-Hamilton) to assume the chair according to the traditional rotation schedule.

At the last RATIC meeting the main point of contention for the Democrats was the fact that Lake had written a guest editorial criticial of the administrations aggressive stance against Montana taxpayers.  

Hmm.  So if you write opinions about tax policy in Montana you shouldn't be allowed to serve as the RATIC chairman?  By our count, Senator Elliot wrote exactly 20 opinion peices on tax policy during his term as RATIC chairman.  Some of these opinions were highly critical of Republican tax policy preferences.

But we all know that double-standards are nothing new to the Democrats.

The RATIC committee will meet later today in Helena, and the chairman issue is bound to come up.  Let's just hope that the Republicans stick to their guns and prevent Taxpayer Public Enemy #1 Jim Elliot from weasling his way into the chair once again.