Gene Policinski: Montana millionaire charged with journalist assault – and headed for Congress?

  Sadly, shamefully, disgustingly, it has come to this: A Montana candidate for Congress was charged Wednesday evening with assaulting a reporter who was asking him a question about the American Health Care Act.

  The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported Thursday morning that U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte, a Republican, was charged with misdemeanor assault for what witnesses and the reporter involved said was an unwarranted attack.

  Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, who has reported for weeks on the state’s close race for its only House seat, later tweeted that “Greg Gianforte just body slammed me and broke my glasses.”

Gene Policinski: What was right about high court’s Montana ruling

  Amid the flap over what was supposedly wrong the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week to throw out Montana’s 100-year-old campaign-spending limits, can we take a moment to consider what was right about it?

  The Court held 5-4 that Montana may not continue to limit what corporations and unions may spend in support of or opposition to a political candidate. Some are calling the ruling “Citizen’s United 2,” in a nod to the landmark Citizens United v. FEC decision that dumped such limits for federal elections. That 2010 ruling said it was a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech to restrict such spending.