Throughout a legislative listening to in 2011 that was a prelude to Montana’s debates on abortion, State Consultant Keith Regier displayed a picture of a cow and made the argument that cattle have been extra useful when pregnant.
The comparability drew a immediate rebuke from some ladies within the room, however Mr. Regier, a Republican, declined to apologize. Over time, the previous schoolteacher and sod farmer has seldom demurred from his rising model of combative Christian-oriented politics, through which the Ten Commandments are the muse of fine legislation and a few of the largest battles have been with moderates in his personal social gathering.
Mr. Regier has now emerged because the patriarch of a brand new household political dynasty that has injected contemporary conservative depth into debates over abortion, range coaching and, this spring, transgender rights. Mr. Regier chairs the Senate’s highly effective judiciary committee, whereas his daughter, Amy, leads its counterpart within the Home. Mr. Regier’s son, Matt, has risen to speaker of the Home. The trio of legislators, every wielding an identical model of unflinching conservatism, have been among the many strongest proponents of a set of payments that took explicit intention on the rights of transgender individuals.
It was Matt Regier who led the transfer to bar one of many legislature’s solely transgender representatives, Zooey Zephyr, who had spoken out vociferously on the Home flooring final month in opposition to a measure banning hormone therapies and surgical look after transgender minors. The proposal was certainly one of a number of new legal guidelines that handed not too long ago, together with one prohibiting adult-oriented drag exhibits on public property and one other making a strict definition of an individual’s intercourse.