Cory Swanson would be a disaster for anglers | John Herzer and Terri Raglund
We love Montana's vast, varied public landscapes and access to trout rivers that are literally the envy of anglers worldwide. We recreate and work on many of Montana's incredible waterways: the Blackfoot, Clark Fork, Bitterroot, Rock Creek, Big Hole, Beaverhead, Smith and more.
Accessing these rivers is massively important to our way of life and integral to the success of our business, Blackfoot River Outfitters. Public river access directly supports dozens of our staff and guides' families.
That's why we feel obligated to say that Cory Swanson, a candidate for Montana Supreme Court chief justice, is a guy who would be an absolute disaster for Montana anglers. He is a major threat to our proud tradition of public access to public rivers and streams.
I'm not just saying this. Swanson's record is as long as a guide's fish exaggeration when it comes to ignoring regular folks and fighting alongside people and organizations who want to block public access to public waterways.
In 2009, he worked as a lobbyist for groups that fought against what's called the Bridge Access Bill (Montana House Bill 190 – opposed by an absentee Madison County billionaire). The Bridge Access Bill protected our right to access rivers and streams from county-owned bridges and rights of way. If you know fishing in Montana, these bridges can often be the only places to legally access a stretch of river. Losing the right to access rivers from these bridges would fundamentally change fishing in Montana.
If Swanson had gotten his way, wealthy out-of-state landowners would have had the go-ahead to block access to public waterways, locking out public land users like you and us.
If he's elected Montana Supreme Court chief justice, Swanson will be in a dangerous position to overturn Montana's incredible stream-access tradition. It's the Supreme Court's job to interpret the Montana Constitution, which guarantees that every Montana has the right to access our waterways.
From the chief justice's chair, Swanson would be in a position to reinterpret the constitution to take away our stream access rights.
It's hard to overstate just how devastating that would be. We left Colorado 35 years ago because you can't stop for a bankside lunch or even drop an anchor. There the law is interpreted that the riverbed is privately owned! This creates huge stretches of river are completely inaccessible to the public. Don't think this couldn't happen in Montana.
Some people will tell you how lucky we are to have the constitutional right to access public waterways. But don't mistake foresight for luck. We have public access today because the people who came before us recognized how important it was and fought for it. They came from all sorts of backgrounds – they were farmers and ranchers, elected officials, business owners, miners, and anglers - yes, regular folks like us.
Public river access is one of our proudest traditions, and Cory Swanson has fought against it. Now Swanson is running for the highest office in our state courts. If he's elected, he'll be in charge of interpreting our Montana Constitution. And with his background, he'd be the biggest threat to the future of our right to access our rivers and streams for generations.
Montanans know we cannot entrust our rights to a guy who has fought against expanding public access. And we definitely can't have a guy like this in charge of defending the Montana Constitution.
John Herzer and Terri Raglund are owners of Blackfoot River Outfitters and Flint Creek Outdoors fly shops and guide services, which have run commercial trips on the Smith River for over 30 years.
