Citizens’ Vote on Nuclear Plants

No Radiation Without Representation

by Katy Spence & Conor Ploeger

Before there were promoted posts, emoji likes, and social follows, political activists such as Matthew Jordan went door-to-door to meet voters.

In 1977 and 1978, Matthew hitchhiked around Montana. At night, he slept on the couches of kind strangers. By day, he collected signatures from those who wanted to have the final vote on whether or not the Big Sky State built a nuclear power plant.

“Montana voters want the last word on anything that affects them, their property, and their well-being,” Matthew said.

The law that came out of this effort is the Montana Empowering Voters to Approve Proposed Nuclear Facilities Initiative, or Initiative 80 (I-80), which appeared on the ballot in 1978 and passed with an overwhelming 65% of voters supporting it, despite the fact that the opposition raised a record amount of money to fight it. I-80 sets stringent safety and liability requirements around the development of nuclear energy. I-80 also gives the voters of Montana the right to decide whether the state pursues nuclear energy. HB 273 (Rep. Derek Skees, R-Kalispell) would overturn this initiative.

“The majority of the folks who voted for the initiative did not know what they were voting for,” Rep. Skees said during the hearing for HB 273. “That shouldn’t even really be a benchmark. We’re not even overturning the will of the people when the people did not know what they were voting for.”

That is not true.

“I gave four years to working on that law,” Matthew said. “[But] it was Montana farmers, ranchers, students, businesspersons and housewives who wrote this law, collected the signatures, and voted it into law.”

The road to passing I-80 in 1978 was a long one. The team submitted an initiative two years prior attempting to completely ban nuclear power plants in the state, but voters rejected it. After some research, the team discovered something that may not be surprising to Montanans.

“Our research had discovered that Montana voters wanted to have the right to decide for themselves whether a nuclear power plant should be built,” Matthew said.

Matthew said the team had not included the input of Montana voters in their first pass at a nuclear law. The measure that resulted was put forth as a choice: Montanans could vote whether they wanted the power to “approve” a nuclear plant or not. 55 out of 56 counties passed I-80, with Montana voters definitively saying that they wanted a voice in the nuclear argument.

Despite years of work and 11,000 signatures, HB 273 is progressing through the 2021 legislature and would overturn I-80. Montanans are smart and deserve a say in whether the state adopts nuclear.