'Excommunicated' former GOP governor torches Republican Party in scathing letter

Reacting to a stern rebuke by Montanan Republican Party Executive Committee in late February, former Gov. Marc Racicot (R) lashed out at his former colleagues in a fiery open letter posted on the Daily Montanan's website.

Racicot, who served two terms as governor before heading off to chair the Republican National Committee in 2002, has come under fire for crossing party lines and endorsing Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020 as well as his support for Biden's nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

In his letter, he called out the GOP for becoming a party of "absolutist ideology" while trashing it over "its unsparing demands of allegiance, its relentless pursuit of power."

"You have recently experienced the resignation of a twice-elected and promising young Republican legislator because of the Party’s coercive efforts to influence the exercise of her discretion and to do what she thought was right," he accused. "You have also recently censured two Republican members of the Legislature for not voting the way you deemed appropriate and you have recently witnessed the defection of a growing number of Republicans in your caucus, and across the state, who feel bound to their conscience and their constitution more than their party."

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Noting that he feels "excommunicated," he added the GOP in Montana is tampering with the state's constitution to exert more control of the judiciary including, "one of which gives the Governor the power to appoint Supreme Court justices in substitution of election by the people."

He closed by citing conservative icon Ronald Reagan who once stated, "…the genius of our constitutional system is its recognition that no one branch of government alone could be relied on to preserve our freedoms. The great safeguard of our liberty is the totality of the constitutional system, with no one part getting the upper hand. That is why the judiciary must be independent.”

You can read his whole letter here.