By Micah Drew, Flathead Beacon
When voters ratified Montana’s constitution in 197, they enshrined a citizen’s right to a clean and healthful environment into the future. The youth-led climate change lawsuit Held v. Montana is predicated on this right and its interpretation through Montana’s courts.
In the 1962 travelogue “Travels with Charley,” John Steinbeck writes about crossing America in a camper truck accompanied by his standard poodle. When he reached Montana for the first time, he declared his love for the state.
“It seems to me Montana is a great splash of grandeur,” Steinbeck writes. “The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda.”
Steinbeck’s description of the Treasure State stuck with Bob Campbell, a delegate to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention from Missoula. Drawing inspiration from Steinbeck’s words, and from the 25-foot-wide panoramic oil painting by renowned artist Charles M. Russell that hangs in the state capitol, Campbell and delegate Mae Nan Ellingson of Missoula sat down on Jan. 27, 1972, and wrote the first draft of the preamble to Montana’s Constitution.
This article is part of a series on the youth-led constitutional climate change lawsuit Held v. Montana, which goes to trial in Helena on June 12. The rest of the series can be read at mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com. This project is produced by the Flathead Beacon newsroom, in collaboration with Montana Free Press, and is supported by the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship.
