Editorial
Asking hard questions about our leaders and the decisions they make is what community newspapers do. We knew the question regarding Wes Headdress’ eligibility to be elected sheri_ would be unpopular — and it has been.
We’ve been asked why we are “picking on” Wes Headdress. We’ve been accused of being racist. We’ve been threatened and defamed on social media. We want to be clear: scrutiny of a candidate’s legal qualifications is not personal, and it is not prejudice. It is the same question we would ask of any candidate for any o e, regardless of who they are or where they come from. The ugliness of that response is precisely why most people don’t ask hard questions — and why local newspapers must.
It was not Mr. Headdress personally that we sought to keep from being elected sheri _. We simply sought to have someone with the authority to decide — a district court judge — answer a question voters were already asking: is this candidate legally eligible to hold the o e?
That question matters more than it might seem. The end result of having an ineligible sheri_ would be disastrous. The rampant crime would continue to go unchecked, even if the ineligible sheri_ has the best of intentions. Prosecutors from all jurisdictions could (and likely would) refuse to prosecute any cases that the sheri_ ’s o e is involved with because the ineligibility question would give every defense attorney ammunition to get the charges against their clients dismissed. This would lead to more crime here in our county and waste taxpayer money on cases that get thrown out of court.
There is no doubt that Mr. Headdress had good intentions and ideas when he announced his candidacy for sheri_. We are not questioning his ability to do the job. The question before the court is narrow: whether he meets the legal requirements for the o e under state law.
Last week, after the 21-day response period had passed and Mr. Headdress had neither filed a response to the complaint in district court nor o ially withdrawn from the race with the Roosevelt County Election Administrator, we filed a motion for summary judgment asking the court to rule on our complaint. As of presstime, the judge had not yet made a ruling.
If the court decides that he is eligible, we would expect to work with him as we do all law enforcement in our area, keeping our communities informed of the good, the bad and the ugly of our area.
Even if deemed by the court to be ineligible to be sheri _, there are other ways Mr. Headdress — and everyone else who calls northeast Montana and the Fort Peck Reservation home — can make a di_erence in our communities and we will continue to keep our communities informed of those e_orts as well.
