Jon Tester is now supporting the Laken Riley Act, previously opposing it

It’s election season for Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who is flip-flopping on immigration policy in a desperate attempt to protect one of his most significant electoral liabilities.

This week, Tester signed on as a co-sponsor for the Laken Riley Act, a bill that, if enacted, would require the detention and deportation of all illegal immigrants who commit the crimes of theft, burglary, larceny, or shoplifting.

The bill is named for Laken Riley, a nursing student at the University of Georgia who was killed by an illegal immigrant who had committed several crimes in the weeks and months prior.

The sponsorship of the bill is an abrupt about-face for Tester. He had previously opposed the bill when it was offered as an amendment to an appropriations bill.

“After hearing from law enforcement officers across Montana, I’m backing the Laken Riley Act to make sure that individuals who enter our country and commit a crime are held accountable so that no Montana family has to worry about the safety of their loved ones,” Tester said in a statement.

What is unspoken in Tester’s statement is that he is a Democrat who is up for reelection in a state that is overwhelmingly Republican and where the lax approach to immigration by the Democratic Party has become a major electoral liability.

In any other legislative year, Tester would have never signed onto the bill, just as he voted against it when it was offered as an amendment to a must-pass bill. As long as Democrats control the Senate, the Laken Riley Act will never become law, and Tester knows this.

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With the safe assurance that the bill will never become law, since his party controls the Senate and the White House, Tester is engaging in nothing more than election-year pandering, and his track record shows it. In 2023, he voted with President Joe Biden 94% of the time, hardly the mark of a centrist politician.

Voters in Montana can do better than this political chameleon who abruptly changes his positions when election season rolls around. This November, they’ll have a chance to send Tester into a forced retirement.