It's not often these days that you can find an issue both the left and right agree on. But when it comes to the need for an open container law in Montana, party politics seem to melt away.

A poll commissioned by the Montana Contractors Association shows that two out three voters favor a law barring open containers of alcoholic beverages from motor vehicles. When the poll asked a further question stressing the state could lose more than $6 million a year in federal highway construction money if it doesn't pass an open-container law, the approval rate jumped to 77 percent.

The figures were roughly the same for Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

Somehow, though, that public sentiment hasn't swayed legislators. Last year, once again, lawmakers balked. An open-container law died in committee and an attempt to blast it onto the floor, an effort requiring a supermajority, didn't even get a majority.

In this, the state is swimming against the national tide. Montana is one of only three states that let motorists drink and drive. The others are Mississippi and Indiana. In Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming passengers, but not drivers, are allowed to drink. (The governor of Louisiana recently signed a bill removing that state from this category.) Three states, Arkansas, Colorado and West Virginia, allow open containers in vehicles -- but nobody's supposed to drink from them!

None of these state pass muster with the federal rules, which consider exceptions to an outright ban to be unacceptable loopholes.

Opponents of open-container laws bristle at federal attempts to coerce the states, and many can't understand why cracking a beer or two on a hot, dusty drive should be illegal. But in Montana, which routinely ranks at or near the top among the states in terms of alcohol-related fatalities per miles driven, it is difficult to argue that driving and drinking should mix.

As legislative hopefuls make their door-to-door rounds this election year, it wouldn't hurt to ask them where they stand on this issue.