Our parents can’t find a nursing home; our college students can’t afford a place to rent and won’t be able to stay and raise their families here; sheriff’s deputies, electricians, teachers, and small businesses can’t find housing; people with good jobs are living in a camper if they are lucky enough to find a place to park it. Local businesses are cutting hours because the workers they need can’t afford to live nearby. Solving the housing crisis is a tough nut to crack, and local communities are doing a lot to crack it. But Congress must do more. I will make it my business in Congress to see that it does.

For those of us in the health field, we were unfortunately not surprised by last week’s report showing that Montana ranked second in the country for most children to have lost Medicaid coverage since redetermination began in April 2023. This crisis is a direct result of the Gianforte Administration’s mismanagement of our state’s healthcare.  Since […]

Property owners received their second property tax bill. This is an unfortunate, unnecessary, and unaffordable reminder of the record tax increases last fall due to inaction at every level of our far-right-controlled state legislature and a governor looking out for his wealthy friends. Last summer, Democrats asked the Governor to call a one-day special session to pass this two-page bill; the Governor denied the request as he did not want to spend the money for a special session. It can be done in an hour, if we elect the right people. We can start putting our state back on a better trajectory during the primary in June and the election in November.

Tackling climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges. Montana’s Republican politicians do not acknowledge this reality. Montana has a vast wealth of renewable energy and storage capacity, from which we can profit handsomely. We can become an energy exporter–supporting markets that lack the renewable resources we have.

The legislative session made national headlines, but not for developing policy to tackle the housing crisis or improve the lives of Montanans. Instead, politicians widened socioeconomic gaps, created discriminatory policy, and dismantled environmental regulation.