FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, April 27, 2021 CONTACT Nathan Stein, House Minority Communications Director; nathan.stein@mtleg.gov Democrats Send Two Child Care Bills to Governor’s Desk Rep. Alice Buckley’s HB 221 and HB 624 Clear the Legislature Helena – Montana faces a significant shortage of affordable, accessible child care; more than half of children in Montana who […]

The only real question that popped into my head as I read the letter, “Dems only care about gaining complete power,” by William Pound on Sunday was, “I wonder what kind of a hallucinogen this man is on?” The word limit does not allow me to go through his article point by point and while […]

By KRISTIN SMITH Guest columnist This is a pivotal moment for Montana’s local governments. In March 2021 President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). ARPA included $350 billion in direct payments for state and local governments. In Montana, counties will collectively receive $207 million. Montana municipalities will receive $133 million. How […]

Mass shootings by deranged gunmen are becoming far too common. According to CNN there have been 45 mass shooting this year. Concert goers have been killed in Las Vegas, worshiping Jews in a Cincinnati synagogue, praying Christians in a Texas Baptist Church, Unitarians in Kentucky, Asians in Georgia, school children. Most recently, Sikhs working for […]

Time to get serious about regulating gun ownership Is anyone else tired? I am. Including the murder of 8 people in Georgia spas on March 16, there have been 45 mass shootings—defined as shootings in which 4 or more people were killed or injured—in the United States. Whoops. Make that 46; since I started writing […]

When I read U.S. Senator Daines’ op-ed seeking to justify his knee-jerk vote against the American Rescue /COVID-19 Relief Act (which is supported by more than 70% of Americans), he reminds me of the sage who once observed that a certain politician “would try to make you believe that an elephant was really just a […]

Family. Prosperity. Local governance. Law and order. Our Republican Legislature and governor are trampling all over our values. Rather than valuing our families, Republicans assembled in Helena are harming our families by reducing our health care services and protections, refusing to invest in resources to reduce suicides among our children, punishing our LGBTQ young people, […]

By DOROTHY BRADLEY Guest columnist We are beginning to see the surfacing of proposals to divide and conquer our last vestiges of Montana wilderness. These remaining acreages have been protected for a number of decades as Wilderness Study Areas, thanks to the foresight of previous leaders. The oddest thing about most of these recent proposals […]

House Bill 448 was a common-sense, bipartisan bill to lift an arbitrary, antiquated size limit for solar panel installations, meaning that schools, local governments, nonprofits and small businesses could make more of their own electricity from the sun. That was before this bill was co-opted and mangled with a series of anti-solar amendments that stand […]

To Gov. Gianforte: Now that you have made national news for fostering bills that exterminate wildlife in Montana, you can count on a big backlash. Allowing wolf traps and snares on public and private lands is not only a cruel, inhumane practice, but it puts other animals and humans at risk. Why should I pay […]