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 […]

Just finished reading a recap of all the bills passed, or pending, in the Montana Legislature which would limit — or prohibit — public health professionals (and the governor) from enacting and enforcing policies dictated by public health, not politics? When did the average citizen voter, or the average citizen legislator, become experts in public […]

What is the Republican-controlled Legislature doing with the super majority Montanans handed them at the ballot last November? Working hard to overturn the will of the voters and take away our constitutional right to make laws via the ballot. It’s a cynical power grab and it must be stopped. Earlier this month, the Montana House […]

By CONRAD ANKER, RACHEL SCHMIDT, FRANCINE SPANG WILLIS, ANDREW POSEWITZ Guest columnists Once again, the Rally for Public Lands at the State Capitol was proof that our public lands and outdoor way of life bind us. The numbers bear it out: 89% of Montanans visit public lands every year. Sixty-four percent hunt or fish. Seventy-nine […]

By ANNE HEDGES Guest columnist Imagine buying a Big Mac hamburger and then learning that you now have to buy the entire McDonald’s restaurant. Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick wants you to focus on the price of the hamburger, but he doesn’t want you to focus on the fact that the hamburger will actually cost $1 billion […]