The Issues

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For most of my career, I held elected officials accountable for their actions. As a Senator, I will continue to shine a light on our democratic processes and ensure my peers hold themselves to a higher standard of transparency. I will make myself readily available to the public, and look forward to working with Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians alike.

Too many families struggle to make ends meet. The per capita income in Anaconda/Deer Lodge County in 2020 was $26,207. Montana started down the path of making insurance affordable, but began sitting on the sidelines for national debates to take over. Downtown businesses in my district are disadvantaged because they cannot achieve the scale necessary to offer competitive benefits. Insurance company lobbyists have had too much clout and come in between small business, families, and rural healthcare providers. I am open to all ideas, including a form of public option crafted by Montanans. Healthcare policy that works in Miami isn’t going to work in Deer Lodge and we deserve better.

Climate change is a real and urgent issue. We’re not going to solve it by shutting down businesses and cutting off access to our natural resources, but we can use them better. I won't tell a family of five that their mom or dad choose the wrong career. Policies that lead transition, while protecting families are what should be debated to protect the economy and energy ratepayers across the state. Montana has the natural resources and we need to policies to encourage innovation and development.

The Forest Service is highly decentralized, which is arguably the center of its problems. NPS needs a revamping and an improved system for relegation and more efficient top-down management.

Our communities are at risk from wildfire and better management means jobs for Montana.  Federal agencies have been slow to partner with state and county governments to increase active management, and production agriculture needs to be part of the discussion. People on the ground are working together to manage working landscapes, from improving water quality to protecting the wildland urban interface. We need elected officials to work on policies that implement ideas and promote public lands, while respecting private property rights and putting people to work. A lot less finger pointing and more coordination with accountability is what’s needed in Helena. 

1.) Protect public access to public lands for sportsmen and recreation.

2.) Increase recreation and tourism.

3.) Increase timber and agriculture production.

Montana pays entry-level teachers less than any other state. Our teacher unions do an excellent job protecting the educators of this state, and bad actors in the private education community abuse the use of public funding in other states. Increase the wages of Montana's public school teachers.

We must ensure children in rural parts of the state have access to quality education. Building a strong economy is one way of drawing more families to the area and attracting competent teachers to the area.

Women have a fundamental right to make their decision on their own without governmental violation.

All Montanans are pro-life. I have five children. My family chose to have children. We chose to do so because we had adequate support, access to legitimate medical care, and support for child care and education. 

I’m a grandfather. My 18-year-old daughter chose to have her child because she has the support of her community. She’s going to MSU and moving into campus family housing this summer. She made that choice because we live in a state that supports young mothers and children. 

You control yours and I'll control mine.

We have a long trend of cutting funding in mental health to the point of crisis and our law enforcement agencies are underfunded. The Montana common sense solution is to address the causes of problems, not the symptom. We need more funding for mental health and our law enforcement professionals should be the best trained and paid public servants. Elected officials too often use this issue as an excuse to avoid tackling funding issues and kick the can down the road. It’s not working for Montana and it doesn’t work for our law abiding gun owners. 

Our local politicians failed to protect Warm Springs patients and dozens of jobs. Failures by ineffective and unmotivated officials led to the loss of federal funding. Further failures by elected officials unable to secure funding for the most basic necessity, water, has Anaconda CEO Bill Everett tossing in the towel and publicly claiming, “There’s nothing [he] can do.” 

There’s “nothing he can do” when Warm Springs is at risk of closing. There was “nothing they could do” when Helena took our licensing bureau. Helena is targeting Montana State Prison and hundreds of jobs in District 39. I am fighting to protect the families of our district and will work across the aisle to ensure Helena knows Warm Springs and MSP are more than a District 39 issue. Privatizing or closing these facilities will devastate our district for a generation. After 40 years, we are finally recovering from the disastrous closures of Anaconda and the railroad. I will not give up and do nothing.