Two years after he ran for governor, Ryan Busse is back, and campaigning in a four-way Democratic primary for the Congressional seat being vacated by Ryan Zinke.

The tenor of Busse’s campaign seems, at least at face value, pretty similar to his last one — impassioned calls for progressive policies while lambasting and trolling the GOP. But even if Busse himself hasn’t changed much, the political dynamics of western Montana feel a bit less calcified than they did two years ago. Heck, if you’d told me in 2024 that a Democrat could become mayor of Kalispell in 2025 (albeit in a three-way race), I would’ve called bullshit.

No matter which candidates win their respective primaries, the race for MT-01 has the potential to be more competitive than either Busse’s run for governor or that year’s Zinke/Tranel matchup, due to headwinds the GOP is facing. Gas prices are up (as of this writing), and a majority of Americans aren’t onboard with the conflict in Iran. Statistically speaking, the party that controls the White House tends to lose seats in the midterms. Trump isn’t on the ballot. And none of the GOP contenders, with the debatable exception of Dr. Al Olszewski, possess much of Zinke’s affability. (That all being said, the Cook Political Report currently rates the race as “Likely R.”)

I recently sat down with Busse in Missoula to dig into his campaign priorities and why he sees this moment as being particularly politically malleable. Our conversation soon branched out, covering everything from his endorsement from Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego to the need to balance antagonism and positivity on the campaign trail. We also talked about GOP primary candidate and radio host (and Chat House alum) Aaron Flint, who Busse sees as the shoo-in candidate, as well as Jon Tester’s claim that the Democratic brand is “poison.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Max: It’s maybe not the cheeriest note to start on, but I was hoping you could take me back to the end of your 2024 campaign. When it was over, did you feel like you wanted to get back into politics right away? What was going on in your head?

Ryan Busse: Almost immediately, two things: One, I felt probably like a lot of people who are reading this — it was a dark time after that election day. Of course, the race I ran in, we lost, but it felt like the nation had just made a pretty drastic shift.

Sara and I and my boys—we’ve listened to Montana Public Radio every morning for, I don’t know, 25 years. Literally every morning. And starting the day after the election, nothing was on in the house: the radio wasn’t on, the news wasn’t on, and I think we went 30 or 40 days without listening or watching any news. It was just a little bit shocking and jarring.

At the same time, I almost immediately thought that there was going to be another big task at hand and that there was going to be a big negative reaction to what was about to happen. And so it wasn’t long after the election, even as shocked as we all felt, that I thought, “We got something here; we should probably think about what we do with it next.”

Why did you want to run in this race, specifically?

I think Democrats have been insufficiently focused on winning elections where they must be won. And I looked at this race and I thought that just demographically, it’s a race that Democrats can win. And in a midterm like 2026, it’s the kind of race we should win, right? And if we want to have a healthy democracy where we don’t just have blue seats on one coast and the other coast, but we have purple and blue districts spread throughout the country, this is an important one.

I looked at it like, this is the most winnable race in the state for Democrats. We deserve representation in D.C. I don’t feel like most Montanans have had representation in Washington, D.C. the last few years. I don’t think Zinke has represented most Montanans.

What do you mean by that?

I believe that Zinke and many in his party have decided that only a small sliver of Americans, or Montanans in this case, deserve representation. And for the most part, those tend to be wealthier, more powerful individuals. And all the folks who live here, work here, make the place go — the cops and mechanics and nurses — they don’t have lobbyists in the Capitol all the time. They don’t have fancy attorneys.

I look at this one sort of legislative achievement of the Republicans in the past few months, the “Big Beautiful Bill”—it’s difficult for me to say that because I don’t find it beautiful. But it’s very clear to me who has the influence there. If you’re a billionaire or Elon Musk and you got big tax breaks, you obviously had influence there. But everyday people on Medicaid? They didn’t seem to have any influence. People who need SNAP? They didn’t seem to have any influence. People who need ACA tax credits? They didn’t seem to have any influence. These are all things that impact the vast majority of folks who live and work here.

If that’s the case, if people really don’t feel represented, why can’t Democrats win more races in this state?

Yeah, good question. I think the truth is that in the Trump years, culture warring and the sort of divisive rhetoric and this angry fever that has been laid over all of us has been effective politically.

Now when I speak to voters, they’re freaked out because they’re worried about their healthcare expense going up, they can’t afford to live here. I mean, Sara and I were lucky enough to come to this state 31 years ago, and it was a place that gave me a chance, and it was a place you could make your way. We were lucky; it was just a timing thing. And now it feels like that’s changed. I have sensed a real dramatic shift in that the culture warring stuff just doesn’t come up when I’m talking to voters, even crossover and Republican voters now.

The lived experience of people is different and seemingly more dire now than it was two years ago, and I think that’s changed the political reality here.

Every campaign cycle I think about the famous James Carville line, you know, “It’s the economy, stupid” and how much weight it really carries. Do you feel like that argument carries weight this cycle?

I think it’s more than that. It is the economy…his statement is largely correct, right? Whether you can afford groceries or not is an existential thing. Whether you can pay rent or not is an existential thing.

But it’s also why it’s happened. President Trump laid tariffs all over everyone. It’s made groceries more expensive. In the Flathead where I live, it’s driven Canadian tourism into the tank. Zinke, Daines, Sheehy, Downing — they have only cheered it, supported it. And for what? We can do so much better than this. We really can.

I want to talk about the balance between addressing problems and offering solutions during the campaign. It feels to me that in your race, in virtually every race I’m following right now, it’s much more of the former than the latter.

Look, the truth is, for the next two years in Congress, it is going to be largely about stopping bad policies from progressing and reversing some of the damage that’s happened. That much is true. I think we also have to understand as Democrats we have to offer a bigger affirmative vision for things, not just that we want to stop and correct, but things that we want to accomplish.

Here’s a good example: I’m running hard on universal healthcare. I think we’re 50 years behind the curve as a country on universal healthcare. Even now I talk to a lot of Republicans and crossover voters, they don’t quite have a moniker for what they want the program to be called, but they’re done with whatever this insanity that we’re living under is, you know? We’re spending twice as much money as most industrialized countries, and we’re kicking people off coverage all the time. We have people living with 10 and 15 thousand dollar copays. It’s just craziness.

Yes, I’m criticizing the fact we haven’t instituted universal healthcare, but I’m fighting for it. And I think we should, as Democrats, be honest that much of the reason we don’t have it in this country is because some Democrats have been insufficiently courageous about fighting for it. Even though I think a lot of them know it has to happen, politically, they just haven’t led on it. And I don’t blame voters for being pissed about that. I mean, I’m pissed about it.

In March, that Tester memo leaked, saying that the Democratic brand is “poison.” How did that sit with you?

I know the memo of which you speak. If there are problems with the Democratic brand, and some voters feel that, then I feel it’s incumbent on me to not just whine about it or wring my hands about it, but to help change what the Democratic brand is.

I look around in groups of Democrats and I explain, there is no overarching “the party.” There’s us. There’s people. There’s candidates. There’s voters. We make up the party. And so if we want it to be something different and to have a different brand, then let’s run, or advocate, or knock doors, or whatever, in a different way. And I’m trying to be that.

I disagree…I believe a Democrat can win statewide, but we have to run as a Montana Democrat and we have to do things, not just say them. And I think we have to be courageous and unapologetic about criticizing national party messaging or policies that don’t match with voters in this district. I mean, I believe in the principles and values of the Democratic party, but there are sometimes the approaches of national Democrats that just don’t—man, they just don’t fly here, you know? And so being honest about that with voters is really important.

What’s an example of that for you?

Universal healthcare is one of them. We run around telling everybody there’s a healthcare crisis. I think most people know what needs to be done, and then we’re like, “Well, okay, let’s not really do it.” Well, no wonder voters find us disingenuous, right? Because we say the house is on fire and they’re like, “Well, we don’t want to get the bucket of water.”

I think of housing costs, too. Democrats run around talking about this big word of “affordability.” That’s just a big catch-all word. If we really are worried about all that stuff, then why aren’t we stepping on the gas of things like first-time homebuyer assistance and locking in low interest rates for homebuyers? And figuring out some sort of rental assistance program? Because most people—I mean, my son lives here in Missoula and he’s struggling to make rent. We talk about all these programs; well, let’s do something about them.

If you win the Democratic primary, which Republican would you prefer to run against in the general?

I really don’t have a preference. It seems to me that the GOP hierarchy has selected Flint as the person they think can and should be their candidate. They’ve put all their endorsements and a ton of money behind him. So I guess that’s who they’ve selected. They’ll duke it out in their primary and we’ll see what happens.

I remember maybe it was either right before or right after you and I spoke last, you went on Aaron’s show.

I did, yeah. I’ve been on there three times [during the gubernatorial campaign].

What were your takeaways from spending a decent chunk of time with him?

There isn’t a far-right or MAGA talking point or conspiracy or bad idea that he’s not embraced and propagated and cheered. I literally don’t think there’s a single one. And he has lived an existence on his radio program where he gets to control the literal physical space—who calls, what the talking points are, when they get cut off, what sort of pejoratives he yells, all of that. And perhaps that works as a distraction technique and an angering technique for the small slice of folks that are his listenership. But that’s not the district, and that’s not the way politics works — you don’t get to like tell people what to think, you don’t get to control the space, you don’t get to cut voters off like you do callers, you don’t get to pick the topics that are important to people. And so I think there’s a new reality about ready to sink in with him. That’s my gut.

Do you think he’s a curious person? Like, do you think he actually cared about what you had to say?

No. No, I think his goal is to, quote-unquote, “own the libs” at every turn and to toe whatever party line there is—not to be curious or not to find solutions. I think there has been political mileage by folks on the right gained in angering people and diverting people, dreaming up culture war topics to pit people against each other. I’m not saying it hasn’t been successful in some political realms, but I just think we’re in a different time now when people’s lived experience is like, “Come on, man. I can’t make rent and you’re yelling at me about communism?” It just seems shallow and sort of juvenile.

You’ve been out on the road for a minute now. Is there anything in particular you’ve heard from voters that’s really thrown you for a loop?

I’ve been really—I hate to say heartened because it’s such an ugly issue—but the resonance of Epstein and how much resonance it has with centrist and Republican voters. Like, I knew it was motivating to Democratic voters, but it’s really motivating to Republicans.

So I’ve been a little bit surprised and heartened that those basic questions of morality have a much farther-reaching resonance with voters across the political aisle than I first thought. Like, you did release or you did not release the files? Did you start a war with Iran or you did not start a war with Iran?

Let’s say you get elected. What’s the Congressional committee you’d want to serve on?

Oh man…I hate to put carts before horses. I’m not sure which the best committee would be. I really want to tackle two things: universal healthcare, and I’m really passionate about conservation, environment, and public lands. So I want to work in those two areas, whichever committees are best positioned to wrestle with those two things.

And Oversight, too. I think oversight’s a huge deal. And I’m frustrated with our previous Democratic administration that I think exercised far too little oversight and far too little prosecutorial discretion. And I don’t think we can heal from this as a country if some of the lawlessness that’s going on now is not dealt with in a criminal fashion.

I’m pretty sure I’m picking up what you’re putting down. But at the risk of putting too fine a point on it, what’s top of mind for you?

The American people are being crypto-scammed every day. We’re selling pardons every day. It seems to me like the entire federal government has been reorganized into a for-profit venture for a small number of people. I sort of pejoratively joke that this would be the most corrupt administration if it were in Nigeria. But it’s not Nigeria, it’s here.

And so I think, again, if Democrats—if we say all this stuff, then we should be ready to treat it with that level of seriousness. And if there has been lawless corruption, then it should be prosecuted, and Congress should stand up and do its job and insist that it be prosecuted wherever it leads. And the Epstein files—I don’t care if they’re former, current, or future presidents, if they’re in there and they abused girls and young women and they trafficked people, they should be in prison. Period.

Who’s a Republican member of Congress you would be particularly interested in working with?

I guess I would say Massie. It’s funny—I disagree with him on so much policy, but I gotta give it to him: he’s been courageous bucking his party on the Epstein thing. Him and Ro Khanna—and I know Ro’s not a Republican, but you know, I appreciate the relationship they’ve forged to try to do the right thing.

I’ve seen you on Twitter, LinkedIn, who knows, talking a little bit about AI and data centers. Are you a techno-optimist? Do you see positive uses of AI? Or do you think we’re just fucked?

I do see some potential. The part that gives me hope is when somebody says, “Maybe we figure out fusion energy [with AI].” Or I have a couple friends who are doctors that tell me AI can do two things probably: over time diagnose ailments much better than humans can over time, and perhaps find cures for ailments that we don’t have time to run the all the clinical trials on. So I’m hopeful on those kind of large-scale techno-outcomes.

I’m really freaking scared about the way it’s going to upend workforce. I’m worried about the way it’s going to suck up electricity. I’m worried about what it might do to water supply, especially in a place like this. I think on balance I’m probably a little more worried about it than I am optimistic. But I mean, how could you not have some sort of level of optimism if it ends up helping in the long term with the climate crisis and clean energy? I know there’s people that think it can, so I’m hopeful of that.

I’m one of them, for what that’s worth.

On a related note, like there’s a lot of conversation and friction right now around data centers coming to Montana. What would you like to see Congress do to handle data centers?

I think it’s really dangerous to see this level and this speed of development without regulatory sideboards. And I’m very dubious of an industry that basically has enough money to rush in and do things extremely quickly and at the same time fight legislative efforts on regulatory sideboards.

You did a fundraiser with Senator Gallego recently—how did you guys get connected?

We heard that he was coming to speak at the Mansfield Metcalf dinner. So we reached out and just started a conversation with him, and he said he wanted to endorse in races that were important, in candidates that could win in generals. And so we said, “Hey, that’s us!” And so he studied up on us and we had a few chats, and we had that event and he did endorse us.

You guys stay in touch?

Yeah. He’s a good guy. He’s kind of like me; doesn’t pull too many punches, and his filter’s pretty thin. What he thinks comes out pretty quickly.

Is there a difference between the way you ran your 2024 campaign and this one?

Yeah, a couple things. I think it’s really important that we raise money and conserve money and use it to communicate [via] digital or TV or whatever. We were unable to do that in our gubernatorial because of the expense of media during the Senate race here. We’re being very careful about how we spend money—we’re conserving money so we can do that. That’s one lesson.

[In 2024] we spent a lot of time running on property tax issues. They were important to us and I believed they would resonate with voters, but I think we were a little ahead of the voters on that—they cared about other stuff. And that taught me: be where the voters are. It just so happens that now, I feel frightened and fortunate at the same time because the stuff that is animating me and so many people is exactly where the voters are. There seems to be an alignment that’s much better, messaging-wise, for us now, so I think we’re fortunate there. But I did learn that lesson.

And the other thing I think is—you already asked this—but putting a punch on your opposition is important. Pointing out the divergence between me and Gianforte or me and whoever wins the Republican nomination is important. But we also have to offer something affirmative, and I think it’s really important that Democrats do that. And we didn’t do enough of that in the gubernatorial, and I think we need to do more of that here.

This kind of feels like asking a band to pick their other favorite band, but who’s a candidate running for any office in Montana that you just feel really excited about?

Here’s a good one—he just ran and won, but we have a new mayor, Ryan Hunter, in Kalispell. And I’ve known him for a long time and I’ve been to a lot of his campaign events. And he inspires me; he’s been unapologetically progressive. He’s never backed down from his values, he’s put his neck on the line lots of times for working folks and disadvantaged people in Kalispell, and he still, you know, he wins his election up there. That was a pretty exciting night. He’s not running right now, but he just ran and won.

It’s not uncommon that you see a Democrat get beat in a race that we worked for. And I woke up and I told Sara, “Holy shit, he won!” It was great—it was pretty exciting to see that and that felt like a harbinger of whatever good things to come here.

Last question for you: is there anything you feel is missing from the larger discourse—the way media covers politics in western Montana right now?

I think the importance of this seat is under-appreciated right now. I think the odds are that there might be election interference in blue cities, blue states. I think there’s maybe some false hope about how easy Democrats may take back the majority. And I really believe it could come down to a race like this, a seat like this. We are running this race as if the future of the state and maybe the future of democracy depends on winning this thing because I think if Democrats don’t take back the majority in the House, the next two years are going to be very damn dark in this country. And it doesn’t feel to me like the press—whatever the press is now— I don’t think like we have really properly grasped the gravity and importance of this thing and what it can mean to the state and the country.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter about arts, culture and politics in Montana.

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Spend a few minutes immersed in the ever-growing discography of the Butte rapper 2 Dolla Will and you will likely hear a brief, recurring snippet of Jeff Steitzer, demanding, with the gravitas of a deity and no small amount of menace, that you “go back to Bozeman.”

The suggestion is not meant kindly, and its implications are far from flattering. These days, even a Missoula yuppie such as myself can relate to 2 Dolla’s populist angst; wandering past the $1,000 cowboy boots on display at the Luchesse store, stewing in the hard-edged pretension that hangs over Shan like a fart, navigating cocktail bars that radiate about as much cheer as a Soviet dentist office, it can be easy to feel like you don’t belong in Bozeman. (That all being said, Mountains Walking remains my favorite brewery in Montana, a true bastion of warmth, with impeccable calzones to boot.)

And so, when I stumbled across Umvelt, an Instagram-friendly Russian bathhouse that opened late last year behind the Lark Hotel, I booked a $60 session with at least a mild twinge of trepidation. (The business’s slogan — “Feel what’s real” — doesn’t do it any favors.)

Yet I am a bit of a fanatic when it comes to a good schvitz. Some people like to track down historical landmarks when they travel. Others go in search of the best local coffee. I like to find a sauna.

The sauna’s benefits are known, and I’ll spare you the details, as you’ve likely either experienced them yourself, or you have a friend who evangelizes the Teachings of Huberman. But I believe that a sauna holds extra worth when you’re on the road; it can serve as a refuge, a place to stabilize and refresh, a neutral, tech-free space where the mind can wander and rest.

That’s exactly what I found at Umvelt.

A bathhouse can, if not carefully minded, become a recipe for superlative grossness: Water pools on the floor. Paint peels from the walls, pulled down by its own soggy weight. Chaos abounds as sweaty, steaming bodies big and small vie for space in cramped, sizzling hot rooms, their collective, herd-like heat leaving you feeling like you’ve forked over your hard-earned cash only to get wedged inside a life-sized petri dish.

Yet Umvelt, blessedly, negates all of these unsavory situations.

From the moment you change into your (required) swimsuit in a stylish and subdued dressing room suffused with sandalwood, the otherworldly sounds of Nala Sinephro wafting in the air, the staff’s attention to sanitation is hard to miss.

The bathhouse itself — accessed down a flight of wide, wooden stairs lined with rich tapestries and through a red-paned glass door — is arranged around a warm pool and cold plunge. A bank of showers are tucked into one corner. Despite a constant parade of bodies tracking water every which way, this open space remains pretty dry, thanks to the constant presence of black-clad staffers, squeegeeing all of that water down a series of drains like benevolent Squid Games Circles. Granted, Umvelt had opened only weeks before I visited, but the saunas themselves, accessed off of the main pool room, were also pristine.

Entry to Umvelt is staggered; a limited number of guests are admitted ever thirty minutes. As a result, the saunas and pools are hardly crowded. I visited on the Sunday afternoon of a holiday weekend, yet I still spent a long stretch alone in the three-tiered dry sauna. Over in the fiercely hot “Event Sauna," dimly-lit in tones of red and gold, seven of us had space to all lie down and sink into our own thoughts; the scene reminded me of a seance in Dune, or of being placed in deep sleep on a spaceship bound for some distant planet.

Umvelt requests that you leave your phone in your locker, and that you keep most of your talking to the central pool area. Those rules were followed closely by all — much to the relief of my inner Larry David— and my fellow sweaters, some of whom had donned goofy black Umvelt banya hats, were uniformly friendly, unhurried and respectful of the quiet that infused the space.

Umvelt offers something rare in Bozeman (and, perhaps, yes, in the wider world, too): luxury without ostentation, the feeling of treating yourself without breaking the bank. You could do a lot worse with sixty bucks in that town, and I will happily pay up again anytime I find myself there.

The Baltimore-to-Montana pipeline is not, in my estimation, particularly robust. But on the rare occasion I bump into someone else who has once called Charm City home, the conversation quickly turns to impeccably raunchy dive bars and ad hoc music festivals and buck-a-shuck oysters, all recalled and relished with sugar-high giddiness — it’s not dissimilar from watching fellow-Montanans encounter each other in the wider world, but with more emphasis on seafood. Because for all the challenges it faces, and its less-than-flattering depictions on HBO, Baltimore remains a singularly welcoming, exciting and inclusive American city; fertile ground for creative types of all stripes whose cumulative work has long buoyed a wide ecosystem of weirdness and delight. If there’s any other place in the world where Norman Maclean’s proud assessment of western Montana — “The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula" — rings true for me, it’s Baltimore.

A few years ago, the artist William Rockwell Ryerson, who makes music under the moniker Giant Wave, moved from Baltimore to Billings. And he has, to my ear, brought his hometown’s air of unencumbered artistic freedom with him. While his past work — warm, chill indie-pop — certainly has an experimental streak, the new “EP 3,” his first release written after moving to the Treasure State, radiates a particularly unpretentious and joyful sense of experimentation.

These three songs bob from style to style, picking up instruments and moods and quickly letting them go, like a wave collecting stones as it reaches shore. Take the second track, “Dream Liver.” It starts with a gorgeous, intricate acoustic guitar line that brings to mind the virtuoso William Tyler. Soon, however, it veers into a buzzing, synth-driven stomp before shifting, again, into a meditative, cyclical vocal melody fringed by psychedelic woodwinds. Or listen to the guitar solo that burns its way like acid through the otherwise dulcet “Shadow + Light” — no matter how many times I listen to the song, the solo manages to catch me off guard.

If these songs have a through-line, it’s their tenderness, embodying the coziness and insularity of a Montana winter (although calling the past two months “winter” feels a bit disingenuous, the weather having been as impotent as Matt Regier’s tenure as Senate President). In an era of exhausting bravado, Ryerson’s inward-facing intimacy hits like a gust of fresh air. “It’s like I left the world behind,” he sings, serenely, on “Shadow + Light.” It’s hard to say whether he’s referring to his move to Montana, or maybe just taking a break from Politico, but no matter; listening along, the sentiment is mutual.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter about arts, culture and politics in Montana.

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In heady times, I believe, it’s advisable to let hedonism take the wheel and steer. And truly, what higher manifestation of decadence exists in Missoula than an afternoon spent devouring a pile of juicy and extraordinarily flavorful chicken wings at the Camino bar, a house margarita clutched in your sticky, saucy fingers?

Although the Missoula mainstay restaurant has gained a reputation for its pricer fare (I’d argue that the $50 whole fried snapper gives any top-shelf entree in town a run for its money), the happy hour offers some more budget-friendly options.

The star of the show? Without a doubt, the serrano pepper-laden, sweet and tangy wings. At $8 for a half order and $14 for a whole, I’m gonna call them a steal.

And to be clear, I remain an eternal ally of Missoula’s most well-known purveyor of buffalo wings, Desperado’s; the beloved sports bar whips up the platonic embodiment of the stuff. Yet Camino’s take offers something funkier that you aren’t going to find anywhere else in town.

Beyond an impressive tenderness and light fry, the wings boast an attention-grabbing mix of flavors. As co-owner and operator Tad Hilton explains, the wing sauce contains a blend of chiles, vinegar and agave. The sauce gets reduced and thickened before it’s coated on the wings. Its zesty tang is offset by the buoyant creaminess of what Camino calls “gabacho” dipping sauce. A mildly derogatory term for foreigners, the restaurant employs “gabacho” as a euphemism for ranch dressing, which they make from scratch with a touch of roasted garlic.

The wings are the unquestionable Dwight Schrute of the happy hour cast, but other highlights abound. The crisp and fresh house margaritas go for seven dollars; it’s the best boozey bang for your buck in downtown Missoula. Plus, Modelos and cans of Western Cider’s El Dorado and Ranch Hand go for three bucks a pop. The $11 guacamole is less of a bargain, but it’s among the richest and silkiest I’ve ever tasted.

My only bone to pick with the whole operation? Happy hour only runs from 3 to 5 PM. So, cancel that meeting, ditch the after-work hike and give yourself a taste of the good life. You won’t regret it.

One more thing…

In late February, my colleagues at the “Political Climate” podcast and I journeyed to Big Sky to record an episode of the show live at the Winterfest conference. The (ultra-bougie) annual event brings together leaders in clean energy and finance, and the organizers asked us to curate a panel focused on moving projects forward during the Trump Administration. We were lucky to have two Republicans—energy regulation whiz and former Montana PSC Commissioner Travis Kavulla, as well as Rich Powell, CEO of the Clean Energy Buyers Association—join the conversation to discuss the challenges and opportunities of AI-driven energy load growth, the clean energy projects they think will flourish during Trump’s term and their advice for companies struggling to navigate the chaos.

You can check out the episode here!

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter about arts, culture and politics in Montana.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox! That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

On Monday morning, then-state Representative Ron Marshall posted a surprising message on X. “I will be resigning from my position as representative for Montana House District 87, effective at 12 noon today,” he wrote. “The corruption is more than I can stand. Lobbyists run this country. [The] people have no voice.”

Marshall, a third-term Republican lawmaker, made his decision following moves by the Legislature to regulate—and, arguably, handicap—the vape industry, in which he is directly invested: Marshall owns two vape shops in Montana.

Most significantly, in late February, the House Taxation Committee advanced HB 525. The bill was endorsed by tobacco powerhouses Altria and RJ Reynolds, and cleared the committee unanimously despite broad opposition from vape shop owners and employees across the state. The bill intends to limit unregulated products; it would only permit products approved by the FDA and registered by the Montana Attorney General. Currently, only 34 products meet the FDA qualification.

Yet Marshall argues that his decision to resign was about more than policy. Read on as he digs into the bills that impact the vape industry, as well as the accusations of corruption that he cited in his announcement and claims of personal attacks that he says compelled him to leave the Legislature.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Max: Can you tell me about how you got into the vape industry?

Ron Marshall: It started in 2013. My wife had a respiratory infection. Both of us had been smoking for 30 years plus. As any former smoker can tell you, when you can't have a cigarette, they call it jonesing. Finally somebody told her, hey, you might want to try one of these electric cigarettes. They were pretty new to the market back then. After 13 days, everything was cleared up and she tried to light a cigarette and was like, yuck.

I was still smoking at the time. I drove for an oilfield outfit in Billings. I'm like, if it worked for her, maybe it'll work for me. So I started using one. It took me about ten days, and then I was done [with cigarettes]. I’d tried patches and gum and all that garbage, and it never worked.

We were sitting around talking one night, and I told her, why don't you just open up a shop? You couldn't get anything here then; everything was online and you weren't sure [about the products you would] buy online…buyer beware. We scraped together some money and opened up a little storefront down in Belgrade.

It took a couple years. We built it up, and we opened a second location, and it just took off. It got busy enough that I came off the road and started doing it full time.

What impact do you think the new bill, HB 525, could have on the industry?

I was in the room [during the hearing]. I didn't testify, but I listened. What the shop owners were saying, that's the absolute truth. It would close down every vape store in Montana. If the only products left are that of Big Tobacco, well, people are gonna have two choices. You either use their product or you go back to smoking. And most people that have gone to vaping did that to get away from smoking. By wiping all that out, the state is opening itself up to a regulatory takings lawsuit, which is already happening in other states where they passed this bill, by the way.

It's a bill written by Big Tobacco for Big Tobacco. [Before the hearing], I did approach one of the members on the committee, and I said, ‘Hey, just do an amendment to ban all disposables. The legitimate vape shops will be happier than heck with that.

That bill is an industry killer.

The bill would only allow FDA-approved products, right?

There are 34 approved products, and guess who owns them all?

Literally every last one?

Yeah.

If the bill moves forward, why not just carry the FDA approved products and stay open?

Well, those FDA approved products are all available in every gas station, convenience store, grocery store. To be a specialty retailer…I mean, good luck.

[Big Tobacco’s products are] not that good. Most people in the vaping industry do not like them.

I remember that coming up in the hearing.

Once they got their foot in the door, they've been working behind the scenes to stifle anything that impacts them. How do you corner the market? You use the government to take out your competition, and that's exactly what they're doing.

After you made your announcement that you were going to resign, did you receive any reactions that surprised you?

I heard from a couple of commissioners and agency directors that were very supportive. The Attorney General's office is probably still dancing in the street for me leaving. Some other people up there are probably happy I left. I've gotten some pretty good messages from former colleagues. But then again, I've gotten a big quiet shoulder from most of them. I expect nothing different. The dynamics of this session up there are just wild. I don't even know how to describe it. It's crazy.

I read comments online from supporters of yours who basically asked, if it’s so bad, why not stay and fight? What’s your response to them?

Some of the things that had already happened to me and my family up there were harassment: going out to dinner and being harassed by lobbyists, being harassed behind the scenes, having people say things that I did or didn't do, which I could disprove because I either had witnesses or it was on the record in the hearing room.

[HB 525 passed 21-0 in committee], and I'm sitting there looking at leadership and some other solid conservative Republicans on that committee. And I'm like, how the heck can you vote for attacks like that? And the only way that could have happened is if leadership gave the okay. I'd been told by leadership not to worry about it. ‘We'll take care of it. It won't pass.’ And it goes into a committee and comes out worse [via an amendment to add a 50% wholesale tax].

Those bills are decided long before the hearings are even scheduled. That's what I'm trying to tell people. Your voice up there is basically smoke and mirrors. You go to that hearing thinking you might be able to say something to sway the legislators. No. The only reason they do that is because it's in the law. They have to do that public comment.

I see these poor people come in there, the regular everyday citizen, to testify in these committees, you know? And I'm sitting there thinking, my gosh, it's supposed to be the people's house. But you're outgunned.

There's 700 registered lobbyists in the state of Montana for 150 legislators?1 We have a problem.

Some of the young freshman legislators have no idea. They go out to dinner with the lobbyists, or they do this or do that. You don't understand—you do that now, there's strings attached to this stuff.

By Sunday, I had pretty much made my decision. And I went to clean up my desk and get all my stuff. The Speaker [Representative Brandon Ler] came in to talk to me, and he had mentioned something about one of the lobbyists saying he had five different Representatives that wanted to file an ethics complaint against me.

And I asked him, well, who was it? And he says, well, I don't know. He says, I've asked around, I can't find anybody. And I'm like, huh, that's a pretty sharp hint.

Then he asked me to stay until Friday, because they may need my vote on the floor for transmittal. It's just like, I'm gonna do you a favor, buddy? I don't think so.

What are your thoughts on how to reform that dynamic?

First of all, you get rid of all the lobbying up there. The lobbying is just out of control. They sponsor fundraisers and dinners and all this other garbage. You see it every day in the Capitol. In the first half of the session, somebody's got something set up in the rotunda, and it's just not there for entertainment, or education, as they call it. They're gonna talk to you. They're gonna lobby you.

Obviously lobbying is not something new in 2025. Beyond the fact that you’re invested in the vape industry, what else made this moment a tipping point for you?

Just going out to have dinner with a friend, getting up to leave and getting harassed. At what point does policy become personal attacks? And to have it continue and then to get “wink, wink, nod, nod” threats; it just started escalating.

In light of the experience you've had, do you have any particular feelings about Citizens United and how money impacts political campaigns?

I believe everybody should have a voice. And as a business owner, I should be able to support a candidate that's gonna be friendly to business. But at what point do you say, okay, that's too much money?

You look at the millions and billions of dollars spent in the election cycle, and people are still whining about, well, we need money for this, and we need money for that. Well, most of it went in the landfill.

Big Pharma spends [billions of dollars] a year on advertising. That money could be going to better, useful things like, I don't know, lower drug prices. It's almost criminal; you can advertise that, but you can't advertise marijuana in Montana.

What's next for you? Are you gonna team up with Bernie Sanders or something?

No (laughs). No, definitely not. I'm not teaming up with Bernie.

We'll continue to track some of this stuff and see what goes on. In the meantime, I'm going to take care of some family business. We've got our shops and everything. We're just gonna think about, do we even want to stay in the state? Do we want to downsize and actually retire?

I was able to do some good work up there, I think. I tried to run a bunch of bills that would've helped the people and put the screws to some of this government waste and overspending and wrap a few ropes around some of these bureaucrats. Sometimes you can get a little win here and a little win there. I gave it my best shot. But yeah, this is just too much. It becomes personal.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter about arts, culture and politics in Montana.

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Last week, the heavy gray clouds of my inbox briefly parted, and a beam of sunlight shone through. A message had arrived from the Montana folk-rock trio Junior, and it bore terrific news.

Four years after the release of their terrific debut, Warm Buildings (and following a triumphant battle with cancer), the group will return to Oregon in late March to record their sophomore album. And in advance of the recording session, Junior will play a pair of hometown shows in Butte and Missoula to give fans a hearty dose of the new material.

Junior’s announcement had some additional juice up its sleeve: a brand-new song called “Cut My Hair.” The email describes the track, recorded in a Butte living room, as a mere demo. But to my ear, it sounds lush and refined. “Cut My Hair” encapsulates the group’s greatest strengths: stellar three-part harmonies, poignant, heart-worn lyrics and inventive arrangements.

While Junior’s new song ain’t the first to imbue haircuts with substantial emotional heft, its lead vocalist (and guitarist, and drummer) Hermina Jean frames the act in a singularly bittersweet context: in the struggle to get past a toxic relationship, she seems to be saying, cutting your hair obviously won’t solve all your problems. But sometimes you just need to do something to feel like you’re on a path towards feeling better. “Cut my hair / I want to feel a little different now / cut my hair / doesn’t matter how,” she sings in the ear-worm chorus.

The song’s arrangement similarly walks a line between sunlight and heartbreak. Jenny Lynn’s viola punctuates the chorus, rising in elegant ribbons, and the trio’s exceptional vocal harmonies add extra muscle. Guest musician Eric Heywood—a collaborator of artists like Son Volt and Ray LaMontagne—fills out the song with psychedelic swells of pedal steel that sometimes feel like a call and response with Hermina’s vocals.

Taken as a whole, “Cut My Hair” is a testament to Junior’s ongoing collaborative spirit, open-hearted songwriting and raw talent, and I can’t wait to hear what comes next.

Junior plays Butte’s Carpenter’s Union Hall with Izaak Opatz on Saturday, March 8, and Missoula FreeCycles with Riddy Arman on Sunday, March 9.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all political stripes, and some arts & culture reporting, too.

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As many of you can attest, the past few weeks have proven, well, a tad dispiriting.

The sun, for one, remains largely out of sight, as if taking notes from the Certified Lover Boy himself. The roads have become giant mounds of gray snow and soot that resemble raunchy, decaying carpets. And a certain self-obsessed Vladimir Putin apologist has ushered in a political era poised to inflict much more harm than good; one that conflates boldness with recklessness, and government efficiency with borderline sadism.

Yet in Missoula, the deep winter has nonetheless offered its fair share of pleasures, too: not just splendid skiing and an exciting slate of community events, but the impeccably timed arrival of the national chain restaurant Plaza Azteca, on an otherwise charmless stretch of Brooks Street.

While the restaurant’s cuisine is Mexican, its atmosphere is distinctly American. Situated in the old Jakers Bar & Grill, the expansive rows of booths and garishly-lit bar evoke a nearly anachronistic sense of good, unpretentious cheer. For me, stepping inside feels an awful lot like a time warp to the 1990’s.

And while there’s undoubtedly a ton of terrific food to be had in Missoula, a dwindling number of sit-down restaurants offer it at this accessible of a price point. As such, Plaza Azteca boasts a notably wide-ranging clientele: big families, couples on dates, hipsters and bros and teens and good old boys and merry old heads.

The food at Plaza Azteca is as comforting as its vibe. The guacamole, which you can order to be prepared table-side, is silky smooth and dazzlingly rich. The same can be said for the refried beans. The burritos—including the steak-filled Burrito Mex—easily usurp Chipotle for the title of Best in Missoula (come at me, haters) and the fajitas are remarkably flavorful. Over the course of three visits, the food got better each time.

Plus, if the first two months of 2025 have left you yearning for a margarita (or three) the size of your cranium, you’re in luck. And you’ve got options. I have become particularly fond of the Skinny (fresh citrus, less sugar) and the Pineapple varieties.

Delicious, relatively affordable and staffed with an attentive and upbeat crew, Plaza Azteca offers an unexpectedly profound sense of comfort in these weird and trying times. Being there feels, simply, like America is supposed to.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all political stripes, and some arts & culture reporting, too.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox! That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

As many fellow dog owners can attest, my own pup can, on occasion, drive me insane.

Cece has chased critters off-trail and gotten herself lost for hours, gorged on deer limbs and decomposing voles, developed a fastidious sniffing routine that can turn a quick spin around the block into a Homerian odyssey, and found thousands of other inventive ways to test the limits of my patience. Of course, I love Cece with all my heart. But that adoration can fall by the wayside when she appears intent on winning the Guinness Award for Biggest Four-Legged Dumbass.

On “Great Love, Great Grief,” Kraig Rieger, of the long-running Bozeman duo Come Back K!, reminds us to treasure our time with our pets, even when they’re misbehaving. The song—a languid Beatles-y waltz, complete with an elegant McCartney bass line—celebrates the eleven years he spent with his dog, Roo, and addresses the overwhelming grief he feels in their absence. The song is the lead single from a forthcoming EP called “Goodbye, Friend,” that Rieger will release next week via Bandcamp.

On “Great Love, Great Grief,” Rieger doesn’t merely reflect on the sunny times, but the frustrating ones, too. “Early on I thought about turning you in / But I’m glad I didn’t,” he admits in the first verse. There’s even some wry humor about his surviving dog: “It doesn’t feel fair that our other dog gets all the food.”

Rieger’s honesty makes his grief all the more poignant when it appears later in the song. “Why did this happen / At the onset of winter everything feels so dark / You’re a light in the distance / Something that kept me moving on,” he sings in a stately, even tone.

And sure, like so many other pups, Roo “misbehaved until the end.” But, as Rieger adds, “I regret nothing.” We can relate.

One other thing (or two)…

• I was thrilled to write a bit about Free Sessions, the long-running and uber-egalitarian monthly Missoula jam session, for The Pulp. I can’t recommend attending enough.

• Over at Political Climate, the bi-partisan energy and climate policy podcast that I produce, we recently interviewed Anukool Lakhina, the CEO of BurnBot. The company builds tank-sized robots that can perform prescribed burns around the clock, independent of weather conditions. The conversation, which touches on both his tech and fire mitigation policy, carries extra weight in light of the catastrophic fires that have plagued Los Angeles this month. You can listen to the interview here.

My colleagues, I rise before you today in support of HB 3192009, the “Hip-Hop Fan Bathroom Ban” bill. This bill is very important because hip-hop fans in the bathroom make me uncomfortable, and I think they should go somewhere else.

Hip-hop fans in the bathroom are very upsetting. They will sometimes tap their foot on the floor, in rhythm. I’m afraid that one of them will rap at me. Maybe this has already happened. Don’t ask me for specifics.

We must stop this egregious threat to our well-being. As such, any individual who encounters a hip-hop fan in the restroom can sue the offending facility or organization within two years of the event.

Here’s the catch: hip-hop fans are truly ingrained into the fabric of our society: they are teachers, lawyers, doctors, even state lawmakers. That makes them harder to spot.

If you think there is a hip-hop fan in the bathroom, but you’re not sure, you should definitely still alert the authorities.

There are several non-invasive, totally constitutional ways to check if someone is a hip-hop fan:

For one, we can open their phone and search their Spotify history for any recently played club bangers. Or go through their bank records for any hip-hop-ish purchases.

Hip-hop is all about tattoos. For instance, the hip-hopper Lil’ Kim has paw print tattoos on her chest. So, if you see a woman who you think might be a hip-hop fan, she’s gonna have to show us her boobs to prove that she isn’t a Lil’ Kim admirer. And for the fellas, I suspect Machine Gun Kelly has at least some ink down there. So if you’re looking suspicious, you’re gonna have to drop trow and let us take a peek.

I want to stress that this bill is not about discrimination. It’s about protecting those things that have been eroding these last few years for fans of other genres of music. All this bill is asking for is reasonable accommodations.

By the way….while the fiscal note for my bill says that specific costs to state agencies are “unknown” or “not currently estimable,” it does forecast that the fiscal impact to local school districts and law enforcement agencies could be “significant.” Just a heads up.

And sure, there might be a few small details left to iron out, but don’t worry, we’ll fix it right up over in the Senate.

Phew! I can’t wait to vote on this bill. Honestly, I’d been thinking about working on a property tax bill instead, but this is way better.

Thanks so much for your support, and remember: If you vote No, we are definitely gonna primary your ass.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all political stripes…and some arts & culture reporting, too.

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Since its founding in 2015, the non-profit organization Soft Landing has found creative and engaging ways to help hundreds of refugees and immigrants settle into life in Missoula.

One of the best, in my humble opinion, is through food. Among other projects, Soft Landing curates Supper Clubs, where a client with a passion for cooking can prepare and organize a multi-course meal held at a restaurant in town; members of the pubic can buy tickets and savor the flavors of cultures from all around the world.

I attended one such dinner shortly after November’s election. The chef du jour had prepared an amazing buffet meal, and ticket sales went towards helping them pay for their family members’ move to Missoula. Yet even though the mood was cheery and festive, I couldn’t help but feel an undercurrent of concern: would the incoming Trump Administration make it harder for families like the chef’s to settle in America?

To be clear, the bulk of Soft Landing’s clients are refugees, who have gone through an arduous and exhaustive process—and escaped from war, famine and other interconnected crises—to come to the United States legally, while the president-elect has focused his attention on undocumented immigrants. The first Trump Administration nonetheless offers indicators of the challenges legal refugees may face in his second term: admittance rates plummeted, and the President instituted a temporary ban on refugees entering the country at the beginning of his term.

In mid-December, I met up with Soft Landing’s co-founder and executive director, Mary Poole. A former arborist, Poole has a knack for separating the political signal from the noise and an open-minded attitude towards skeptics of the program. Read on as we discuss a range of topics, including the organization’s origins, its victories and the challenges she anticipates from both the incoming Trump Administration and the 2025 Montana Legislature.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Max: Can you share an example of a recent victory at Soft Landing?

Mary Poole: Syria, right? [The fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad] is really important to us. It was definitely the Syrian conflict that catalyzed all of this. There's definitely a lot of celebration happening. A lot of trepidation, too.

All the Syrian families are coming in to see us, to talk about their joy around the liberation of their country. We ask, will you go home? Unanimously they say, “Oh, our home is Missoula.” They say, my kids are in school, my life is good. Things are stable here, which is unfortunately probably not going be the case in Syria.

[In terms of other positive moments], we see babies in the office every day. There's going to be over 15 kids graduating from high school this year that we're working with. Some of those kids will go to UM. We work with about 20 young adults at UM right now.

We had our very first voters [in November]. Voting, participating in a democracy, is something that many people have never had the option to do. Or if they did have any agency, that was stripped from them in the process of conflict, war, persecution, whatever landed them here.

And they’re very diverse voters. It's such a misnomer to think that refugees and immigrants are one person.

Let’s take a step back. How did Soft Landing come to be?

We started in 2015. It was catalyzed in the middle of the night when I was breastfeeding a child and having a friend send the picture of Alan Kurdi, who was a 2-year-old boy that lost his life crossing the Mediterranean. A lot of people in Missoula were really interested in knowing what more we could do to help.

At that time, I was an arborist for the city. I was climbing a tree with a chainsaw. I didn't know what a non-profit was. I'd never been a volunteer anywhere. I grew up on a farm. I didn't have a frame of reference at all. I literally had to Google, “What is a refugee?”

What we found out pretty quickly was that to welcome any refugees to your community, you need the presence of a resettlement agency.

Luckily we were able to get the ear of the International Rescue Committee. They have an office here in Missoula now. It was one week shy of a year after the photo [of Kurdi] came out that the first family came to Missoula from Congo.

That sounds very fast!

It was fast and crazy. I had this incredible community. In our first public meeting, 300 people signed up to volunteer. In our first public event, a thousand people showed up in the streets of Missoula. It was this moving freight train that I was hanging onto for dear life.

That was happening alongside community members that had real questions and real concerns and didn't want to see it happen.

Sometimes that showed up in wonderful conversation with people that were willing to sit down and have coffee with me. Sometimes that showed up as threats and phone calls in the middle of the night.

What would be an example of a good-faith argument against the program?

There is an additional weight added to our public services and our school system and all of those things. Now, do those things come with amazing opportunity for partnerships and additional funding and all these things? Yeah. Eventually. But it's not easy. It's okay that people don't know how this works.

All conversation is worth it. If you have questions, you should ask them.

Everyone has the right to their own assumptions. I came from ground zero on this; I don't expect anyone else to not be coming from ground zero.

I think what is challenging in our state is that very few people have experiences with refugees and immigrants. And so they're piggybacking off of the media or what they hear, instead of having true relationships.

How did the first Trump Administration impact your work?

What Trump meant for our nation and what Trump meant for us is probably very different.

Each location has these very specific elements that affect it in different ways. So what happened in Missoula was very different from [what happened to] a family trying to cross into Texas.

We primarily welcome refugees. That pathway was paused, but not ended. There was a 90-day pause right off the bat.

That messes with the resettlement system in a lot of ways. The system itself has all of these very time-determinate checks. For example, a medical screening lasts for six months and a security check lasts for three months. So [everything] has to be matched up before that perfect moment when a family's ready to come. They buy plane tickets and sell all their stuff. And when that perfect moment is disrupted, they go to the back of the line because then they have to do all those things again.

A lot of resettlement offices nationwide did have to shut down during [the Trump Administration]. But in Missoula, since our capacity to welcome folks is 100 to 125 people a year, they were basically able to maintain those numbers through the first three years of Trump's presidency. The last year, not so much, because the numbers that he set got so low. [In 2020, the Trump Administration admitted 15,000 refugees; Biden subsequently raised the number to an annual high of 125,000.]

When Biden got into office, I think he wanted to be a country that was welcoming to refugees. But even 125,000 people is such a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of people seeking safety in the world.

Is there anything in particular you're bracing for with the second Trump Administration?

I don't think there'll be surprises if he enforces a ban or a pause in refugee admissions.

I think there's a couple added elements [at the state level]. We launched in the last year of Obama's presidency. It was serendipitous timing. Missoula was the only place [in Montana] with a resettlement agency. People contacted me from every other major city in Montana saying, “How do we do what you did? We want to welcome refugees into our communities.” And really, that wasn't able to happen during the Trump presidency. Resettlement agencies were shutting down offices, not opening up new offices.

That will be very different for our state this time around. There's just a much broader effort across the state now. During the last four years, we've had a new resettlement agency open in Billings. We've had quite a few families come to Montana through [Biden’s] humanitarian parole system: Ukrainians, Afghans, Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans, and Hondurans. We've had more people come to Montana after processing asylum cases at the border. We have housing booms all around Montana that are bringing workers.

Are there strategies that the state Legislature can take to disrupt refugee resettlement?

Refugee resettlement is a federal program, right? The state can either participate in that program like our state does, by having a state refugee coordinator and [receiving] pass-through funds. Our state doesn't contribute any funding for refugees, specifically.

So they can opt in or out of [federal funding]. But it doesn't mean resettlement goes away. It's just managed differently.

On top of that, we hear about coming down the pipeline. There was an [attempted] special session that tried to make undocumented folks that are in Montana illegal.

It's really hard to wrap my brain around one; being in our country undocumented is already against the law.

Our legislature doesn't seem to shy away from doing things that end up in courts. It's just posturing and messaging. We want our police officers to be putting their resources towards public safety, not utilizing valuable resources for other things.

[There was another proposal last spring] that targets non-profits that work with immigrants, basically. That's something that I really want to know more about, and that a lot of the other groups are worried about.

That's something also we're kind of seeing nationally with this bill that just passed the [US House], and they're just pausing it until Trump gets into office. It basically says that non-profit status can be stripped by our federal government from any non-profit that is [allegedly] supporting terrorism; like, if you have anything to say about Palestine, if you have anything to say about climate, if you work with immigrants.

It's very nebulous and very scary. How is that gonna be used?

Is there anything you think is crucial for someone to know about Soft Landing and your work that we haven't touched on?

We're talking about people that who been through incredible situations, who have worked so hard and continue to work really hard to build a home here; to have children that get to go to school, to participate in recreational activities, to go hiking and go to the lake in the summer. To have a life.

Folks are not here to disrupt our way of life. They’re not.

I want to be very clear that all questions are good questions. That's not the problem. The problem is the language used and the rhetoric [that spiked during election season]. That's like the hardest part for me.

People are really frightened. Refugees in Missoula are among the less vulnerable people to anything Trump is gonna do. And yet they come to our office and they say, “Is there anything I can do to make my life more secure here?”

Do we need to get on top of some shit in our country and at our border? Yes. I would love to see a really productive conversation around our southern border that would create solutions that were humane for people and solve a problem. We are smart, we are capable.

We even saw, in the election here, our Democratic candidates using immigrants in their ads, and not in a positive light.

Luckily these people are very perseverant and they've built incredible community and they have so much love and support here.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all political stripes… and some arts & culture reporting, too.

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In November’s elections, statewide Democratic candidates in Montana took one hell of a beating, losing virtually all of their marquee races, sometimes by as much as 20 points.

Yet at the local level, the story looked a bit different.

Buoyed by legislative redistricting, Democrats picked up ten seats in the state House and two in the state Senate. As a result, Montana Dems were able to prevent another GOP supermajority in the upcoming 2025 Legislature, which kicks off this coming Monday.

For Katie Sullivan, a fourth-term rep and Montana Democrats’ new Minority Leader in the House, her party’s expanded ranks bring more leverage to influence policy, but also reason to be “nervous:” as Sullivan explains, more members means more people to manage, and more campaign promises to fulfill.

In our interview, Sullivan—an IP attorney by trade—digs into her party’s priorities, including property tax reform and Medicaid reauthorization. She highlights opportunities for bipartisan collaboration, and criticizes several Republican policies, including judicial reform, that could be introduced this session.

Max: Has AI factored in to your work as an intellectual property attorney?

Rep. Katie Sullivan: I haven't had much issue with it yet. But there's been multiple requests for addressing AI in elections and sexual harassment this session. Deepfake videos can show a politician doing anything that you can think of, and it wouldn't actually be them. Most people would have no way of knowing that it's a fake.

Another concern is deep fake videos in schools. It's a bullying tactic. They take a classmate's face and put it on a terrible video. That's already impacted a lot of high school kids. That needs to be illegal. I don't have a draft yet, but I think I've got bipartisan support [for a bill].

Switching gears—what interested you about the position of Minority Leader?

After being a whip last session, I decided to run for Minority Leader. I like to operate behind the scenes. I was able to do that every day: whipping votes to help pass things and to help kill [other bills].

We're doing the work for the people of Montana and they have demands; we have to take it seriously. I'm nervous, but I'm also excited and honored to have the chance to be a leader for my caucus.

Why do you feel nervous?

When me and my members were on the doors [during campaign season], people were pissed about their property taxes and the cost of living. And my members said, “We're gonna work on these things.”

So here we are. We picked up ten seats, which is a huge increase in one cycle. We all know what we need to do: stay focused and go back to basics. With our large numbers, I think we can influence policy and put our fingerprints on some bills.

We have to get these things done. If we don't, it's a big failure. I mean, I wouldn't accept us leaving without fixing these things. I just hope things don't go off the rails. I hope things don't get distracting.

And then leading 42 [Democrats in the state House]. That's a whole other part to be nervous about. The bigger number is good, but you've got more people to manage.

One of the narratives around the 2024 elections is that the national Democratic Party lost its connection to lots of working-class voters. Do you think there's merit to that narrative at the state level in Montana?

Personally—and I say that because other Dems have different opinions—I see Montana Democrats being painted with a national brush that doesn't quite fit. As I said in my leadership speech to my members, I said, “I don't know about you guys, but I've never met Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or AOC.”

Yeah, we had some statewide struggles. We also picked up 10 seats in the House. Five of those were in districts that Trump won. What that tells me is that when voters who want to vote red meet their local candidate—who is their neighbor and their community member—and talks to them about taxes and how they feel about our state, and those people vote for Trump and for the local Democrat, the local Dem still has a big place in our state. We're our own unique group, and I hope people can see that.

You'd mentioned property taxes and cost of living as top concerns. Can you share any details on solutions to those issues?

Our big-picture focus is four big buckets: taxes, housing, childcare and healthcare.

We'll have a package of bills for property taxes: we're looking at a true homestead exemption that would cut the taxable value of primary residences and small businesses—$50,000 for Montana residents and a $200,000 exemption for small businesses.

We're also talking about cutting the property tax rate for middle class people; for the average home.

And then also a housing fairness tax credit. This would prevent property taxes from rising above an affordable percentage of income for seniors, renters, and workers with modest and middle-class incomes. This is just creating long-term affordability.

Those three [proposals] would reduce property taxes across the board. And so we're running those three property tax bills early in the session to try and get some traction and start the conversation about tax relief.

When I interviewed Republican state Senator Trebas in March, he made it clear that he plans to fight Medicaid reauthorization this session. Can you speak to whether there’s bipartisan momentum around reauthorization?

I'm glad to see it's in the governor's budget. I do hear there is a lot of in-fighting in the Republican caucus about whether or not members will vote to continue the program.

This program has already been running. The feds pay 90% and we're paying 10%. It covers tens of thousands of Montanans’ health insurance.

In my mind, it should be easy to just keep going with this. I've talked to some Republicans who say, “I'm mad about healthcare spending on a national level.” I'm mad about how much these things cost, too, but I can't fix them in my role at the Montana Legislature.

But what I can do is help people keep their health insurance in Montana. It's such a no-brainer. I don't understand the in-fighting.

Where else do you see opportunities for bipartisan consensus in the 2025 session?

We had that big housing bill last session. House Dems want to keep pushing that as well. We would like to see more money going into the Coal Trust multi-family housing fund. I think Republicans do as well.

We have a handful [of childcare bills] that we're gonna propose. I hear the Republicans have some as well. So I think that will be a great space for bipartisan work.

I think that there will be some bipartisan support for pushing back on a number of these judiciary bills, too. [Some of the bills] try to make [judicial positions] partisan. I think there's 27 bills actually. That’s 27 more than I think is needed. They are coming from that special committee on the judiciary.

I am hunting around to get bipartisan support to end some of those bills during the session. I've talked to a few Republicans who just say, “We don't need this. This is getting to be too much.”

It's basically what I call trying to make judges into politicians. These bills are just going to [result in] more politics everywhere. People want less politics, I'm pretty sure.

I spoke to Senator Usher about judicial issues a few months ago. I think I can fairly paraphrase at least part of his argument in favor of those bills—that if a lot of judicial decisions already feel partisan in nature, then there wouldn’t be harm in having judges’ political affiliation known. What’s your counter-argument?

I'm just gonna [spitball] with you—I think there are some members of the Legislature who had some bills that got struck down for being unconstitutional. And instead of saying, “Huh, how can I make my bill constitutional?” they say, “That judge is unfair and we need to politicize the courts.” And so my recommendation would be draft constitutional bills.

Are there bills coming this session that feel particularly concerning to you?

I know right-to-work is coming back again. And so we'll have to hopefully kill it again. And I've heard about a few public lands ones. And the judiciary ones, I think, are pretty bad.

Did you know that we have already over 4,000 bill draft requests? It's almost twice as much as last time. It's a phenomenally unworkable number.

Katie, is there anything you want to add before we wrap up?

People want us to go back to the basics and talk about pocketbook issues and costs. That's what I'm showing up for. I'd love to have the session not be a circus and just have us come together and get these financial issues taken care of so that we don't have such high property taxes anymore. It's unsustainable for people.

I have a feeling, I'm pretty sure it's gonna get weird (laughs). I don't think people can resist an opportunity for weirdness.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all political stripes. Plus, some arts & culture reporting, too.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox! That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

One day in August 2023, an amateur musician named Oliver Anthony performed a live version of his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” on his lush, wooded property in Virginia. In three minutes, the raw song managed to encapsulate a bitter and long-brewing frustration; one of being trapped in an economic hole that you cannot climb out of, of living in a nation where the divide between wealth and poverty seems to grow continuously wider. The video of Anthony’s performance instantly went viral, catapulting the songwriter to unlikely fame as his message swept the globe (and, arguably, foreshadowed the tenor of this year’s election).

Earlier this December, the veteran Missoula musician Chris Sand released his fifteenth album, Non-Judgement Day. The record begins with a terrific song called “Ain’t All Good.” Like “Rich Men North of Richmond,” the song offers a poignant and biting assessment of the American status quo.

Yet unlike “Rich Men North of Richmond,” Sand’s song is darkly funny. And it’s often downright fun. To my ear, that added dose of whimsy renders his harsh message all the more haunting, and heartfelt.

“Ain’t All Good” begins with its narrator chugging Robitussin on his trucking route and raging at a lover who took up with his cousin while he was on the road. From there, he zooms out to mourn America’s innumerable incarcerated men and women and the life they’ve lost, as they listen to “the sound of the rain or the trains that they're missin' / or the drips from the drains in the pots where they're pissin’.” By the song’s final verse, the lens has gotten wider still: “We pray school children don’t get shot by the neighbors / And we drive to work in libidinal rages / I feel like a pig in a cage, it's outrageous.”

Yet it’s Sand’s chorus that puts the nail in the coffin: “It ain't all good, but it ain't all bad / It's just the way it goes, the status quo’s what makes it sad,” he sings. What’s worse than all of this pain? Accepting it as our fate.

Yet instead of sinking into a pit of despair, Sand pairs his melancholy with an exuberant, walloping band. We’re treated to a hilariously sad trombone riff courtesy of Missoula mainstay Naomi Moon Siegel, a sweet trio of backup singers who drive Sand’s lyrics home and a jaunty rhythm section that keeps the tune spunky and alive. Life might be a hellish roller coaster, but this band of merry pranksters is riding it with their hands up, hollering all the way.

Chris Sand may not have had his moment of viral fame yet, but with “Ain’t All Good,” he has written a song that radiates the sort of empathy and musical savvy that has the power to resonate from coast to coast.

Chris Sand and his band—with several guests in tow—perform a record release show for Non-Judgement Day this Saturday, December 21, at the Roxy Theater in Missoula. Doors at 1pm, show at 1:30. More info here.

That’s it for Big Sky Chat House for 2024! Thanks so much for reading, commenting and sharing the newsletter. We’ll be back in January with more interviews, cultural jabbering and beyond.

And to the 98% of subscribers who read BSCH for free, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber today!! It’s your support that makes this project possible. Thank you!

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all stripes…plus some arts & culture reporting, too.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox! That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

When I re-launched this newsletter last month, one of the first people I reached out to was Jason Small. I had interviewed him once before, in May 2023, and in that conversation the then-Republican state Senator addressed his party’s successes and pitfalls with singular candor. At the time, Small—a political moderate and member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe—was running for the position of Executive Secretary of the Montana AFL-CIO, a federation of 38 unions with over 50,000 members. Shortly thereafter, he was elected to the position; he ran unopposed.

During the 2024 Presidential campaign, unions across the country offered only tepid support for—and in some instances, rejected—Kamala Harris’ campaign, despite labor’s long history with the Democratic Party. I was particularly keen to ask Small to help explain this shift, at least within Montana.

In today’s interview, Small addresses the question with his typical frankness. Yet our conversation covers much more ground: we discuss his priorities for the 2025 Legislature—including a plan to simplify prevailing wage calculations, and his concerns over potential right-to-work policy. We also get into Small’s own colorful history as a union worker, and chat about what it means to be “the only” Republican at the AFL-CIO.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

** Before we jump into the interview—as you may have noticed, the newsletter is currently operating without an advertiser, and is fully funded by readers like you. As such, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription today!

Max: Can you tell me about your own history working in unions?

Jason Small: I started at the most remedial level. The week I turned eighteen, I went and signed up for the laborers union. Before that, I was pulling lumber on a green chain and a sawmill. So I went from making about $6.50 an hour to working a Davis-Bacon job, somewhere around $18-19 an hour.

It’s a funny story: [A couple of years later, at the end of a job], I picked up a calf roping chute from a guy just south of D.C. in Front Royal, West Virginia. I was a young kid, twenty years old or something, and all I wanted to do was get home. I lived with my grandparents then. So I drove from Front Royal to Spearfish, South Dakota in a straight shot.

I was twenty-something hours into driving and I was starting to doze off. I had everything I owned in this old ‘86 Chevy pickup. And I was paranoid. It had a sliding rear window, and I had a 32-inch TV; boy, that was my prized possession. And I had about $20,000 in cash [that I took out of] the bank when I left. And I hid that cash under the seat of the truck and tied the power cord from the TV around my arm, and went to sleep for about four or five hours at a rest stop in South Dakota.

I pulled into my grandpa's house a few hours later. I unhooked the trailer from my pickup, went upstairs to my room and flopped down in bed. I got about ten minutes of sleep, and he came in there and kicked me in the feet: “Come on, we gotta go ride.”

And I was dying. And I looked at him and said the first thing that popped into my mind: “I'm gonna go register for school real quick. Today's the last day.”

It turns out it actually was the last day (laughs). I knew Sheridan, Wyoming had a good welding program. So I went and enrolled, did that, got a little degree in metallurgy and worked a job in Colstrip at the plant. And then got in a boilermakers union, and that's where I started. I was an apprentice boilermaker. I did my entire apprenticeship in about 23 months.

I was a journeyman and I stepped up. I started paying attention to a lot of stuff, and when I was back in Colstrip, I took the position of bull steward for all the unions out at the plant—that's the guy who does the union business. You resolve conflicts between the unions and the company.

Then I was president of the union for years. Meanwhile, I ran for a Legislative seat and won that. At the end of my term, I stepped down from the union presidency.

It's been an interesting ride, my friend.

What does your day-to-day look like right now?

Well, I control the inner workings of the AFL-CIO. We're involved in a ton of things: political campaigns, anything that's good for workers, middle-class families, stuff like that.

What’s it like being an Republican at the AFL-CIO?

Well, I'm the only one. It doesn't matter if I'm with Republicans or Democrats, I'm the odd man out. I fit in every room, but at the same time, I don't fit in any of them. I have good rapport across the board with most everybody.

I'm surrounded by people who are a little further left than me all the time, but I still talk to my same Republican friends. I'm still the pro-labor Republican guy. I don't like to dive off on the social issues stuff. I see no place for it in politics.

Does right-to-work feel like a pretty sharp divide within the GOP?

It could be, right? But there's never been a group of Republican legislators that were that extreme [to pass it]. A lot of them are union people anyway.

So Montana is kind of unique. Even though this is now a conservative state—and we have a Republican conservative majority—a lot of those folks are just people like me. They have some conservative values, but they're not against blue-collar workers making a fair paycheck. It has really surprised me, the folks that have come up to me over the years and said, “Hey, my grandkids are graduating or they got this going, you think you can help get them a good union job?” I’m always happy to help, and point them in the right direction.

Do you anticipate more attempts at right-to-work legislation this coming session?

Oh, I’m sure there will be. They'll try to make changes to how union members are paid in the workforce. There will be right-to-work. There always is, to some degree.

You don't sound terribly concerned, though?

Well, yes and no. You can't let your guard down. You can't let the camel's nose under the tent flap because then all of a sudden that son of a bitch is inside (laughs).

Who's the camel in this metaphor?

Take your pick (laughs).

What feel like your other top priorities in the 2025 session?

We would like to pass some legislation to fix prevailing wage laws and how prevailing wages are determined. There's always swings in the wages, right? It's just volatile. So it turns into a math game between the contractors and the unions and employers. This year we saw 30% swings in prevailing wages. Sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's lower.

Is there an industry in particular where that swing has been really dramatic?

This year it was truck drivers. We're in a nationwide truck driver shortage. And the prevailing wage calculation shows that they need to drop their wages 30%.

So what’s the mechanism to fix that issue?

Well, it can be done via “line of sight” through the Department of Labor and Industry. They can set prevailing wages using wage data that they directly receive into their system. And I think that could be a solution. It would prove somewhat less volatile. We haven't 100% locked in how we want to go about this yet, but that's one thing we're looking at.

One of the other more obvious things that should have been done a long time ago is make a push to require female portable restrooms on job sites, to have a better environment for the women workers.

We have some autonomous vehicle legislation we want to probably push, too. We want to get ahead of any bad legislation that's gonna coming up, and put sideboards on it so it's not out of hand.

Is the concern that autonomous vehicles could replace union jobs?

It's somewhat worker protection for the Teamsters. They drive trucks, vehicle operations, stuff like that. It's also a public safety deal. We just want to get ahead of it [in case] we start having accidents or shit like that.

We're gonna bring some legislation to shore a few things up. We might get involved in some electric vehicle stuff. I can't say that for sure yet.

We'll be supporting Medicaid reauthorization. That’s of the utmost importance if you're an Indian. It's one way to help fund the Indian Health Service, so it's extremely important to the tribes. That's also what's keeping all the rural clinics and hospitals open.

Switching gears, it was pretty clear this election season that a lot of union workers were not very enthused about Kamala Harris. What do you think went wrong for the Democrats, in terms of union support? Did you see a similar dynamic play out in Montana?

I think the building trade members tend to lead a bit further to the right. [But] I do know one thing—I think Jon Tester was pulling 57% among members.

Why do you think Harris struggled to make inroads with union members?

I think a lot of it would be the more environmental branches of the Democratic Party—it hurts a lot of folks' jobs.

At Colstrip, for sure. Obviously there's been an environmental tax on the new power plant that was built at Laurel. Enviros got that back-burnered for quite some time and got a permit yanked once. Those are blue-collar workers that are building that shit. And I think the general assumption among a lot of the workers is that the enviros and the Democrats are in lockstep.

We've seen the enviros lock up the permitting at Roundup [coal mine]. There's been battles over the years at the Stillwater mine. Enviros have on several occasions thrown them under the bus up there, but they've also made some agreements with them; Good Neighbor Agreements and whatnot.

You also can't overlook the elephant in the room: national Democratic messaging doesn't work well in Montana.

Jason, is there anything you want to add before we wrap up?

Advocating for workers' rights, that can go across the aisle, right? Everybody understands the importance of workers' rights; fair pay for a fair day’s work, worker protection that gives people some job security, so they're not always in peril or not always wondering if they're gonna have a job when they show up to work the next day.

We want Republicans to have good jobs, Democrats to have good jobs. I want women to have good jobs, men to have good jobs. Hell, it doesn't matter. I don't want your kids starting down at five bucks an hour. Let's get some fair wages. It's good for the economy. It keeps businesses open. Every dollar that comes into the state, into a worker's pocket, at least a fraction of that's gotta go to businesses in the state. That's how we keep the ball rolling.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all stripes…plus some arts & culture reporting, too.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox! That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

Once or twice a week, I’ll visit the digital music emporium Bandcamp to search for the latest releases from Montana artists. With rare exception, I am delightfully surprised—and occasionally left baffled—by what I find. Just the other morning, for instance, I listened to a high-octane fist-pumping howler from the Missoula punk trio Try Again, a slinky R&B number called “Tough Titty” from a band called Milk, and a Spanish-language, slow-burning waltz from a rafting guide who goes by Mákete. At least a dozen more acts had released music in the past few weeks, from club-ready EDM to trunk-shaking hip-hop and chaotic drone compositions from an ensemble called, alas, Panic Boner.

Amidst the deluge of new music this fall, a handful of Montana rock and roll bands have felt particularly captivating. Exuberant, punchy, and boasting a penchant for both terrific melodies and fast tempos, these groups are making the genre feel fresh and fun. Here are my favorites:

Senterline - I Spoke to the Sun Today

On their debut LP, the Missoula trio Senterline check a lot of boxes: arena-sized choruses, a walloping rhythm section, vivid guitar work and enough angst to fill a Kurt Cobain-sized hole in your heart. While the album front loads some of its more melodic moments, I love the full-throttle shredding that takes center stage on its back half, too.

Favorite track: “Something’s Gotta Give”

For fans of: Nirvana, driving over the speed limit, the Town & Country Lounge

Hey, ily! - Hey, I Loathe You!

I’ve been a huge fan of Billings’ Hey, ily! for years. Their pop-rock-punk songs tend to teeter, thrillingly, on the verge of collapse: a sunny chorus takes a nosedive into a stew of sound, a rock crescendo crumbles into a sea of digital feedback. The band’s new record, Hey, I Loathe You!, offers a more streamlined—but no less exciting—iteration of the band’s approach. This music will keep you on your toes—from the wild goop of “Wind-up Toy” to the super-catchy “(Dis)Connected.”

Favorite track: “Feel Good Forever”

For fans of: The Menzingers, Ataris, taking tequila shots and playing laser tag

The Gray Goo and Schticky -The Schticky Gray Goo EP

A split EP from two Flathead Valley bands—Schticky and the Gray Goo—the Schticky Gray Goo EP takes prog-rock shredding to hyperbolic new heights. All of the three tracks here extend past the 12-minute mark; suites full of fuzzy guitars, zany haunted house lyrics and chugging double-kick drums. (And hey, for the on-brand price of $6.66, it can be yours!)

Favorite track: “The Philosophers’ Stoned”

For fans of: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Spinal Tap, Halloween

** I’ll be doing more intermittent music reviews down the road. If you / your friend / your mailman / your ex has a cool band and is looking for coverage, please don’t hesitate to reach out! msavagelevenson@gmail.com.

One more thing…

My colleagues at the Political Climate podcast and I recently recorded an interview with US Rep. Bruce Westerman, the Republican Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Westerman brings his background in forestry and deep knowledge of energy policy to bear on a range of topics—from the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act and the potential of geothermal energy to his optimism about permitting reform. I can’t say I agree with every point that Westerman makes here, but I really appreciate his candor and the depths of his wonkiness!

You can give it a listen here.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all stripes…plus some arts & culture reporting, too.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox! That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

Last October, as you may recall, Montanans got some distressing news: our electricity bills were expected to see a 28% increase. Like many of you, my response was pretty knee-jerk: “WTF is going on?”

Much of the resulting anger and blame fell on the Public Service Commission (PSC), a five-member elected body that regulates many of the utilities that we use in Montana. In this instance, the PSC had approved a rate hike request, which came from NorthWestern Energy. Opponents described the increase as “devastating,” “rigged” and “opaque.” As Elena Evans, a Missoula-based geologist who ran for the PSC as an Independent this year (and lost) put it, “I’m a working mother with two kids, and I’m tired of politicians who refuse to stand up for Montana ratepayers.”

Few people are more qualified to offer a rebuttal than Brad Molnar. A Public Service Commissioner from 2005 to 2013, Molnar has additionally served a total of six terms in the state Legislature since 1993.

And now, he’s heading back to the PSC. This November, Molnar defeated Susan Bilo—a former specialist with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Gallatin College professor—to win the District 2 seat. The district extends from Bozeman to Billings along Montana’s southern border.

Beyond his decades of hands-on experience, Molnar has a reputation for candor, and for occasionally bucking his own party.

Our conversation (which spanned two separate interviews) touches on a wide range of energy-related topics. He and I agree on a few big points—namely, the imperative of affordable energy and a pragmatic approach to deploying renewables. Yet, as you’ll see, we disagree elsewhere—primarily about the threat posed by climate change, and the forces causing it.

Max: I saw that you studied journalism—what do you make of the state of journalism today?

Brad Molnar: I'm pretty disappointed in it. And that goes across the board. I listen to political stuff on the radio when I'm driving. In Montana, there is no left-wing radio talk show host. But in the more right-wing talk show stuff, as it regards Trump, it is almost all deflection and excuse-making when the truth is actually far, far more interesting. And I think the people deserve an unbiased view of their candidates, even if they're a Republican candidate. 

Does it feel like the PSC has changed since you were last part of it?

It has. The two people, I think, that share credit for fixing that are in major part [outgoing PSC Commissioner and President] Jim Brown and [Commissioner] Jennifer Fielder.

It's my understanding, and that would have to be, bold underline understanding, that we were missing filing dates for court actions where various groups were suing us. So we lost in court by default. Well, that's millions of dollars that [ends up in] people's utility bills.

Jim, being an attorney, informed them that this was no longer an option. He did it with what I would like to call quiet professionalism. You didn't see him grandstanding or thumping his chest. He just informed people, there’s a new sheriff in town, you don't wanna screw with me.

You know, we still don't agree on everything. He's gotten so mad at me, he wouldn't even talk to me (laughs).

How do you describe the power that the PSC holds?

We have greater responsibility and greater capacity than the Legislature to affect the economic wellbeing of Montana's families and employers. Far greater. 

You didn't see $495,000 [contributions] in the Supreme Court races1. You didn't see it in the governor's race. You didn't see in OPI, you didn't see it in any of the land board campaigns. You didn't see it scattered across the Legislature. The big fish, economically, is the Public Service Commission. 

They recognize that is the most important seat they can buy, but the Legislature will never say, yeah, these guys are more powerful, important than we are. The governor will never say that. I'm probably gonna get beat up for saying it myself, but [the aforementioned $495,000 contribution] to me shows that my statement is accurate.

Elena Evans ran for the PSC this year on a message of affordability, and frustration surrounding the rate hike. Do you think there's merit to that argument, or do you think there's a disconnect between the PSC’s decision and how it translates to utility bills?

I think there's a lack of education on it. When I was pounding doors, I would ask people, “Are you aware there's been a 28% rate increase?” And quite a few of 'em said yes.

Okay. First place. It's not 28%. Not that it makes much difference, but the ask was 28%. PSC trimmed maybe $35 million out of it. And then you get down to 24%.

That 24% is over four years. So you divide the 24% by four and now you're at 6%.
Take out the automatic passthroughs [including NorthWestern Energy’s property taxes and court-related costs] and you're down to about 3%.

The discussion should focus on the 3%. The first thing you have to focus on, in my humble opinion, is that that is about the rate of inflation for those four years.

If [the rate hike] is so horrific, why did none of these NGO’s take it to court? Because the arithmetic is right.

So I'm not saying I would've voted for it. I'm not saying I would've voted against it. I'm saying nobody challenged it.

People don't understand this. The PSC is quasi-judicial. You don't see Supreme Court justices writing editorials after a particularly viral vote: “Here's why I did what I did, and you need to understand this.” No. It's done. And now you just take the beating.

Just like the Legislature has fiscal notes on bills that impact state income. I want to do fiscal notes on anything we do that has a fiscal impact on rate payers, so that once the case is over, people that are interested can take a look at the pure simple math and how it affects various groups. The PSC should do it as a public service.

I think that a changing climate is one of the biggest challenges and threats that we face. Do you see a changing climate as a significant threat?

I don't see it as the greatest problem facing planet Earth. I'm gonna assume you're on the pro-environmental side.

When it's done right, yes. And when it's not, no.

Well, it's basically not done well at all. I would counter that I am not an atmospheric scientist. I'm not a climatologist, But I see things the same as everybody else does. When I was a young boy in northern Indiana I could step over the energy distribution lines and the phone lines as I walked up to the corner to get on the school bus, because the snow drifts were so high. My brother's a retired teacher. His wife's a retired teacher. [They still live nearby] and they can't remember the last [time that happened].

So there's been a change. I would counter with, okay, it always changes. I could also say that the shift of tectonic plates is just now being viewed as to its impact on climate.2 We know it was huge in the past, we don't know that it's huge right now. We know sun spots play a role. And those last for ten years at a time. If they start again, you get another 10 years. Solar flares are huge, especially if you trapped the energy here.3

There's a lot of arguments that can be made, but the one that can't be made is that the solution put forward that has been implemented, has changed the equation.

We have more wind, more solar power, more hydro power; we have more energy-efficient vehicles. We have all these things far, far, far greater than ever in the history of man. 

You see this as a problem. I don't see this as that big of a problem. Somebody born in the year 2030, when they turn 20 years old in 2050, that is the climate that they have always experienced. They're not gonna freak out because the oceans went up three centimeters. Take one step back, you'll be okay.

I consider myself a pragmatic professional. I will listen to people, I will take a look at their solutions. I will take a look at what they see as milestones being accomplished. I will check and see if it's accurate.

I picture the emissions that we emit like water gushing out of a bathtub faucet, and we've only lowered the rate of emissions by, like, 5%4. We haven’t made the large-scale changes that would show different results.

Right. Montana is 1/1000th of 1% of the contribution to global change, or climactic conditions or greenhouse gases. So if you move everybody out of Montana and all that's left is a giant buffalo commons and Missoula is sinking into itself and our only problem really is buffalo belches, we have affected this by 1/1000th of 1%. How much pain do you want to inflict to have zero change other than somebody feels gushy warm because they had everybody move?

I have a responsibility to the people, that their hopes and dreams will not be crushed in a meaningless effort with a meaningless success at the end.

Let's take the January [cold snap]. 22 below in Laurel, 35 below in Bozeman, 45 below on the Hi-line. If the environmental NGO’s have been successful and there was no electricity to buy in the Inter-Mountain West—and the reason it's $800 per megawatt is because there's little to buy—as they continue to be successful in shutting down base load and building windmills because subsidies are better than lawsuits, et cetera, et cetera, people across Montana would have died.

Do you support more renewable energy sources in Montana?

Montana code is 100% clear. The Public Service Commission may not include environmental externalities in their decision. So if I'm going to vote to include more renewable, it has to be for reasons other than environmental concerns. For example, I made the motion on the Diamond Willow Wind Farm, the first one, on the Bakken. It was small, 17 megawatts or something. I made that motion because where it would be used, and the reason for it being built, made good sense. It was a practical solution; at least it was a partial solution. It worked so well that eventually they built a much larger Diamond Willow 2.

So the constant irregularity of wind complimented the constant irregularity of the Bakken. It was a cost savings. It had nothing to do in my mind with “Wind is good because it's a green source.” It had to do with, at this location for this purpose, is this a proper application? And I said yes.

So a lot of this stuff that people think the PSC can do is dashed on the rocks of reality. We're not god-like creatures out there waving our little wand and making things happen (laughs). Whichever way we go, there's a good chance of being sued. We have to be able to defend our decisions.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with Montanans of all stripes…plus some arts & culture reporting, too.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox! That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

Before we get into today’s newsletter, I wanted to give you all a little context about Big Sky Chat House, and what it means to me.

This project arose from a specific set of circumstances. I wanted to report on the 2023 Montana State Legislature, but I couldn’t easily or reliably get myself to Helena: my vision is limited and I can’t legally drive a car.

Phone calls, thus, needed to suffice. When I started calling lawmakers and activists, I was shocked by how generous they were with their time; our conversations regularly stretched to ninety minutes or more. I rarely ended an interview without feeling surprised by something they said. That invaluable reminder—that people are always more complicated than we expect, or perhaps want, them to be—pushed me to keep at it. And that feeling hasn’t gone away.

Most BSCH interviews still take place over the phone. Every once in awhile, I’ll have the good fortune to meet up for a tete-a-tete in Missoula; I also try to line up interviews in Bozeman or Miles City if I’m visiting family there.

There will be plenty of politics coming in the next installments of the newsletter. But today, I wanted to write about something very, very close to home: the near-overnight arrival of a handful of terrific new businesses in my Missoula neighborhood, and what they mean for a low-vision person like myself. Bon appetit!

The Town & Country Lounge is the platonic ideal of a dive bar, and arguably the best bar in Missoula. It has always felt like an island, an outpost, a self-contained microcosm of hedonism a couple miles removed from the hubbub of downtown. The converted double-wide trailer sits alone at the corner of Third and Catlin Streets, at the edge of a vast parking lot that it shares with the Good Food Store; its immediate neighbors include Great Floors, Auto Zone, and O’Reilly Auto Parts. It is not, in other words, in the thick of the Missoula nightlife scene.

Recently, however, the corner has become a mini-hive of new activity, thanks to several new food trucks. Gary’s Local—in its second location, following the original on Front and Clay Streets—slings six dollar burgers in the glow of the T&C’s buttery yellow sign. You can often smell them from several blocks away, a tantalizing gust of sizzling meat on the breeze.

On a recent gloomy Sunday, despite a chilly drizzle, customers began lining up to place orders just minutes after the truck opened its window at 5 PM. Lines of string lights dangle overhead, adding to the good vibes, and a couple of picnic tables offer an option to sit, if you’re willing to put up with the fumes and the noise of Third Street. My burger arrived steaming in the evening air. It’s as simple as it is delicious—a juicy, tender patty made from local beef, a single slice of American cheese, and a generous topping of griddled onions.

Cozied up behind Gary’s is Little Pink—the truck offers a double smash burger and a Nashville hot chicken sandwich for about $15 each, among a handful of other sandwiches. Little Pink’s hours can be hard to keep track of, however—keep an eye on their Facebook page. (Other food trucks, including the Mexican Moose and La Boca, have parked at the T&C in the past.)

More good news came a couple of weeks ago when the bakery Grist opened its doors a little ways down on Third Street. Walking the few blocks down to the bakery that sunny opening day was euphoric—I kept running into people I knew, and everyone wanted to chat and catch up. This would have otherwise been a rare occurrence in the neighborhood, save for a run-in at the grocery store or the bar. (Or, on occasion, an encounter at the former that leads to the latter.) On my way to Grist, I felt like I was living in a true neighborhood, not just a place where people happen to live near each other.

Everything I’ve tried from the bakery has been top-notch, and refreshingly affordable. A terrific cup of drip coffee costs two bucks. Ditto for an oatmeal and brown butter cookie—it’s gloriously soft and chewy. Grist makes one of, if not the best, croissants in town. They also sell pizza dough and a ton of funky breads. Alas, they don’t offer much seating, but that’s okay—I’d be there every day if they did.

As a low-vision person, this shift in the neighborhood holds particular significance. I recognize that might sound overdramatic—after all, I can see enough to walk or bike myself downtown. And our (free) bus system ain’t half bad. But in a town that’s prone to inclement weather, especially in colder and darker months, the ability to get myself somewhere easily without having to consider the weather or whether I can bum a ride is extraordinary. Accessibility translates to agency, and agency translates to independence. Unless you’re living in a big city, or fortunate enough to live close to a downtown, this can be a rare commodity. Having a taste of it makes me feel anchored; it reinforces the feeling of home.

The Town & Country Lounge is a great unifier, especially in a town where cocktails seem to get pricier every time you blink. At the T&C, every slice of Missoula is represented. I’m so happy that these new businesses seem generally poised to follow suit and provide options for everyone. Thanks to them, this little corner of Missoula has begun to change from a place people pass through to a place people spend time. We’re all the better for it.

Aloha dear readers of the Big Sky Chat House,

I hope this finds you in good health, and freshly returned from a jaunt in the woods.

It has, as they say, been a minute. In my little corner of the world, the past few months have been…a lot. Along with my delightful “Political Climate” podcast teammates, I dove into the (very drunken) belly of the beast at the Republican National Convention, and navigated the (significantly less festive, but much better-dressed) waters of the Democratic National Convention. I got my wisdom teeth yanked. I lost a dear friend and mentor.

And, a few weeks ago, I married my best friend, wisest counsel and most loving partner, Lacy. It was perfect. And if you’d paid to subscribe to this newsletter, you would’ve gotten an invite. Just kidding. Maybe.

I’ve missed putting the newsletter together—not just the chance to get heady with our elected officials and public figures, but to hear from you all. I’ve loved that connection, and I’m excited to get back in touch.

I don’t know exactly what this next iteration of Big Sky Chat House will bring. There will still be Q&A’s, but I also want to mix it up—some music reviews, some editorials, some bitching about overpriced Missoula restaurants. Sky’s the limit. Rumor has it there’s another legislative session coming up, and I’ll be keen to pick the brains of some of the lawmakers cooped up in Helena, desperately yearning for a nosy journalist to ask them about their policy positions.

If this fuckscape of an election season taught me anything, it’s that talking to each other, especially when we disagree, is a good thing. As such, I hope that Big Sky Chat House can be a place where readers and interviewees of all political stripes and backgrounds feel welcome, and welcome to disagree. It’s been a pleasure learning from you all, and I’m excited for what the next chapter has in store.

Peace, love, and decarbonization,

Max

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House—a newsletter of candid conversations with movers and shakers in Montana.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox. That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

Earlier this month, the veteran Montana politician John Driscoll beat three opponents to win the Democratic nomination for Eastern Montana’s congressional race. In November, Driscoll will face off against current State Auditor (and Big Sky Chat House alumni) Troy Downing.

Driscoll has been deeply involved in Montana politics for decades. He served as both Speaker and Majority Leader of the state House in the 1970’s, and as a Public Service Commission (PSC) commissioner in the early ‘80s. While the tenor of his campaign can occasionally harken to a bygone era, he nonetheless approaches contemporary issues with strong conviction.

Read on as Driscoll brings his perspective to bear on a range of topics—from his approach to clean energy in Montana to his criticisms of former President Trump, his confidence in President Biden and more.

Max: You aren’t accepting donations for this campaign. Why not?

John Driscoll: It's a combination of reasons. The first times I ran, I never had to collect much money. I would just go talk to people.

But [in 1978] I ran for US Senate [as a Democrat in the primary election]. Paul Hatfield was the incumbent senator. He'd been appointed to replace [Democrat Lee] Metcalf, and [Democrat Max] Baucus was the incumbent Congressman. I had been his manager the first time he ran for Congress. I knew Max pretty well, and I wanted to take a shot at it.

I worked my tail off, and I raised around $67,000-$68,000 from all my friends and relatives. And they were all excited. It was pretty neat. I came in third, I got 18% of the vote. Max and Hatfield were both good candidates. They were probably better candidates than me, but the thing that really got me was disappointing other people that had put their money into it.

Money was hard to come by. That was 1978, and you could own a house free and clear in Hamilton for $16,000 a pop. And it's like, my God, I just blew four houses. This is ridiculous. This is real money. I just didn't want to do that anymore.

I think the chase after money has gotten way out of hand. It just never stops, and it takes [candidates] away from the work that needs to be getting done. They don't like [fundraising].

But at the other extreme, you get a guy like the former president inviting all the oil company executives [and asking them] “What are your wildest dreams? Okay, I'll write that down. Now you give me a billion dollars.” Why can’t people see that something's really wrong with that?

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It seems like you're running a decidedly lo-fi campaign. I couldn't even find a website for you. How are folks finding out about you?

What I decided to do is just my normal life. So when I'm in Helena and I take my walks, I see my normal friends and they're all worried about me (laughs). But I really like my life. So my [campaign] website is my normal Facebook website.
I'm reading [Norman Maclean’s] Young Men in Fire right now into a kind of a podcast. I'll put that on [my Facebook] when I'm done, because I really think people need to listen to something that's calming.

Some of the right-wing extremists, their purpose is to disrupt and upset people. If people remember the normal things, it'll be helpful.

Yesterday I met with the COPE [Committee on Political Education] for the AFL-CIO. I think there were 80 unions represented there. I answered all their questions as best I could, and they were very nice to me. And then I came home and today they let me know that they're not going to take a stand on my race in Eastern Montana, which is fine. I understand that.

Do you anticipate running any ads as we get closer to the election?

No ads at all. I've sent out some letters to the editor during the primary. [Next week] I'm gonna go up to the American Legion in Glasgow, then drop down to Miles City to talk to the Miles City Star there and show them where I grew up. And then go over to Billings for an interview with Russell Rowland. I'm just doing what I think would be helpful. We'll just see what happens.

Given your experience and perspective, what do you make of the PSC right now and the tone in the Legislature?

If I pay too close attention to that stuff, it's very upsetting to me. The Speaker’s job was to create the conditions for people to talk to each other, to solve the state's problems. And that is not what's been going on recently. It's about pushing an agenda. It's ridiculous. It won't last forever, but it's hard for me to watch. There'll be some people in there someday who will get it straightened out.

Having [censured state Representative] Zooey [Zephyr] sit out in the lobby, that is not something that would happen on my watch. I could tell you that right now. I talked to Zooey and I said, “I was really proud of you. You handled yourself so darn well compared to what the leadership did.”

I went back [to the PSC for] the first time in 30 years last month when the petitioners for the Held case showed up to ask for a change in rules on incorporating the impact on the environment. I thought they did a wonderful job.

Speaking of climate, how do you effectively message the need for change, and the solutions, to folks who aren't already on board?

It's our primary problem. You watch the nonsense talk take place and watch political people tell working stiffs what they want to hear, which isn't true. And then try do your best to offer a solution.

I've been thinking about it for a long time, what we should do in Montana. I talked to the unions about that yesterday. I suggested some ways I would work to extend the WAPA power lines from Fort Peck and the AC/DC Intertie at Miles City west so we can electrify the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad. [I also suggested we] put some nuclear plants at Miles City so we can get the electricity in addition to the wind we'd pick up along the Canadian border.

We’ve got four oil refineries in my would-be district. And together they do 220,000 barrels of oil a day. And those need to be changed over to hydrogen manufacturing.

I strongly believe that if we're gonna get in this nuclear game, we gotta take care of the nuclear waste. We’ve got 270,000 metric tons of nuclear waste sitting around on the surface of the earth right now because nobody can deal with it because of the “Not in my backyard” phenomena. [Note: The 270,000 tons figure is about a decade old. Recent estimates put the total closer to 390,000 tons.]

How do you sell voters on these policies? Is it jobs creation? Is it saving taxpayers money?

It's that for sure. But also I think people are concerned about the climate change. I really do.

You’ve described a threat to our constitutional democracy as “the greatest threat” we face. When you talk to undecided voters, how do you articulate the significance of that threat?

I try not to spend a lot of time on it because “You-know-who” has been occupying all of our brain space, so we're not getting anything constructive done.

I was in the Montana National Guard for a long time, and part of my responsibilities was operational security for the Guard. So I had to go learn more about this right-wing phenomena. I won't go into all the details of what I got involved in, but they're kooks crazies, crusaders and criminals.

You’ve got Putin, who suggested this Deep State thing, and then Trump's picked up on it. And now Trump wants to crush the Deep State.

I was speaking down in Boulder, and I told them my father was a highway patrolman for his whole life. He was an honest cop. And he came over here to Boulder and he worked with the developmentally-disabled for 11 years, after 26 years as an honest cop. So I guess that makes him a card-carrying member of the Deep State. Honest cops, good teachers, that's who the Deep State is.

I was gonna introduce myself as Deep State Driscoll, but my wife said, don't you dare do that.

I'll be sure to address you as Deep State Driscoll the next time we chat.

With reverence.

Republican lawmakers and candidates often frame the situation at the southern border as a threat to the United States. Do you consider that threat overstated, and what do you think is the appropriate response to the situation?

Michael Jackson said the greatest entertainer in the history of the world was Adolf Hitler. Well, now I'm saying Trump is—if not the greatest entertainer—the greatest clown and con artist. He's really good at keeping people's attention. You gotta give him that.

The whole thing at the border, it's about keeping the ball in the air that so it can't get solved, so he can display a little bit of power by telling these people in Congress, “Don't do this until I get there and solve it.” That's what I think's going on. I'm certain that's what's going on.

I think that we're perfectly capable of getting on top of it and managing it. The compromise that they had from the Senate and the House…it's now being billed as a messaging bill, but it was good. It [would have dictated that] you only get amnesty if you come across at the port of entrance instead of all this distance in between. Now that's a good idea. Can you imagine if somebody showed up at the university on registration day and they all came through the windows and the doors?

I really think [we need to] treat the people properly so they're protected. They're very vulnerable to all these other characters that are out there, like Trump. Trump's a predator just like these other characters.

I would like to see more English as a Second Language taught immediately while they're being processed; speed up the processing in every way possible. They're gonna need to speak English.

Do you think Joe Biden is a liability to the Democratic Party?

I think he's strong. I do. He has very good judgment. He knows how to be calm when things are tough, and very methodical. [But] he's so gaga over that Netanyahu, I can't even believe it. Netanyahu is a crook. He's a racist crook.

He should have been kicked under the curb. I do think we have to cut off [Israel’s] weapons because they've shown themselves to be an entirely different kind of government than what I thought they were. The Israelis need to clean that government up—with or without help from their relatives in the States—before we do anything else with them.

Biden is an excellent tempered guy. But he's just got a blind spot for that Netanyahu. I don't get it.

Before we wrap up—has there been anything that’s really surprised you about this race?

I knew I was gonna win the primary. That didn't surprise me. And that makes a few people mad. But it's the truth. I've been in so many elections and I never had so many people come up to me and tell me from all ages that they were gonna vote for me. I was like, “Wow, this is a new experience.”

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

One more thing (or two)…

I had a lot of fun interviewing the two candidates seeking to represent downtown Missoula in the state House—Democratic incumbent SJ Howell and the irreverent Republican Paul Buckles—for the lovely folks at The Pulp. The two interviewees have different approaches, to put it mildly.

You can read the interview with Representative Howell here, and the interview with Mr. Buckles here.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House— a newsletter of candid conversations with movers and shakers in Montana.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox. That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

Since its inception in early 2023, the Montana Freedom Caucus has regularly been described as “far-right” and “extremist” due to the divisive social bills its members have sponsored—including the “drag ban”—and the extremely inflammatory rhetoric espoused by some of its members, including the deliberate misgendering of transgender state Representative Zooey Zephyr.

The group has nonetheless quickly become a significant and contentious force within the Montana Republican Party, as evidenced by the six-figure effort made by moderate Republicans—via the Conservatives4MT PAC—to thwart its ascent during last week’s primary elections.

I recently caught up with state Senator Barry Usher, a four-session lawmaker and the Freedom Caucus treasurer, as well as a Coast Guard veteran, for a wide-ranging conversation. Read on as Usher takes stock of the primary results, argues that the Freedom Caucus is less extreme than many Montanans believe and explains his opposition to Montana’s abortion access constitutional initiative, which will appear on the November ballot if it gathers enough signatures.

Max: Was there was anything particularly surprising to you in terms of how this month’s primary elections played out for legislative seats?

Senator Barry Usher: There were a few that were surprising. Obviously losing both Knudsens in their primaries was a shocker. Rhonda has done a great job for the people of Montana. And then the Galloways; I mean, [Lola Sheldon-Galloway] is the Vice Chair of the state GOP.

Steve [Galloway] is one of the best at energy and looking at all energy—“all of the above”—whether it's oil, gas, coal, looking at solar and wind and nuclear. I know he has traveled quite a bit around the country to look at what other places in the country are doing, and looking at the electrical grid.

As the treasurer of the Freedom Caucus, how did you pick candidates to support? My understanding is that the Conservatives4MT PAC had the Freedom Caucus pretty well outspent.

We figure we were outspent ten to one.

We looked at who was the more conservative person in [various races]. We spent money on maybe twenty races: significantly on the Galloways, Knudsens, [Speaker of the House Matt] Regier, [state Senator Theresa] Manzella, Kathy Love. We had some hard losses. The majority of our other spends, we did get across the finish line.

[Regarding] Conservatives4MT, there's not a conservative bone in their body. So I think that's deceptive.

We as a Freedom Caucus, we're not going to change our name to deceive voters. And obviously the [moderate] Solutions Caucus doesn't believe in their name, so they had to create a PAC with some fictitious name. They also had the Hospital Association on their side. I understand that Governor Gianforte put money in against us.

I think we were effective based on our strategy of staying positive. We created a PAC with our name on it. We stand by what we believe in. We're not a radical right-wing organization, but we surely are not moderate or liberal.

What do you mean when you say that Conservatives4MT “doesn't have a conservative bone in their body?”

A lot of it has to do with tax and spend. We had approximately $3 billion worth of surplus, and we think that $3 billion worth of surplus should have gone back to the citizens that overpaid, because it's the citizens’ money. Whereas the Solutions Caucus, with the governor, decided to spend the majority of that money. They gave a little bit back to the citizens to make them feel like they got something. The percentage was [about 30% that] went back to the citizens.

[Note: I reached out to Senator Usher following our interview to clarify the figure above. News sources regularly peg the surplus at $2.5 billion, but he reiterated that he believes it’s more than $3 billion.]

Our citizens right now, with inflation and being overtaxed, are hurt. It costs more to go to the grocery store. Look at the gas prices, energy's going up, everything's going up. And they're paying more in taxes with property tax issues. We tried to call for a special session back in [November] to deal with the property tax issues. And the Solutions Caucus with the Democrats turned that down. That's just one issue.

You mentioned that you think Governor Gianforte put some money into Conservatives4MT. Will his endorsements of more moderate candidates, as well as that money, impact the way that you work with him?

It will definitely impact the way we work with him. But that doesn't mean that we don't have good ties with the governor. We believe that we can work with this governor or any governor on the things that we can agree on.

I think the governor made a statement when he did those endorsements and he put money in those races in a primary, which is unprecedented. He definitely aligns with the Solutions Caucus and more moderate tax-and-spend values.

The Freedom Caucus is often described as “far-right.” To your earlier point, what's your argument that that isn’t the case?

I would say that in the Freedom Caucus, we have some people that are farther to the right, and we have some people that are in the middle. We come out with a balanced approach. We have our discussions, we have our arguments. If we had a Republican Party that stuck together, that's what we would expect the Republican Party to do, too. We compromise within the Freedom Caucus.

[Someone] might be able to point out, “Oh, this person was radical because of this,” or “This person was radical because of that.” Well, it doesn't mean it's the entire platform of the Freedom Caucus.

One of the hit pieces, [Conservatives4MT] called it “Defund the National Guard.” Well, if you look at that bill, it was actually “Defend the National Guard.”

We do not want our National Guard to be used as a tool by the federal government for wars around the world that are not declared wars by Congress.

Our US Constitution says that only Congress can declare war. And we're all about that. But to send our people around the world and put their lives on the line [for a war] that has not been sanctioned by Congress is not what we want our Montana National Guard soldiers to do.

But that's how the Solutions Caucus wins. They twist and deceive. If voters could actually just hear the truth and vote for what they believe in, we win, hands down, every time.

When I interviewed him for this newsletter, Representative Bedey said something to the effect that the Republican Party should be a big tent and that the approach taken by the Freedom Caucus is taking the Party in the opposite direction. What do you make of that argument?

You know, I think it would be great if we were a great big tent.

If he said that to me, I would refer him to the GOP platform. I remember last year or two years ago at the GOP platform convention, he tried to make a few changes. And he actually got laughed at because the majority of the people at the platform convention did not agree with him. You would think that might be a wake-up call to people in the Solutions Caucus: you tried to change the platform and the majority of the people there did not agree with you so much that they laughed at you.

Senator Usher, are there other issues you want to highlight before we wrap up?

We need to get involved in the judicial races. The citizens need to be more informed. The judicial races in the state of Montana are the most important races in our state. It doesn't matter what governor we have, it doesn't matter the makeup of the Legislature or what laws we pass if our Supreme Court is able to throw them out [for reasons I believe to be] unconstitutional.

The uninformed voters need to be informed about the judicial races so we can get a more balanced Supreme Court that actually looks at our constitution and the rule of law.

The second thing is Montanans need to look at these potential ballot initiatives. I'm all about letting the people speak, but the danger of ballot initiatives is the uninformed voter, because voters may or may not understand what the unintended consequences are.

What’s an example of an unintended consequence?

“Access to abortion or reproductive rights.” That's what they're calling it. That's a great title. And I'm sure their narrative will say that every individual female should have the right to decide their reproductive decisions. How could anybody say no to that?

But if you look at that initiative and how it's written, it is so vague that really it could be extreme if it passes, just like [former Virginia Governor Northam] wanted to allow babies to be killed after they were born and the parents could make the decision. [Note: News sources including the AP and Reuters have strongly disputed this claim.]

It also doesn't define who's allowed to do those abortions. Does that mean the dentist could do it? Or a preacher could perform the abortion? It's mind-boggling that that's even being proposed. It's just too vague.

[Note: I reached out to Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, the organization behind the constitutional initiative, for a comment on this last point. A spokesperson responded: “No, that is absolutely absurd. Neither of those examples are qualified healthcare professionals licensed to provide abortion care. They can’t perform abortions now, and they cannot perform abortions if CI-128 passes in November.”]

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Welcome to Big Sky Chat House— a newsletter of candid conversations with movers and shakers in Montana.

If you found this email in your Promotions folder, please move it to your Primary inbox. That will make it easier to find down the road, and teach Gmail to send it to other subscribers’ Primary inboxes as well.

In her campaign for the state Legislature, Kathy Hoiland has struck a different tone than most other Republicans candidates.

Hoiland—who is running in the June 4 primary against Brandon Ler to represent the newly-formed HD 33—describes herself as a staunch Republican. Yet in her campaign to unseat Ler (who represented HD 35 until districts were re-drawn this cycle) Hoiland has focused much of her attention on her own party, and what she sees as the “tyranny” of its right flank.

Her criticisms have drawn fierce pushback. In late March, for instance, state Senator Steve Hinebauch published a letter describing Hoiland as a “so-called” Republican and insinuating that her stances—including her approach to abortion rights—were disingenuous. In response, Hoiland wrote a letter of her own in which she alleges that Hinebauch and some of his colleagues “neither care for religion nor politics and instead throw them in a blender” to nefarious ends.

Read on as Hoiland digs into her criticisms of the GOP, explains why she is nonetheless running as a Republican and offers her take on the censure of Democratic state Representative Zooey Zephyr.

Max: In your op-ed “I am a true Republican,” you describe factions of the Montana GOP as a “franken-theocracy.” Can you explain what you mean by that term?

Kathy Hoiland: Franken-theocracy for me, it means that they've taken some American values—not all of them—and some Christian values, and they've thrown them in a blender into something that doesn't look like either of those things.

I grew up in a very conservative Christian home with strong Republican family members. For me, those have always been separate in my mind. And so, to watch people mix them together into a stew, into a franken-theocracy—where there are people who are actively trying to impose their Christian values that don't match every Christian's values onto our state and to our nation—it's shortsighted.

That's what opens the door to losing your religious freedom altogether.

I’m a little confused about that last part. Is your argument that anyone who doesn't adhere to a particular definition of Christianity would lose their religious freedom?

Yes and no. If we start imposing religious precedents in our laws, what happens when somebody doesn't agree? We've opened the floodgates so that anybody can legislate their own morals instead of leaving people alone. This is Montana. We are a live and let live state. As long as I'm not hurting you and you're not hurting me, we stay out of each other's business. We help each other, but we don't tell people how to live. To see that threatened makes me nervous.

It's gotten weird. Never before in my life have I been called “not a real Republican” (laughs). I've been a Republican my whole life; my family's Republican. I grew up listening to talk radio with my dad. My grandma was an election judge. My brother is a Navy veteran. All of a sudden people are trying to tell me who I am. And I'm like, but you're wrong.

It's about privacy, right? I get to raise my children the way I want to raise my children. I get to choose what I'm doing with my body. All of these things within reason.

To play devil’s advocate, what one person considers “within reason” is not necessarily the same for everyone.

The measuring stick is the harm [something] could cause. If someone is not doing you harm, we don't need to change what they're doing. Raising children is a really good example: we know that it is harmful to starve a child. That's not a choice I get to make. You have to feed your children.

But does it do harm to my child to have them read the Bible every night or not have them read the Bible every night? No, that's a preference.

I was curious if there are a couple points where you’re generally aligned with the Montana GOP?

The Republican Party has always stood for lower taxes, smaller government and privacy. Those things I align with, but I don't align with centralizing all the tax money in Helena. I don't align with standing only on social issues. Those things I'm not here for.

The regular Republicans, I don't have a problem with [them].There's a lot of really good people who run or are sitting in the Legislature.

In light of these pretty bold differences you have with the current iteration of the GOP, I was curious if you considered running as an Independent instead of a Republican?

The current iteration of the Party does not mean that this is the way the Party is forever.

I've been a Republican my whole life. And Republicans aren't a monolith any more than Democrats are, or Independents. That's been the beauty of American politics—previous to the last 20 years, I think— people voted both parties. My dad has always said to me, you don't vote for the party, you vote for the person. And the letters behind people's names were an indicator, not an identity.

Currently, nine Republican candidates are running to represent Eastern Montana in Congress. Is there anyone in particular whose campaign resonates with you?

I appreciate Joel Krautter, because he does work well with others. And he is more of a big-picture thinker.

I do like Ric Holden as a person. He's a neat guy and I think he would do good things for agriculture; he's an expert in that for sure. But Joel has earned my vote.

During the last legislative session, Republicans in the state House voted unanimously to censure Representative Zooey Zephyr. If you had been in the Legislature at the time, would you have voted with them?

I don't think I would have. We all make mistakes. From what I understand, she did break the rules of the floor. However, that ultimately left her district with no representation over a few comments. I mean, we've started revolutions over that; ultimately that's taxation without representation. And it's not okay.

Have you heard from folks privately within the GOP who support your campaign?

I've been very fortunate that the people who know me and my community have been overall supportive. On the political side, less so (laughs).

It's been an interesting campaign. The Dawson County Republican Central Committee posted a picture on Facebook of my sign in the yard of somebody who has a Jon Tester sign as well, and wrote the caption, “Birds of a feather flock together.” That was a pretty strong indicator of how they feel about me. Politically, there's not a whole lot of people that are willing to put their necks out.

Kathy, before we wrap up, is there anything you want to highlight that we didn't chat about?

One of the hardest things I heard from a constituent was when I knocked on her door and I asked, “What matters to you?” And she said to me “My voice doesn't matter.”

It broke my heart, to be quite frank, because everyone's voice matters. You don't always get your way, but your voice matters. I want to show this district how much they matter, and I want them to get to have the benefits of this great state.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.