David Bedey takes his own party to task

The Hamilton Republican throws shade on GOP leadership, talks Iran and discusses the drama surrounding Fireweed.

Courtesy of Rep. David Bedey

When Representative David Bedey and I first spoke, in 2023, he was already at odds with much of his own party. At the previous year’s state GOP Platform Convention, for instance, Bedey had sought to remove accusations of fraud in the 2020 election in Montana from the official party platform, and called for victims of rape and incest to be able to access abortions. The former proposed amendment was met with jeers, and both amendments were shot down. “This is not to say anything to disparage the people here, but the point I want to make is that this is not representative of the entire Republican Party,” Bedey told Montana Free Press at the time. “And it’s certainly not representative of the conservative or Republican views of the people in my district.”

In the subsequent years, the gulf between Bedey and the GOP has widened further; these days, the four-term lawmaker is effectively a pariah in his own party.

This spring, he is being primaried in his race for state Senate (District 43) by Representative Kathy Love, who has been endorsed by CPAC, the Montana Freedom Caucus and Americans for Prosperity, among others. In ads and in official party statements, Bedey’s GOP opponents have attacked both his voting record and his decision to hire Fireweed, a consulting firm whose president previously worked for the state Democratic Party.

In our wide-ranging interview — conducted shortly after an afternoon he spent engaged in debate with students at Hamilton High School — Bedey pushed back on the accusations regarding his voting record. He also threw shade at party leaders, from GOP state Chairman Art Wittich to Senate President Matt Regier, weighed in on Seth Bodnar’s Senate run and brought his military background to bear on the war in Iran.

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Max: When you and I chatted last, it wasn’t long after you raised a bit of a ruckus at the Platform Convention. How has your relationship to the GOP evolved since then?

Rep. David Bedey: Yeah, well, it’s evolved in the following way: ever since Art Wittich was selected to be the new party chairman last June, the Montana State GOP headquarters has taken a decidedly different approach to how the party is going to move forward.

It has decided that the state party is going to do two things: number one, it’s going to develop the legislative agenda for the party for the upcoming legislative session. And then it’s also going to have a special committee that is going to vet candidates to ensure that they are true Republicans and are faithful to the party platform.

I remember the last time you and I spoke, you described the Republican Party as a big tent.

Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should be a big tent. And by that, he meant it should be a place that’s congenial for anybody on the right. Back in his day, there were various versions of conservatives: fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, paleo conservatives. His notion was that the party should be broad enough to encompass all of those various, sometimes overlapping ideologies.

And at that time, the Democratic Party was also a big-tent party. There were moderate Democrats. There were even some Democrats that you could characterize as conservative Democrats.

Bottom line is, both parties were big-tent parties; any citizen could find a place in one party or the other.

What we [currently] see in Montana is something of a reflection of what’s going on nationally. Here we see both parties being more and more in the grips of what I’ll call the extreme fringes, whether it’s the ultra-progressive fringe or the Freedom Caucus / John Birch Society fringe.

Most Montanans, I think, would be best characterized as independents. They occupy ground that is near the middle; neither one of our parties is interested in representing the middle anymore.

The Democratic Party has run people out of its party, I know that for a fact. And I know a very good young Democrat legislator who left politics because of the abuse she received after crossing party lines on just a handful of votes. And what you see playing out on the Republican side is an effort by Art Wittich and his cronies to purge the Republican Party of people that won’t support the party line.

I think it’s really that simple. It’s really dangerous for our politics, because, to be honest with you, from what I can see, there is no interest in compromise between the factions that are controlling the two parties.

It’s an awful situation. And I am no longer recognized by the Montana GOP as being a Republican.

During the 2025 legislative session, nine Republicans in the Senate worked with Democrats to get what I would argue were some pretty moderate bills passed. Does that bipartisanship feel like an exception to the rule to you?

I’ll tell you my view on that. So what did they actually work together on that was of great import? One thing was an extension of Medicaid expansion, which, by the way, Governor Gianforte supported, as long as it had work requirements.

And you could also argue that President Trump supports it, because President Trump has had opportunities to kill Medicaid expansion. And he actually continued Medicaid expansion, but with federal work requirements, which, by the way, the federal work requirements look an awful lot like the ones that Montana put together in 2019.

I know it was a high-priority [issue] for Democrats, and it was also a high-priority thing for people on the right, including President Regier, who wanted to terminate Medicaid expansion for what I consider crass political reasons. They wanted to become famous for killing a program that serves the working poor.

You can check the statistics from the Department of Labor and Industry: the latest report shows that 72 percent of people on Medicaid expansion are working. Two-thirds of them are working full-time. It is not a program for bums. It’s a program for the working poor or disabled or single or primary caregivers, predominantly.

The other thing they worked on together was property tax reform. And that was also based upon work that the Governor’s Property Tax Task Force did.

There was bipartisan opposition to that, most of it coming from the Republicans. But if you take a look at people like the Democratic Minority Leader from the House, she was all about scuttling the bill as well. And the other key issue that that group in the Senate opposed is the introduction of partisan judge elections.

Those are the three major issues. In my view, it was a healthy exception to the hyper-partisanship that we’ve seen.

You used the phrase “crass politics” to describe President Regier’s opposition to Medicaid expansion. What do you mean by that?

I believe, in the run-up to the session, word was getting around that Republican Senate leadership sought to control the Legislature in part for the purpose of killing Medicaid expansion.

And if Montana had killed Medicaid expansion, it would have made national news. And so that’s what I mean by that. Now, I don’t actually have transcripts of this, but I have it on—the word was around.

And in fact, the entire dust-up about the nine senators who broke rank was really precipitated by a move made by President Regier and some of the people around him, notably Senator Zolnikoff from Billings, to engineer a committee structure within the Legislature that would allow them to control the flow of legislation, including Medicaid expansion, and bottle it up. So those nine people, they objected to the rigging of the committee assignments.

And so, as I see it, the nine joined the Democrats in order to set the committee membership straight. There’s this false narrative coming out of the Senate that somehow the Democrats ran the Senate; I think it’s absolutely false. But it’s good for stirring people up, I suppose.

You probably listened to some of the floor debate in the Senate; it was cringeworthy, to put it mildly. And all because the efforts of President Regier and Zolnikoff and several other people around them to rig the Senate committee membership so that they could exert undue control over the Legislature, and in fact be in a position to defy the governor.

That all came to an end on the first day of the session when a group of courageous people decided it was time to make sure that we had functioning committees that would ensure that all bills got a fair hearing rather than having bills held hostage; there’s no doubt in my mind that that’s exactly what was the intent.

And when that intent was thwarted on the first day, I would have thought that Regier and company would have simply accepted the fact that their plan was thwarted and would move on with doing business, but instead they behaved in a way that can only be called petulantly for weeks, if not the entire session.

It had the effect of slowing down legislation. It had the effect of really complicating our efforts to give property tax relief to Montana homeowners, which didn’t pass until the last day of the session and should have passed sometime in February.

Of course, the nine have been excommunicated from the party, and now I guess 17 or 18 of us have been excommunicated or are no longer recognized by the party.

My view on that is I don’t recognize the party’s authority to tell me whether I’m a Republican or not.

A few minutes ago you said that the two parties by and large represent the extremes more than the middle. With that in mind, what do you make of Mr. Bodnar’s run for Senate?

I know Mr. Bodnar a bit. During the Legislature, I had him in front of my education budget committee, the Joint Appropriations Committee for Education. And so I got to know him in that respect, and I also saw him in Missoula a number of times having to do with some local issues with respect to Bitterroot College and that sort of thing.

I hold Seth Bodnar in high regard. I think he’s an excellent man. In my mind, he did good things at the University of Montana. And of course, Seth and I have a common bond based on the fact that we were military officers.

His run for the Senate is interesting because I think it is an expression of frustration that we have with the status quo in terms of the parties. We see the dysfunction in Washington.

And all you have to do is take a look at George Washington’s farewell address when he [addressed] factions, political parties, and how much of a danger they could pose. My argument there is as long as they’re broad parties, big tent parties, that problem is mitigated. But Washington’s concerns have come home to roost.

With respect to Seth Bodnar’s run, my only thought there is I’m not sure that the time is quite ripe yet because just of all of the turmoil at the national level and the great deal of animosity that’s felt amongst people, I’m not sure that the timing is right. But I think that Seth Bodnar’s run as an independent is an expression of... How do I want to say this? I think it is a legitimate reaction to the failure of both political parties. Whether he can pull this off or not, I don’t know.

And of course, from a political standpoint in Congress, being an independent without a caucus makes for a pretty tough life. But I commend his courage in making this run because I’m confident that his motivations are driven by the same kind of concerns that I have about the danger to our Republic that is the result of the failure of both of our major political parties.

If the two major parties really are that dysfunctional, shouldn’t this be an opportune time for him to run?

We are in an unusual political time with, on one side, the MAGA faction, and on the other side, the anti-Trump faction, who are both very dug in in their positions. And much of the political messaging going on is coming from those kinds of voices.

Let’s talk about some of these allegations that have been raised against you during this campaign. Can you give readers some big-picture context there?

Here’s the big-picture point. There have been a number of different allegations made against me, challenges to my voting records specifically, against me and several other people.

Usually the presentation looks exactly the same. It’s just a different name and a different face on the radio ad or whatever. It started in October with attacks coming from Americans for Prosperity in the name of accountability and voter education.

I’ve been attacked for blowing up the state budget, for allowing illegal aliens to get driver’s licenses, for allowing cities to spend like drunken sailors, to advocating for TIF reform, which is ripping people off. And most recently, it’s been DEI, wokeness, transgender issue that they seem to be really focusing on as the ballots have come out. And I will tell you that every single thing that they have represented about my voting record has been a gross distortion of the record, and in some cases have been outright lies.

I’ll give you one example: The driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, well, really, if you actually look at the bill, you’ll see it’s a bill to have a two-year driving permit to non-citizens who have proven with documented proof that they’re in the country legally. And they must also show proof of insurance and pass Montana driver’s tests. So it has nothing to do with illegal aliens, and yet that’s the way it’s portrayed because immigration’s a hot-button issue for Republican voters.

But the hottest button issue is the transgender issue. And in the case of the transgender issue, if you want, I can rehearse the same arguments I made in [a recent Facebook] video. Let’s just say the bills that they cited were bills for a grant program for small entities all across the state to give them operating cash between $10,000 and $20,000.

If you look up House Bill 9 you’ll see is it just a list of entities. They might be libraries, museums, Hamilton Playhouse is there, that’s a theater group, all across the state. And it shows the name of the entity and the amount of money that they’re being granted to support their operations.

Doesn’t mention DEI, doesn’t mention transgender, doesn’t mention wokeness. And if you look a little further, this bill comes up every year because it’s part of a program that’s been in place since 1979.

The recommendations come from the Governor’s Arts Council. So if I’m guilty of this, I guess he’s complicit in it as well. But the fact is there’s no mention of any of that because we don’t fund specific projects or doing, we’re giving them operating cash. But the real hypocrisy in this and another part of the lie is that most in 2023, all Republicans, not all Republicans, but a majority of Republicans voted for the bill.

In 2025 on second reading, which as you know, is the key vote between the House and the Senate, a majority of Republican legislators voted for the bill. And Dan Bartel, the treasurer of the PAC that is running this against me, I think it’s Accountability in State Government, was in the Legislature in 2023. He voted for it.

They are representing House Bill 9 incorrectly. And if they’re going to prosecute me for that, they should be prosecuting a number of other people, including the treasurer of the organization who is putting out these slanderous ads.

At least one other out-of-state PAC that’s picking up on this transgender issue [has circulated] a rather crude card with a scalpel, indicating that I voted for continuing a program that allows surgical procedures on minors.

And the bill that they put forward for that is Medicaid expansion, continuation. Medicaid expansion is for people 19 through 64. Last time I checked, those aren’t minors. Because there is so much concern about this particular issue amongst many Republican primary voters, they’ve chosen to take this issue and make it the central attack on me and several others across as many others across the state. It’s a fabrication.

More recently, we’ve been attacked for doing business with [Fireweed], a quote unquote Democrat consulting firm. Last time I checked, when I go to the barber, I don’t ask my barber what political party they’re in. If I go to my accountant, ditto.

I have never had to have a consultant before. In the face of the withering attacks that I was facing, well-funded, something I couldn’t compete with dollar for dollar, I needed some professional help. I went to a Montana firm.

I’ve been very satisfied with their work. The fact that the party thinks that they can tell me who I can do business with, I think is nonsense. To characterize Fireweed as a Democrat organization is absolute nonsense.

I know that the president of the company has been affiliated with the Democratic Party. My suspicion is that Lauren is also on the outs with her party, too, because she represents Republicans. Which way is it? Is she a turncoat Democrat who is working with Republicans, or is she a Democrat that somehow I’m a Democrat? It doesn’t make any sense.

I’m not going to be bullied into being forced to not do business with certain people. I’m not going to be bullied into this preposterous notion that I have accepted millions or billions of dollars from left-wing organizations. It makes no sense.

In terms of independent expenditures made by PACs, there are some that are popping up on my side. I’m gratified to see a couple of positive flyers in the mail.

I’ll have a couple of my own. I can’t afford that much. There are PACs that that are supporting me and the other traditional conservative Republicans.

Do you think the war in Iran has the potential to be a liability for the GOP in some of these state and local races? Or enough to tip the scales?

I think that [could probably have more impact] in the congressional races, not the legislative races.

But my view of this from a national security standpoint and from a military standpoint is quite different than my view on what it means politically for domestic politics.

Can you explain that distinction a little more?

Well, I take a look at the war in Iran. In my view, this is not shared by everyone, but my view is that war with Iran was highly likely in the future. I think it would become more likely if the Iranians secured a nuclear weapon. And I think that eliminating, not just setting back, but eliminating their nuclear weapons program, I think was eventually going to have to happen.

Some people say, well, we’ve had decades of hearing that they’re on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon and they haven’t got it yet, so this is just another lie. I don’t think it is. I think that they have the technological sophistication to deliver that and all they need is to build up their infrastructure to make it happen.

So the bottom line is, I believe that war was highly likely, if not inevitable. I would rather preempt Iran rather than be in a reactive mode once they have a nuclear weapon.

I’ve been out of the army for a long time, but I studied national security affairs at the Naval War College and the Army War College, so I remember some of the stuff I was taught and have thought about. I think that the unrest in Iran amongst the Iranian population that was pretty widespread a few months ago, presented an opportunity. I think that perhaps, and I have no insight in this, perhaps that’s what prompted President Trump to act. The only thing I would say that is, if that is the rationale, then he acted too late.

But now we find ourselves at war with Iran. Some people might have a different euphemism for that, but it looks like a war to me.

Last question for you — is there anything that would make you switch parties and become an Independent?

Well, in terms of immediate service in the Legislature, I mean, I’m a Republican. The Republican Party is the only political party that represents conservatives at all.

I don’t think the time is right to get elected as an Independent. And if you’re an Independent, if you don’t caucus with one party or the other, you’re going to be just pretty much out of committees and not wield very much influence.

I would rather stay engaged in the Republican Party and try to pull the party back from the brink that it’s on right now. Wittich and his supporters are trying to redefine what Republicanism is and in fact, what conservatism is. They have a very narrow right-wing ideology that if you don’t adhere to that, then you’re no longer Republican or you’re no longer even a conservative.

I absolutely reject that characterization. I think that we need the Republican Party for its own good and for the good of the country and the good of the state needs to recover its roots and its roots are Lincoln-Reagan roots. And part of that entails becoming or returning to being a big-tent party.

And I encourage my Democrat friends to take a close look in the mirror at where their party is going and what it has become and implore them to broaden the Democratic Party so that for the good of all of us, we have two parties in which any Montanan can find a political home because right now, many of us Montanans are becoming politically homeless.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.