Rep. Katie Sullivan, House Minority Leader, goes on offense

The Missoula-area Democrat discusses her party's plans for property taxes, criticizes the GOP's judicial reform bills and explains why she's "nervous" about the 2025 Legislature.

Courtesy of Rep. Katie Sullivan

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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.

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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.