Local legislative races full and running

While the state focus primarily is on the race for the local Senate race between Republican Kris Hansen and Democrat Kris Hansen, battles are ongoing in every local race, in newly revised House districts.

Watch for in-depth candidate profiles of these races in upcoming editions of the Havre Daily News.

The other Senate seat, held by Democrat Jonathan Windy Boy of Rocky Boys’ Indian Reservation, stretches from southeastern Hill County through the Fort Belknap and Fort Peck Indian reservations and goes to the North Dakota border ?!?!?, and is not up in this year’s election.

The redistricting that goes into effect with this year’s election wildly changed most local districts.

Havre, which for decades had been split into two or three districts that also included rural parts of the area, now is one district. Another district stretches from the Canadian border in Liberty and western Hill counties through Chouteau County and includes the northeastern edge of Cascade County.

Another district now stretches from northeastern Hill County through northern Blaine, Phillips and Valley counties.

The final local district, which includes Rocky Boy’s and Fort Belknap Indian reservations, is close to what it was before redistricting.

In the Havre district, House District 28, two newcomers to legislative races are facing off. Havre City Council member Janet Trethewey, a Montana State University-Northern education and health instructor, has the Democratic nomination while Stephanie Hess, a social worker at Northern Montana Care Center, is the Republican candidate.

Neither Hess nor Trethewey had an opponent in the primary.

In the district in southern Hill, Blaine and Phillips counties, House District 32, the candidates, both with backgrounds in education, also were unopposed in the primary.

Incumbent Democrat Rep. Clarena Brockie of Hays, serving her first term, is dean of students at Aaniiih Nakoda College at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.

Her opponent, Gilbert Bruce Meyers, who calls himself a “recovering Democrat” rather than a moderate Republican, traveled widely and taught at colleges and universities around the nation including in Montana before returning to Rocky Boy.