Murray stumps in Havre at Pachyderms

Montana Republican Ron Murray, a U.S. Senate hopeful, talked about his campaign, taxes, immigration and rolling back regulations when he spoke to the Pachyderm Club at the Duck Inn Monday in Havre.

A businessman from Belgrade, Murray is one of six Republicans competing for his party's nomination to unseat Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., next fall.

"I believe President Trump's agenda is on track with what America needs and we need to have more people back in Washington who will support that agenda," he said.

Murray was raised in Billings and is the youngest of seven children. A self-described workaholic, he owns three businesses, Montana Murray Kennels, a fish store called The Aquarium and a U-Haul rental business.

He mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge in 2010 for a seat in the Montana House of Representatives.

Murray said he has wanted to run against Tester for a long time, but it was his wife who encouraged him to run after Trump was elected president.

Montanans, he said, should take the time before June's Republican primary to vet all the party's candidates to decide who is the strongest candidate against Tester and who is best for Montana.

He said that he often laughs when people ask him what qualifies him to be a senator given his lack of history serving in elected office.

"Just because I haven't been a politician in the past doesn't mean I wouldn't be a good politician now," Murray said.

He said he disagrees with candidates who say the party needs to run someone with higher name recognition in order to beat Tester.

Now-Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., likely did not have high name recognition before he made his unsuccessful run for governor last year, he said.

Murray added he has problems with what he calls the Republican establishment, who, he said, are supporting some of his primary opponents.

"If you have a candidate in this race who is being supported by the establishment, that throws up red flags for me," he said.

Murray said one of his biggest criticisms of Tester is his vote against the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch was nominated by Trump earlier this year to fill the vacancy created in Feb. 2016 when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died.

Gorsuch in his rulings has been a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, Murray said. However, he said, Tester did vote for Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan when President Barack Obama nominated them, despite what he said is their weaker stance on guns.

He said if Tester would have voted for Gorsuch and supported the tax bill pushed by Republicans, he would likely win re-election.

"He could have come out and said, 'I support Donald Trump on two things,' but yet he stuck so much with the party line all the way down the road," Murray said.

Tester, Murray said, was a rubber stamp for Obama.

Republicans he said, always reach across party lines and are always willing to compromise.

"We always compromise and the Democratic Party never compromises, they just take, take, take," he said.

Murray said based on what he has seen of the Republican tax bill, he would vote in favor of it. He said the bill would double the standard deduction from $12,000 to $24,000 and the corporate tax rate needs to be lowered.

The bill passed the Senate 51 to 49 Friday night, the official Senate website says.

The Senate and House bills next have to be reconciled before the final bill is taken up again by the Senate,

However, he said, the debate has revealed how disconnected politicians are from the reality of the average Montanan. He said one of Montana's senators said the majority of Montanans make between $90,000 and $120,000 a year but he did not say which said it.

Murray said most of his family and friends make less than that.

"Really our politicians don't know what middle America really is," he said.

Though he is running for political office, Murray said he does not want to make politics a long-term career.

"That is not my goal," he said.

Senators, he said, should be limited to two six-year terms. He said there should be restrictions as to when members of Congress can become lobbyists.

Murray said lobbyists and special interest groups have accumulated so much power that they have bought politicians.

If elected, Murray said, he thinks being a lawmaker will be less about passing and more about repealing laws.

Murray said he is for defunding sanctuary cities, where local and state law enforcement do not turn individuals who have entered the country illegally over to federal law enforcement officials.

He said the murder of Kate Steinle, a woman whose death in a shooting by a man who illegally entered the U.S. several times as an example of why sanctuary cities need to be defunded.

Last week Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was found not guilty of murder and manslaughter in the 2015 San Francisco shooting death of Steinle.

City officials released Zarate from jail six weeks before Steinle was shot, despite federal requests to detain him for deportation procedures.

Trump and other opponents of illegal immigration have cited the case as an example of why tougher enforcement measures are needed.

"I love how the left has taken to calling this guy an illegal immigrant," Murray said. "He is not an illegal immigrant in the United States, he is an illegal alien in the United States."

Murray said there are efforts underway in Montana to make Bozeman and Missoula sanctuary cities, something he opposes.

Murray said people who were brought into the U.S. as children and who have jobs and are not on welfare should not be granted citizenship right away, but also should not be deported.

"Do we really want to put them back on a bus and send them back over the border or back to whatever country they came from? No, I don't think so," he said.

He said those individuals though should be included in the number of immigrants who are allowed each year within the country.

Murray said he is against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, that Obama enacted but Trump has said will end in March without congressional action.

DACA, Murray said, encourages people to bring in family members from other countries before border security is increased.

The question of what will be done to bring good-paying jobs to Montana, is one that Murray said he often hears.

Though companies can maybe bring some high-tech jobs to Montana, he said Montana has ample good paying jobs in agriculture forestry and natural resources that are hampered by regulations.

"We've got to loosen up those regulations," he said.

He said a proposal to create a copper mine in White Sulfur Springs is an example. Opponents of the mine, he said, argue that there should be no mine on the Smith River, but the river is 19 miles away by air from the river.

"The left has gotten so good at just making our natural resources look so bad that Montanans now believe it." Murray said.

The natural resource and tourism industry, he said, can exist side by side.

Murray said Montana has enough natural resources that it could fund itself without relying so much on the federal government.

Murray said when it comes to natural development he will ask himself two questions: is it good for Montana and is it good for Montanans?

"If the answer is yes, let's go forward with it," he said.