Hill County Democrats introduce candidates

Hill County Democrats introduced seven candidates for local, state and national elections at a meeting Sunday, where the candidates spoke about their goals and qualifications and encouraged attendees to get as many Democrats as possible into office in the upcoming elections.

Running on the local level is Hill County Commission Executive Assistant Sheri Williams, who seeks to unseat Republican incumbent Diane McLean on the Hill County Commission.

Williams said she’s a fourth generation Havreite whose great-grandparents homesteaded here and her history with the area has inspired a great interest in serving a community she never left.

Her big focus in terms of policy was infrastructure, which she said a recent influx of COVID-19 relief funds will help improve. She said she’s particularly interested in improving the highway system in the area and help bring in more business to the area.

“We are sitting on a goldmine here. ... It’s just not being utilized because we don’t have the support system for that right now,” she said.

Beyond that, Williams said, she feels there is a dissatisfaction with leadership in the community and people need a change that she believes she can provide.

She said she’s committed not just to hearing what the community has to say, but truly listening to them, though she is not afraid to stand by what she believes in and will not go back on decisions that were made for good reasons.

In the race for Hill County Clerk and Recorder’s position, two democratic candidates introduced themselves Sunday evening, including Tina Louise Salazar, a relative newcomer to Montana and the clerk and recorder’s office.

Salazar said she’s originally from Texas and moved to Montana last year, having attained the title of deputy clerk and recorder last month.

She said she’s worked for a Fortune 500 company, as a contract employee for the Drug Enforcement Administration and owned a small business for over a decade.

A flyer she passed out says this experience combined with her education, including a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in business administration in international banking and finance makes her the best candidate for the job.

Salazar said she thinks she can bring a valuable outsider perspective to the office which she thinks could be a better place to work as long as everyone works together and puts aside their differences.

She asked attendees to support her not because she’s a Democrat, but because she’s the best person for the job.

Lexis Dixon, another deputy clerk and recorder, introduced herself as a candidate Sunday evening as well.

Dixon said said she moved to the area in 2017 and has been at the clerk and recorder’s office since April of last year, attaining her position as a deputy in September.

She said she works well with everyone at the county and has experience working with things like audits and budgets.

State races

Among Sunday’s candidates was Bear Paw Development Corp. Executive Director Paul Tuss who is running against Republican incumbent Rep. Ed Hill for Montana House District 28, effectively the city of Havre.

Tuss said Democrats will be facing an uphill battle during a midterm election with a Democratic president, something he said the national press always paints as a grim situation.

“I think we can prove them wrong here in Hill County, and I think we can prove them wrong in Montana,” he said.

He said he’s spent the last 27 years in economic and community development on the Hi-Line, helping to coordinate millions of dollars flowing into communities for infrastructure as well a business startups and expansions that have helped the area grow economically.

He also touted his past 10 years on the Montana State University Board of Regents. Tuss said he’s a steadfast supporter of Montana State University-Northern especially and criticized his opponent for voting against a $200,000 appropriation for their biofuel program.

“There might be 99 other representatives that have a reason to vote against MSU-Northern, the representative from Havre is not one of them,” he said.

He said his opponent has proven ineffective even with his party in control of the Legislature and the governor’s office, having sponsored four pieces of legislation, not one of which actually became law.

Tuss was especially critical of Hill’s bill seeking to change the charter school system in the state.

Hill’s bill, which failed, would have created a commission to oversee creation of public schools that could have given public funding to schools that did not meet Montana’s public schools requirements.

Tuss said that is not the right way for Montana to go.

“We have a wonderful public school system in this state and we need to invest in our public schools,” he said.

Also running for a Montana House seat in District 33 is North Havre Resident Jordan Ophus, who’s primary issue was campaign finance reform.

Ophus, a nine-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, said he recently returned to the area and his experience in the military has shaped a lot of his perspective on what he wants to do legislatively.

He said his primary goal is to support the holding of a constitutional convention of states that would allow the U.S. to reverse the results of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision on Citizens United and the resulting flood of corporate money into politics.

He said the U.S., the richest nation on Earth, could do so much to address problems like climate change and housing, but because those things are not a concern to the people with the most money they don’t get done.

Ophus said he also supports implementing term limits on legislators and wants to see eastern Montana have its own representation in the U.S Senate as its own state.

Another candidate who introduced himself was Havre Resident David Brewer, who will be running against the winner of the primary between Republican incumbent Sen. Russ Tempel of Chester and challenger Steven Chvilicek of Havre for Montana Senate District 14.

Brewer said Tempel is clearly an intelligent man, but is too beholden to a party that asks him to vote for things a man as smart as him shouldn’t be supporting.

“(Tempel’s) problem is that he gets stupid when he goes to Helena,” Brewer said, “Because whatever the leadership tells you to vote for that’s what he does.”

Brewer promised that he will always listen to party leadership, but he will ultimately vote for what he believes in, and while individual constituents may not always agree with him, he will be honest and tell them why he’s doing what he’s doing.

U.S. Congressional Seat race

State Sen. Mark Sweeney, D-Philipsburg, running for a seat on the U.S. House of Representatives against Republican incumbent Matt Rosendale, also made an appearance and named unseating his opponent his No. 1 goal.

The race also has three Republican challengers including Kyle Austin of Billings, a Havre native; James Boyette of Bozeman, and Charles Walkingchild of Helena, as well as independent Gary Buchanan of Billings and Libertarians Sam Rankin of Billings, Roger Roots of Livingston and Samuel Thomas of Missoula.

Sweeney faces Penny Ronning and Skylar Williams, both of Billings, in the Democratic primary.

Sweeney said Rosendale has proven himself bad for Montana, the U.S. and democracy in general, having been one of only three people in congress to vote against supporting Ukraine in their fight against the unprovoked invasion by Russia.

On a more local level, he said, his vote against the bipartisan infrastructure bill was another black mark on his record.

He said the package will provide millions to the St. Mary Diversion and Milk River Project, which are both absolutely vital to the area and Rosendale’s vote against the package is unacceptable.

Tuss chimed in on the subject as well, saying, “I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life.”

He said everyone in that room has Republicans in their lives, moderate, level-headed people that they may disagree with, but whose hearts are in the right place, but Rosendale isn’t one of them.

While Sweeney talked about his opponent for much of his speech, he also talked about himself and his own qualifications.

He said he was born in Butte and graduated from Western Montana College with a degree in natural resource management, after which he worked for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks for 29 years.

After that, Sweeney said, he got into politics, having been asked to run for county commissioner in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County in 2005, which he served on for two terms after which he ran for the Montana Public Service Commission, narrowly loosing to a seasoned political veteran.

After that he successfully ran for the state House, and later the state Senate, winning both.

He said these elections gave him plenty of experience and taught him the importance of ground-level campaigning.

Among the issues he’s most interested in is education and the ongoing difficulties recruiting and retaining teachers in the state.

Unfortunately, Sweeney said, public education is under attack by the far right which is pushing to have candidates elected to school boards that hate public education.

He also voiced his support for Montana and the U.S. making efforts to transition to renewable energy.

He said coal brought a lot of benefits to the state but the U.S. needs to kick its dependence on foreign oil and increase its reliance on renewable energies like wind and solar.

He said Montana has taken a huge turn to the political right recently, and Democrats need to do something about it, and with Havre’s history of support for unions they may just be able to do that.