If you have an opinion about the data center proposed near Broadview, and most people I meet in the Heights do, here is the thing worth knowing: you can no longer register it at the county level. Over about six weeks this summer, three doors closed.

The petition path. A group of neighbors got county approval in June to put a data center question on the November ballot. They took a deadline from the elections office and started gathering signatures. Last week they learned a 2025 state law had moved that deadline back by a month. Nobody at the county had heard of it. The developer’s attorney had.

The scope of local initiatives. In June, the Montana Supreme Court narrowed what local ballot measures can cover. Enough that the county attorney said the petition needed a legal review before it could go forward.

County regulation itself. The developer cited a 2025 state law establishing a right to own and use computing resources. Asked about it by a commissioner, the county attorney said it was so broad he would advise real caution, because any data center rule could expose the county to liability.

Read those together and the pattern is hard to miss. All three were decided in Helena.

So What Can Actually Be Done

That is my whole argument for why this race matters. The questions people ask me at doors, who pays for the new power lines, what happens to the water, whether anyone gets consulted before something this size gets built, are now state questions almost entirely.

I will be honest that one legislator is one vote out of a hundred. I cannot promise outcomes. Here is what I will push for: a separate rate class so the largest data centers’ power costs stay off your bill, real Public Service Commission oversight with full accounting of grid costs, contracts the public can actually read, and petition rules with honest notice and enough time to gather.

The hopeful part is that Montanans are already fixing one piece of this themselves. CI-133 is headed for your November ballot. It would require the state to allow ample time for signature gathering and stop petitions from being thrown out over technical issues. More than a hundred thousand people signed it.

I have knocked on thousands of doors in the Heights this year, and what I hear is not apathy. People have strong opinions and they are frustrated that having one did not seem to count for much.

It still counts. The place where it counts has changed.

Government belongs to us. We reclaim it when we show up.