Big Sky 55+ has endorsed my campaign for House District 39.
The endorsement came out of a questionnaire, which is the part I want to say something about. It was long, and it was specific, and it was not a loyalty test. It asked where I stand on long-term care and home and community based services, on healthcare costs, on property taxes and who carries them, on housing, on transportation, on data centers and energy, on Native American equity, and on whether Montanans get to govern themselves.
That is a good map of what older Montanans in the Heights actually raise with me at their doors. It is not a narrow list, and it is not a list about being old. It is a list about whether the state works.
Big Sky 55+ is a member organization of Montanans over fifty-five, and the work is driven by those members. They show up in Helena during sessions, they testify, they track bills, and they hold legislators to what was said during the campaign. That last part is the reason an endorsement from them is worth having. It comes with the expectation that somebody will check.
Some of what I told them, in short:
Property taxes. Relief for a primary residence should arrive automatically, the way the relief written for data centers did. And Montana should have a stronger circuit breaker, so a tax bill never takes a house that somebody already paid off.
Long-term care. The direct-care workforce is the whole ballgame. Families cannot find help because the wage does not match the skill the work requires. The Legislature sets those rates. I will push to keep them indexed and to attach a pass-through so raises reach the paychecks they were meant for.
Staying home. Helping a Montanan live at home, near family, costs the state less than a facility does. Waiver waitlists are a number the Legislature chooses every two years, and it can choose differently.
Getting around. TransADE and Medicaid rides to appointments are what turn a service somebody qualifies for into a service they can actually reach. State dollars there draw down federal transit dollars at a strong ratio, which makes it a good deal on the merits before you get anywhere near the values argument.
Power bills. The largest data center projects should be in their own rate class so their costs stay with them, with real Public Service Commission oversight and contracts the public can read. Fixed incomes have no room to absorb somebody else’s grid buildout.
I am grateful for this one. Older Montanans built the thing the rest of us are living in, and they are the constituency most likely to have watched a promise get made and then quietly rearranged.
Thank you to the members of Big Sky 55+ for the time and for the scrutiny. I will keep earning it.
Help us build a campaign worthy of that trust at smithformontana.com/donate