The Billings Gazette and its sister Lee papers asked legislative candidates six questions for this year’s Montana voter guide, with a 100-word limit on each answer. Here are my answers as submitted, with a short note at the end on where the candidates in this race stand.

What regulations do you support that adequately balance community concerns about data centers and the prospect of economic opportunity promised by developers?

Montanans only learned the terms of the Broadview power deal after eight months of redactions and a legal challenge. Transparency shouldn’t require a lawsuit.

I’ve built my career in technology, which is why I’m careful about projects this size. We can welcome them only on terms that protect our community and our environment. I’ll advocate for a separate rate class so a data center’s power costs stay with it, full grid cost accounting, Public Service Commission oversight, and contracts the public can read. Neighbors deserve a hearing before anything breaks ground, and counties deserve authority to say no.

Federal changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplace are contributing to higher healthcare costs and more people being underinsured. What state policies would you support to protect healthcare access for Montanans?

When Washington shifts costs, the bill lands on Montana families and the hospitals that serve them. Montana already made one good decision here: in 2025 lawmakers from both parties lifted the sunset on Medicaid expansion, and about 77,000 Montanans keep coverage that keeps rural hospitals open. Funding still comes up every session, and I’ll advocate for funding it fully. I’ll also advocate for price transparency so a family can know a cost before care, state action on prescription drug prices, and protecting Medicaid for Workers with Disabilities so a raise never costs someone the coverage that lets them work.

Enacting a flat income tax is a top priority for Gov. Greg Gianforte in the 2027 Legislature, which would cut revenues to the state’s general fund. Would you support a flat income tax, and how would you consider its impact on Montana’s budget?

A flat income tax is a hard no. Montana already taxes most families at the lower of its two rates, so setting one flat rate at that number changes nothing for us. A couple with $400,000 in taxable income saves about $1,900, while a family in the middle gains nothing. Meanwhile the state collects less, and that gap does not disappear. It shows up as crowded classrooms, nursing homes that cannot keep staff, and local property taxes picking up the difference. I’ll advocate for a tax system that reflects what a family can afford.

I wrote more about this in The Tax Cut That Skips the Heights.

Intra-party fighting was a centerpiece of the last legislative session, and the divides have continued in the interim within both parties. What role, if any, should bipartisanship play in the Montana Legislature? Are there issues where you would look to collaborate with your colleagues across the aisle?

Yellowstone County sends roughly two dozen legislators to Helena. I’d work to organize them into a county caucus, so our water, our power bills, and our property taxes come ahead of party position.

Broadview already showed this works. Ranchers, Democrats, and Republicans asked the same questions, and nobody checked a party registration first. The neighbors I meet are not sorted by party, and neither are their power bills.

A bill needs 51 votes in the House, and no caucus arrives with 51 votes that agree on everything. That is why counting past your own side is the job.

Do you believe the Legislature needs to revisit the property tax package lawmakers passed last session? Why or why not?

Yes, and it shouldn’t depend on paperwork. Homeowners who received a rebate were enrolled automatically. Landlords had to apply, many did not, and the cost lands in their tenants’ rent. A homeowner who misses the deadline can appeal. A landlord cannot, so the renter has no remedy at all.

Overtaxed neighbors are voting down school funding and vital services their own families need.

We must also close the tax tracker loophole. When a utility’s property taxes change, that lands on customer bills automatically, with no Public Service Commission review. Property tax relief should stay relief.

Homeowners can confirm their enrollment at homestead.mt.gov through March 1, 2027. I walked through how in Go Check Your Homestead Enrollment.

If elected, how would you work to protect Montanans from fraud and scams, including cryptocurrency scams?

Scams follow the money, and right now they run through crypto kiosks. In 2025 Americans reported more than $388 million lost at these machines, and most of it was taken from people over 50.

Montana can act. I’d advocate for transaction limits, plain-language warnings at the machine, a short window to reverse a first-time transfer, and licensing so operators answer to a regulator. Lawmakers in both parties are already looking at this, and I’d sign on.

I’d also fund the Department of Justice’s consumer protection office. A law nobody enforces is an empty promise.

On the record: When Medicaid expansion came up for renewal in 2025, the current representative for House District 39 voted no on HB 245. Protecting Montanans from crypto kiosk scams is one place where the candidates agree.

Every public questionnaire I’ve answered this year is collected at Where I Stand, In My Own Words.