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General Election Q & A: Senate District 5

Democrat Daniel S. King vs. Republican Bob Keenan

By Tristan Scott
Montana State Senate District 5 candidates Daniel King, left, and Bob Keenan.

1. Should the state of Montana expand Medicaid to Montanans earning less than 138 percent of poverty, as allowed under the Affordable Care Act? Why or why not?

2. Should the state encourage or discourage the production of coal, oil and gas? How?

3. The state of Montana has had budget surpluses in recent years. Should this money be invested in public services, returned to taxpayers in some form, or both? Please be specific.

4. Do you support freezing tuition for in-state students attending state colleges and universities for two more years, as the 2013 Legislature did? Why or why not?

5. Montana schools are implementing new math and English standards and testing known as the Common Core standards. Do you support these? Why or why not?

Name: Daniel S. King

Age: 73

Occupation: Retired educator: teacher, VP, High School Principal of large urban school with an ADA of just under 3,500, Assistant Superintendent of Personnel covering that world for 5,000 employees, Superintendent, and University Professor

Political Affiliation: Democrat

Political Experience: Other than professional organization and as a student, I have never been elected to public office.

Place of Residence: Bigfork

1. Yes, most definitely. It is unacceptable to have thousands of Montana citizens being denied assistance in acquiring health insurance. Young workers and single moms were hurt dramatically by the recession. It was mean-spirited to deny them federal support.

2. This is a difficult one, especially for coal. I don’t see how we can terminate this energy source, but we should accelerate the study into other sources that will one day replace this dirty energy source. I would encourage the continued production of oil and gas, and advance the technology that is behind the clean diesel engines, especially for the pick-up style of truck. There are pipelines all over Montana, check them and put them to work. There are refineries in Montana, expand their capacity to service the Pacific Northwest. My biggest concern in this area is assuring the safe transport of these energies via rail and highways.

3. Much of our surplus in the budget comes from a dearth of support that has been given to domestic programs in the last seven years. I would support investments in public services, particularly those whose aim is the assistance to homeless teenagers. I would support utilizing some of the surplus to manage our forests, reducing fuel build-up, replacing antiquated septic tanks, controlling fertilizer run-off from farms and ranches, and managing responsible logging. I do think the state could make better use of the surplus by performing a variety of projects for the ‘commons’ that would benefit us all.

4. I am not sure on the issue of freezing tuition. Are the public institutions over charging? Are members of academia overpaid? What is their workload out of curiosity? I do think it unreasonable to expect a university student to go into severe debt to pay for his education and be charged usury rates for the loan. Perhaps interest rates could be tied to the GPA. Nor do I think it reasonable to expect parents to bear the burden of paying for college, even though it is a rare occurrence for any young high school graduate to have a job that could pay for today’s cost.

I guess my turmoil over this issue is that I don’t think every student is of true college material. I was, and remain, a huge fan of vocational education, both at the community college level as at Flathead, and in the high schools.  I had one of the finest Voc. Ed. Programs in the nation and our students who were a part of it landed fine paying jobs.

5. Yes, I support the Common Core standards. These standards have been developed by teachers over the last several years and are neither threatening nor subversive.  To have a common understanding of English and math standards would be a boon to teachers and mobile students. My two grandsons have had to adjust regularly to different standards, and have been negatively impacted by a lack of a common core of standards. They are of a military family and have attended schools in four different states, in two states on different occasions they attended different schools; the standards were not the same. They were always in the process of adjusting to a whole new set of expectations.


Name: Bob Keenan

Age: 62

Occupation: Restaurant owner, Bigfork Inn

Political Affiliation: Republican

Political Experience: Bigfork School Board, twice chair; Montana House of Representatives, four years; Montana State Senate, eight years; Senate President ’03-04; Minority Leader ’05-06; Senate Finance Committee Chair ’01-02; Numerous Boards and Committees including Board of Crime Control; Chair of Mental Health Advisory Council; Consensus Council Board; Flathead County Planning Board, two years

Place of residence: Bigfork

1. No. This is a simplistic question to a very complex issue. Reimbursement rates, access to care/providers, means testing, lack of eligibility screening, fraud, procedures allowed/covered, etc. are specifics that need to be considered in the DPHHS budget, the Governor’s budget and the Legislative process (both budget and policy committees). The Affordable Care Act is passing the promise of “free” health care onto the state budget through this eligibility scheme.

2. Encourage! Through the existing permitting process which includes adequate environmental review.

3. Both. We have dealt with this many times, property tax rebates (’95) and lower income tax rates (’03) as well as increases in services, bonded construction, cash construction, remodeled Capitol building, etc. We have infrastructure needs in eastern Montana as well as Seeley Lake and Woods Bay that need to be a part of the discussion.

4. The Board of Regents just put out their proposed budget, the Governor’s budget proposal is due November 15 (by statute). We’ll see how these entities handle the issue. Freezing tuition sounds nice but it is one piece of a very large budget.

5. I do not support Common Core. We turned away Goals 2000 in ’95, we should have rejected No Child Left Behind, and we need to reject Common Core. The federal government should have no role in education. It is difficult enough to set standards at the demographically diverse state level. Reject unfunded mandates.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (10th amendment, U.S. Constitution.)