Montana is the best place in the world to raise a family, to start and grow a business, and to build a community. Former Gov. Brian Schweitzer coined those words as he inspired thousands of Montanans across our rural state into action.
Wow, I reminded myself, Schweitzer could turn people out to vote. Years later, a young Barack Obama invested heavily into winning rural Montana, opening dozens of campaign offices statewide.
One office was in Whitefish, back when the North Valley was affordable to working people. Those campaigners worked hard and Obama came within points of winning Montana, shocking pundits, inspired by a younger nation sending the leader into the White House.
Kay, soon known as the governor’s mom, pushed me into knocking doors as a local candidate for state office, introducing me to just about anyone she met as we worked the streets of Whitefish. She was involved in politics, made sure people voted. An advocate for all, she held an influential role in shaping our state for the better.
I’d soon work with Schweitzer and Jon Tester, the seven-fingered dirt farmer and rural state senator who later became our U.S. Senator. I met the man with the mean flat top through the brassy sound of trumpet tones in the state capital. Later the echo of Native drum circles and then bagpipes resonated. Montana was the brand, doing right by people, neighbors, and community was the goal.
We’ve got great teachers in the valley, good public schools, and decent access to public lands. Montanans own our state public lands, over 5 million acres, “held in trust for the people” as the state constitution says, much benefiting public school kids. Other states just sold their public lands.
We grip freedoms firmly as others repeatedly try to rip them away. Real Montanans know that freedom means being able to read whatever books we like. Loving whomever we love. Having kids if and how and when we choose. We get to choose. Live and let live.
Freedom is whatever religion we choose in America. Freedom is knowing our kids make it safely back from school and housing is accessible. Freedom is access to our public lands of the Great Outdoors in Montana.
It’s been good hearing vice presidential candidate Tim Walz saying to “mind your own damn business” when it comes to the personal matters of our neighbors. Schweitzer said it back in the day and Montanans believed it. That’s only a decade ago. Core values remain.
Montana got turned upside down fast. No place is affordable to workers suddenly. Whatever they did in Helena the past few years is hurting local workers and fixed income retirees. Time to put affordability back into our community.
A retiree recently showed me that their state property taxes and home insurance costs suddenly increased $100 a week. Yes, a week. What the heck are they doing to us? Maybe that’s chump change to all the lucky Yellowstoners buying up the million-dollar condos popping up throughout the Flathead, but for a local school teacher, $100 extra a week is real money.
Homeowners should listen to governor candidate Ryan Busse and his good idea to lower the residential tax rate of reappraisal to the 2022 equalized level presented by the state department of revenue as required by law, when the last homeowner tax revaluations became public.
That simple rate reduction, performed by every other Montana governor faced with land rush reappraisals, would’ve saved homeowners $500 million in property taxes over this legislative interim.
The next state revaluation of our homes happens in three months. Expect to get walloped again, unless Montana changes course to make big corporations pay their fair share.
At every level Montana is now charging working class people extra. Suddenly taxing tips, targeting state property tax increases onto old-time homeowners, increased home power bills, increased state income taxes for lower wage earners, or spiking home insurance bills. You name it, middle Montana got hosed over the past few years.
Just in time, laughter tears into politics, with people finding joy in the process. Tens of thousands of younger Americans attended Democratic rallies. In my mind, I picture a jovial Tim Walz roasting a pig and serving sliders to hundreds of locals in the open field, under the old apple tree, just over the viaduct in Whitefish. Much like it ever was.
We’ve heard it before so it’s easy to recognize hope, joy, optimism and cheerfulness when it reverberates in today’s politics like thunder rolling through an August sky. Move us forward Montana. Our best days are ahead. Together, we remain the best of America and the hope of the working class.
Mike Jopek formerly served in the Montana Legislature and is now a farmer in Whitefish.