Workers across Montana too often see an alienating battle between candidates and political parties that doesn’t take into account the needs of people fighting to protect our jobs and strengthen our local economies. It’s often hard to tell what is spin and what is real as parties jostle for attention.
That’s why workers across the labor movement joined together to endorse CI-126, creating open primaries and allowing Montanans to choose people over party.
It has become pretty apparent over the years that the best legislation comes from bipartisanship and people working together for the greatest outcome. Medicaid expansion, campaign finance reform, balancing our budget, mental health reform, and protecting our rights to collectively bargain for a better deal: these are all the building blocks for a healthy civil society, but they only happen when we elect people who are seeking to find solutions and put their ideological differences aside.
In the 2022 election, 6% of the Montana electorate effectively elected 88% of our state House, and 36 candidates had no opponent in the general election. This contributes to politicians catering to the far wings of their partisan base, rather than reaching out to the majority of the electorate to see what issues matter to them. That’s why we need elections that put voters first.
Most Montanans would likely call themselves independent. But partisan primaries force voters to choose a party ballot, just to make their voice heard in the primary. That is not only fundamentally undemocratic, but it produces bad results for working people.
Open primaries give every Montanan, regardless of their party affiliation, the freedom to vote for the candidate they believe best represents them for each office. More choice in our elections puts the power back in the hands of Montana voters and back in the hands of the workers who build our state.
CI-126 will end partisan gridlock. It will stop legislators from getting “primaried” for getting things done for their constituents and communities. CI-126 is an opportunity to fix the system and get politics back on the right track so that our government works for the people instead of just looking out for the needs of large corporations and special interest groups.
Workers everywhere are reinvigorated by having a meaningful voice on the job. That’s why we organize and advocate for workplaces and local economies that are built from the ground up, support families, allow us to retire with dignity, and give us a meaningful voice on the job. We need a political system that requires elected leaders to engage as a necessary part of the process. We need to elect community leaders who are engaged in local debates and whose beliefs come out of local community concerns. We need elected leaders who know what it means to listen and build solutions.
It’s time to stop getting sidetracked by national debates and instead look locally for answers. Let’s vote yes on CI-126 to put our own voters first.
Jason Small is the Executive Secretary of Montana AFL-CIO, which represents 38 unions, 500 locals and more than 50,000 working Montanans.