First off, if you haven’t taken a deep breath or unclenched your jaw since Election Day, please do so. Perhaps you’re happy with the outcome or you’re fearful for what will happen once a new president and his administration takes office in 2025. Maybe you still have some concerns about the election cycle and its unprecedented events: an assassination attempt, a presidential nominee leaving the race. The final presidential ticket had two candidates in unlikely positions: one, a convicted felon, and the other, a woman of color. Montanans, in particular, felt the election intensity as the U.S. Senate race between three-term incumbent Jon Tester and a Tim Sheehy broke spending records at a sum that honestly defies logic. A handful of days after the dust from the election settled, the AP reported that the Tester-Sheehy contest tallied more than $300 million in political advertising.
It’s likely that no matter who you voted for, a figure of that size would make all of us question the role of extreme money and power in our democratic system. $300 million could go so far to improving the areas of our life that candidates touted as part of our “Montana values” during their campaign spiels. If part of our Montana values are providing a robust system of public education then that staggering figure for one specific race could help pull the state from its last place ranking in teacher pay and rid all of our schools’ water supply from lead contamination. If Montana values is about access to a clean and healthy environment, as enshrined in our unique state constitution, those hundreds of millions of dollars would be well spent on climate resilience projects and innovations in renewable energies.
But that spending went to attack ads on all channels of media and left mailboxes clogged with flyers. It’s a lot of money for one seat and makes me consider what kind of power that will buy. The race is over, but governance is just beginning.
It’s late fall, a time of gathering in our communities for a slate of holidays. It’s a festive and simultaneously restful time with the waning hours of daylight. It’s the time we take a pause from what felt like an endless barrage of political news. But our work isn’t over. As citizens, we need to manage our legislators. They work for us, whether that’s in Helena or Washington, D.C. We need to share our priorities for governance, which more than likely includes a way for more Montanans to be able to afford to live here. Statewide, the Republicans lost their supermajority in this election and my hope is that with a little less of absolute control, our legislators will address the myriad of issues our state faces from fixing the crisis at the Office of Public Instruction to stemming the pain of the skyrocketing increases in property taxes. It’s our right to demand good and fair governance, for all Montanans.