Kelly, McLaughlin Vie for House District 9 Seat

Steven Kelly, the Republican incumbent, will face Kalispell Democrat Kate McLaughlin for the House District 9 seat. Kelly has focused on law enforcement and public safety, building on his first term. McLaughlin has campaigned on a “families first” platform that addresses affordable housing, health care access and child care.

Kelly, 68, worked in law enforcement for 30 years, most of it with the Washoe County department in Nevada. But his start at a three-person department in Utah has shaped his efforts to support law enforcement. “It was a learning experience,” Kelly told the Beacon. “But also, working in that environment, I realized how risky it was.” 

Across the state, Kelly said, small departments struggle with a lack of financial support and training resources. He pointed to House Bill 643, passed in the last legislative session, as a step in the right direction. The bill allocated funds to compensate county jails for holding inmates awaiting beds at Montana State Hospital. During his time in the legislature, Kelly also passed a joint resolution to assess the ability of investigators, to be presented before the 70th Legislature. 

“In your first session, you spend half the session just figuring out the process,” Kelly said. A second term would allow him to be a more effective representative. In his first term, Kelly introduced a bill that would have made a third DUI charge a felony, aimed at Montana’s ranking as one of the worst states for drunk driving. The bill failed in a House vote, but he intends to bring it back to the floor with more experience under his belt. 

“It’s not all about just putting people in prison,” he said. “If there’s other things like improving getting these folks home, trying to create some sort of social responsibility over the issue, I’m all for that.” 

“Putting people in prison isn’t always the answer, it’s just the default answer,” Kelly added.

McLaughlin, 56, has approached her candidacy as a means of helping her community. “I care about people,” she said. “And I started seeing how people were being affected and I thought ‘Well, I can do something about that.’”

A Vermont native, McLaughlin moved to Montana in 2001; first living in Kila, then buying a house in Somers, and now residing in Kalispell. She has worked in home health care with elderly and disabled patients and has been employed at Dream Adaptive and the Abbie Shelter. She is vice president of Soroptimist International of Whitefish. “I’ve done so many things. I have a very varied background from waitressing, landscaping, labor work. I ran a restaurant business for five years,” she said. 

McLaughlin’s key policy points fall under her “families first” umbrella. Health care must be accessible to all, she said, and she wants to track the impact of the recent federal grant to support rural health care providers. She looks to expand state-granted childcare options. “We need to have a gap,” McLaughlin said. “Because as soon as you start making over the income, they take it away. So it’s hard for people to get ahead.” 

Drawing on her experience with Abbie Shelter, McLaughlin aims to strengthen protections against domestic violence and sexual assault. Current laws, she said, are not stiff enough, “especially in the Flathead County.”

“When the jails are full, domestic assault, you get a fine between $100 and $1000 and may get jail time, 24 hours. I think those things need to be addressed to protect families,” McLaughlin said. 

House District 9 lies in Flathead County and includes Lakeside, Somers, and Forest Hill Village. In a largely rural area, both candidates have homed in on the environmental issues they believe particularly affect residents. 

Living in the wildland-urban interface, Kelly pointed to higher homeowner insurance rates driven by perceived wildfire risk. He is working on a bill that would create insurance breaks for homeowners who comply with outlined defensible-space standards. The bill would work in two ways, Kelly said: lowering the insurance rates of homeowners in wildland-urban interface areas, and encouraging them to mitigate wildfire risk, making communities safer. 

McLaughlin has focused on development and how the state could guide the county as it continues to grow. She has considered a program that would require developers to either meet affordable housing requirements or pay a fee to the city. She has also voiced opposition to artificial intelligence data centers and the sale of public lands.

Both candidates have criticized the property tax reform passed in 2025, which Kelly cited as constituents’ top concern. “I think we need to simplify the property tax code,” Kelly said. “I think we need to make it more where everybody’s treated equally. And if we don’t want people moving here out of state, we need another mechanism.”

McLaughlin said she wants property tax based on purchase price rather than market value. “It would protect people who have already paid off their homes, so they don’t get a bill that gets way out of hand for them.” 

As the Nov. 3 election nears, McLaughlin, who has never run for office, has found the process to be a learning curve. Running as a Democrat in a conservative-leaning area, she has sought out conversations with her Republican neighbors. “The ones that I’ve talked to have been extremely nice,” McLaughlin said. “I’ve heard their frustration with the [Flathead County Republican Central Committee].” 

McLaughlin believes the issues she’s tackling affect everyone regardless of party affiliation. “I have to encourage some of those Republicans to vote for me in order to win,” she said.

Seeking a second term, Kelly said he hadn’t initially planned to get involved with local politics. “I was asked to run by somebody and so I did, and won, which was almost surprising to me,” he said. “So it’s been sort of an unexpected ride.” 

“There’s all these little details out there that we need to pick and say ‘this is what the government should do’ and then take care of these things,” Kelly added.

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