Senate District 3 Voters to Choose Between Longtime Republican Legislator and Democratic Challenger

Voters in the newly drawn state Senate District 3—an area that includes West Valley, parts of north Kalispell, La Salle, Hungry Horse, Martin City and Coram — have a choice this fall between longtime Republican state legislator Carl Glimm and Democrat candidate Angela Kennedy.

It’s been more than a decade since Glimm first arrived in Helena to serve in the state Legislature, first in the House from 2013 to 2019, and more recently in the Senate starting in 2021. The Kila homebuilder says that if he’s elected this fall to represent Senate District 3, it will likely be his last term as a state legislator. He doesn’t intend to try and cycle back through the House, saying he thinks that option goes against the intent of term limits.

Glimm, 49, says he was motivated to become involved in state politics by his kids and his desire to return Montana to the way he remembers it when he was growing up in Conrad. He described that past version of Montana as one in which people would do things like stop to help a stranger with a flat tire. Although that’s what Glimm idealizes, he said he doesn’t know that there’s a way to truly get that back.

“That’s a different mindset, and it’s a different world,” Glimm said.

His opponent, Kennedy, a 62-year-old retired project management professional and also a parent, who is originally from Colorado, says that she is seeking office to do the best she can for Montanans. Kennedy last worked from Kalispell for the University of Colorado Anschutz-Gates Biomanufacturing Facility, which is a part of the university’s medical campus specializing in the development of cell therapy and biologically-derived medicines. Prior to that, she was a business unit manager for Applied Materials in Kalispell.

She sees Glimm’s longstanding tenure as a legislator as contributing to the problems she sees in the Flathead, like wealth disparity, high property taxes, healthcare access issues, and a lack of respect for diversity.  

“If folks in the valley and in Montana are tired of the way things are, then why are they going to vote the same people in?” Kennedy said.

She was concerned by some of what she saw during the last legislative session, like Glimm’s involvement in a bill brought by Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, banning drag shows, and Glimm’s sponsorship of a bill that defines sex in Montana law based on reproductive systems. The Montana Free Press reported that the law precludes legal recognition of transgender people and those with intersex conditions.

“You’re trying to get something that’s got a good product or good outcome for the community or your constituents, and those two were, I think, a total waste of time,” Kennedy said of the 2023 bills.

In explaining her evaluation of the two bills as a bad use of resources, Kennedy referenced her background as a project manager, saying that the quality of that work is measured in time, quality and cost.

When she mentioned diversity, Kennedy said that the state’s hate crime bill is weak and needs to be strengthened. She referenced bullying of teenagers, and shared concerns about the high suicide rates in the Flathead.

“It needs to be not only taught that you respect diversity, but that people are protected from being harassed for being different,” Kennedy said.

Glimm has brought bills concerning the LGBTQ community forward in the past, including a 2015 bill that would have given people grounds to violate state laws infringing on their “religious freedom,” which would have enabled county clerks to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Supporters of the same bill had said it would also allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions if they felt it would interfere with their religious practice, the Associated Press reported at the time.

During the last session, Glimm sponsored 14 bills, with six being signed into law. The bills passed into law included establishing a memorial highway for Jacob Allmendinger, a Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office deputy who was killed in 2019 during a car accident on Fairy Lake Road. Glimm also was able to successfully sponsor bills requiring additional reporting of drugs taken or prescribed by people who died by suicide, and loosening regulations pertaining to subdivision sanitation review and well water location relative to setbacks.

Asked about his priorities should he be reelected, Glimm mentioned that the budget will, as always, be important, and that he expects other hot button topics to come to the forefront, like property taxes and Medicaid expansion.

“I don’t know that I have anything super huge in terms of legislation that I’m pushing,” he said. “I’ll have bills, for sure, but I don’t think anything that’s (earth) shattering.”

Last session, Glimm’s committee assignments included the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee and the Senate Highways and Transportation Committee. He also served as the vice chair on the Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee, and as the vice chair for the Senate Finance and Claims Committee. He carried six bills successfully, including revisions to subdivision sanitation laws, and a bill requiring reports to be made of all controlled substances dispensed to each person whose death was ruled a suicide.

Glimm said that within the Montana Republican Party he’s “pretty conservative,” and summarized himself as pro-life, pro-gun, pro-family and pro-business.

“The standard, fairly conservative stuff, that all lines up with where I stand, and I think it lines up with where most of my district stands,” he said.  

Kennedy said that she looks to Whitefish Democratic legislator Dave Fern as an example when it comes to success at the legislative level, pointing to his willingness to undertake bipartisan work to get things done.

“Really, the Democrats aren’t going to come in and turn it into a liberal, you know, ‘woke’ place. What we really want is to get the best for Montana,” she said.

Looking back over his time in the Legislature, Glimm said that having Gov. Greg Gianforte in office for the last two sessions has been a huge change, and that he believes it’s improved the Legislature’s relationships with the agencies for which they’re appropriating money.

“Getting information was, frankly, a real struggle before. Now we’re able to get information, which just leads to better government, because you’re making better decisions based on real information.”

Legal efforts to stop legislation passed during the last session have been “tough,” Glimm said, but he views the last session as one that was “fairly successful.”

The ACLU of Montana last December filed a lawsuit to block Glimm’s law defining sex as binary. The bill was struck down by a district court judge in June.

“There’s always things that you wish would have went better. But when you stand back and look at it, we had a pretty good, successful session,” he said. “I think we could have done better on the budget, but that is all about you got 150 people there you got to work with.”

Outside of his work as a custom home builder and legislator, Glimm said he’s a board member of Trinity Lutheran Church, a former volunteer firefighter, a past board member for The Nurturing Center, and past president of the Flathead Homebuilder’s Association as well as the Montana Building Industry Association.

Kennedy said that she works for Habitat Humanity when she can, saying that she comes from a long line of carpenters and house finishers. She’s worked in the past as a volunteer elementary school reading tutor, has been involved with various Parent Teacher Associations, and is the current president of the Flathead Democratic Women.

In a 2020 election for Senate District 2, Glimm defeated his Democrat opponent Kyle Waterman by 37 percentage points. Kennedy last ran for office in 2022, when she lost to Republican Courtenay Sprunger in House District 7 by 26 percentage points, or about 900 votes.

For more information about who’s running for office in the Flathead, check out the Beacon’s election guide here.

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