Lime, Schubert Vie for House District 8 Seat

In the race for House District 8, Democrat Calvin Lime is challenging Republican incumbent Lukas Schubert, one of the youngest legislators in the state. Lime is urging voters to choose the person, not the party. The two candidates will face off Nov. 3 to represent Evergreen and North Kalispell. 

Schubert, a hardline conservative, first won political office in 2024. During his first term, he earned a reputation as a prolific legislator, sponsoring 32 bills, only four of which passed. Seeking reelection, he plans to bring many of the same issues back to the floor, running on a platform of curbing illegal immigration, cutting taxes, addressing affordable housing, and judicial reform. 

“I’m choosing to run because there’s still a lot that needs to get done,” Schubert, 21, told the Beacon. “A lot of good stuff did not get through.” 

Lime, a Whitefish resident who grew up in Evergreen, said he ran because he felt the community’s needs were not being met. His platform centers on issues he sees as most affecting Evergreen residents: funding for infrastructure and health care, and opposition to artificial intelligence data centers and Flock cameras.

Though Lime, 44, is running as a Democrat, he said he doesn’t feel bound to the party and encourages voters to look beyond partisan lines. “I’m the farthest thing from a politician,” Lime said. “I’m probably the worst Democrat they ever met.”  

Lime, who owns a construction business, emphasized his ties to Evergreen and Montana. “I’m Blackfeet. So I’m about Montana as it gets,” Lime said. “My running joke is that I’m a 30th generation Montanan.”

Lime also said he is concerned that his opponent “had very little life experience.” Schubert was 19 when he first ran for the House seat. 

Schubert views his first term as a learning experience that would help him if reelected. He pointed to his House Bill 752, which became law and allows victims of child sexual abuse to sue social media companies and websites that published images of the abuse. “Now I have the experience of last session having been there,” he said. “So I believe I’ll be able to be at least somewhat more effective than last session.” 

Looking to the next legislative session, Schubert has set his sights on illegal immigration. Several of his bills on the issue failed last session: House Bill 536 would have revoked the business license of employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants, and House Bill 896 would have made harboring or aiding an illegal immigrant a state crime. 

“On illegal immigration, I’m going to be sponsoring legislation,” Schubert said. “In particular, I pledge to sponsor legislation to penalize people that transport illegal aliens into Montana.”

Schubert also plans to address the affordable housing crisis by eliminating a tax burden on developers building starter family duplex homes. The tax break, Schubert said, would incentivize developers to build starter homes rather than apartment complexes or expensive houses, opening up the housing market for young families. 

For Lime, one of the biggest issues is bringing money back to Evergreen. “We’re one of the largest unincorporated places in the state,” Lime said. “So we need to figure out better taxation and different ways to bring back our unincorporated area.” Funding local institutions like public schools and the fire department has proven difficult, Lime said, because residents have been reluctant to pass levies. 

“We’ve got to figure out a way to bring income back to our area so our kids and our services aren’t dilapidated,” Lime added. 

Health care is also a top priority for Lime. “There is funding out there for rural health care and there is concern it’s getting handed to places and nobody really knows where it’s going,” he said. He plans to track where funds are going and to support rural clinics to provide for residents on Medicaid. 

Both candidates agree on the property tax reform passed in 2025, which has been a consistent theme throughout the midterm election, with many candidates citing it as a top issue among constituents. Both Lime and Schubert said the new tax structure has helped Evergreen residents.

“Where I stand on it,” Lime said, “is that we can always fine tune things and amend things to look at it. But if it was 70% across the board that people got help, that’s a pretty good start.” Most Montanans own one home, Lime said, and have benefited from the tax burden shifting onto second homes, multi-family properties, and commercial properties. He was open to reforming the policy to help residents who saw their rates rise.

“I have some disagreements with the governor,” Schubert said, “but I think that the property tax bill was actually very beneficial towards Evergreen.” He also said there is room for improvement, and that second homes owned by Montana residents should not have seen the same rate increase as out-of-staters.

Lime is a political newcomer who has held no previous office, but he believes his experience working with federal policy through Native councils gives him a strong background in politics. “I’m new to running for a state legislature position, but for twenty some-odd years, I’ve been involved in working with federal politics, working with federal government, on the end of bringing stuff back home to our people,” Lime said.

“I’ve had to understand what it’s like to work with both sides of the party, because we had to work with both Republicans and Democrats at the same time,” he added. 

Schubert, who graduated from Glacier High School in 2023 and is currently attending Flathead Valley Community College, traces his interest in politics to the 2016 presidential election. He got involved in local politics in 2021 by volunteering for the local Republican party. In 2024, he won his first campaign, defeating former state Rep. Tony Brockman in the primary election and Democrat Beth Sibert in the general election. Schubert also serves as secretary of the Flathead County Republican Central Committee. 

He aims to bring a strong conservative outlook to the Legislature and avoid a shift toward left-leaning politics in Montana. “In some of these states, you might have Republicans control the government, control the state government, but if they’re not smart, if they’re not strong in what they’re doing, then they can easily lead to the state just continuously going down hill.”

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