Campaigning during Festival Days

Both Democrats and Republicans held events over the weekend, with candidates telling voters why they were the best selection in the midst of Festival Days celebrations.

The Democrats held their annual Pasma-Peck fundraising dinner Friday night in the Eagles Club in Havre, with more than 40 people coming to the event.

The Hill County Republican Central Committee saw nearly double that at its free meet-the-candidate meal at Pepin Park Saturday after the parade, although some people finished eating and left before the candidates spoke.

The Republicans also saw more candidates than the Democrats. Rep. Kris Hansen, R-Havre, who is running against Sen. Greg Jergeson, D-Havre, for the seat in Senate District 14, spoke Saturday. So did Stephanie Hess, a social worker at Northern Montana Care Center, who is running as the Republican candidate in House District 28 against Democratic Havre City Council member Janet Trethewey.

Also coming to Havre were Rep. Matt Lang, R-Malta, who faces north Havre resident Mike Finley in the race for House District 33, Gilbert Bruce Meyers of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, the Republican candidate challenging Rep. Clarena Brockie, D-Hays, in the race for House District 32, and Rep. Roy Hollandsworth, R-Brady, who faces Democratic challenger Rob Laas of Chester in the race for House District 27.

At the Pasma-Peck Dinner, the Democrats heard from the only statewide candidate, Montana Supreme Court Justice Mike Wheat of Bozeman, who faces Lawrence VanDyke of Clancy in the nonpartisan race for Supreme Court Justice 2. VanDyke did not appear at either event.

Jergeson and Trethewey were the only other candidates at the Pasma-Peck Dinner, although U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., was the keynote speaker.

Tester calls for active support

Tester praised the candidates on the Democratic ticket, adding that the local races might bring out enough voters to elect the national candidates.

The democratic candidates, state Rep. Amanda Curtis, D-Butte, who faces U.S Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., in the race for the open U.S. Senate seat, and former congressional aide John Lewis, the Democratic candidate facing former state Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Whitefish, in the race for Daines’ seat in the House, were at a Democratic event in Billings Friday.

Zinke and Daines did not appear at the Republican event Saturday.

Tester said that normally, people coming out to vote for congressional candidates can bring out more votes for local races. This year, that is reversed, he said, with people going out to support their local candidates bringing more votes for national candidates.

He said keeping Democrats in Congress is crucial, citing efforts to overturn the health care reform, attempts to cut women’s health care in federal Title X, efforts to privatize Medicare and Social Security, oppose efforts to reduce climate change and other issues.

And, he said, for Democrats to win it is crucial for people to help the candidates, donating to their campaigns, volunteering to help with mailers, going door to door.

“That’s what is going to make the difference. We’re not going to outspend them, but we can outwork them,” he said.

Getting people out to vote is crucial, Tester said.

“We don’t want a repeat of 2010 when 80,000 Democrats stayed home,” he said.

Republicans call for support

The Republicans made a similar call Saturday, with Hansen saying the region needs to put local conservatives in state government while she was introducing the event.

At the end, she called for people to vote for the Republican candidates and to put out signs for the candidates and support their campaigns.

Top-watched Senate race

While Hansen called for support electing Republican candidates including herself, she barely talked about her campaign during the Saturday event. She invited people with questions or concerns to talk to the candidates following the presentations.

Her opponent went into more detail during the Democrat’s Pasma-Peck Dinner Friday.

Jergeson said he has heard that Hansen is casting herself as the candidate of big ideas and major change.

“Sometimes big ideas and big change don’t mean they are good ideas,” he said.

He said, for example, trying to change how schools are funded so public money is taken from small public schools to go to other forms of education is not a good idea.

He said he wished Hansen well in her proposal last session to study the income tax system to simplify it — but if such a simplification is to be revenue neutral, it means some people will pay more and some will pay less. In its final version, her proposal would require an income tax increase for 80 percent of seniors who pay Hi-Line taxes, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Division reported, Jergeson said.

“That’s an idea that … may not be a good idea,” he said.

He said he supports the proposal under the health care reform to increase Medicaid eligibility for 70,000 people who work but don’t qualify for Obamacare help and can’t afford health insurance.

“I’m for it and I understand my competition thinks it’s too complicated,” Jergeson said.

In a meeting in Havre in May 2013, Hansen said she opposed the government providing insurance for “able-bodied young people who refuse to work.”

Jergeson also said he ran in 2012 with hopes of bridging the partisan divide and bringing moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats together to pass legislation. He said he thinks he had some success with that in 2013 and would like to continue doing that.

Fighting for the Havre House

Both the Democrat and Republican candidates for Havre’s HD 28, half of the district Jergeson and Hansen are campaigning in, called for votes in their election.

Hess said Saturday the election is only 45 days away, and as her father used to say, “I’m going to put a brick on the accelerator” and rev up her campaign, going around door-to-door and talking to voters.

“I’m looking forward to the next 45 days,” she said, adding that she appreciates all the help volunteers had been doing.

“We couldn’t do it without you,” she said.

Her opponent cited her own tenure in Havre, with Trethewey saying she is a Hi-Line native, growing up in Hingham, and has spent the last 27 years working as a professor at Montana State University-Northern and raising her family here.

“I am of this community. I am part of this community, and I think it is very important when you go out to represent the community,” she said.

She said knowing the people of the community allows her to understand the views and why people have those views.

Hollandsworth calls for re-election

In the race for the other House district that makes up SD 14, HD 27 that stretches from the Canadian border in Hill and Liberty counties through Chouteau County into the corner of Cascade County just outside of Great Falls, Hollandsworth at Saturday’s GOP event called for people to send him back to his fourth term.

He said he has been on the House Appropriations Committee all three of his terms, and that means all he does is approprations during the sessions.

“It’s a full-time job,” Hollandsworth said.

He also invited people with questions or who want to know how government works to contact him and their other legislators — “We’ll find you an answer,” he said.

Lang calls for votes

Lang, as Hollandsworth did, noted that he is running in a new district, in his second election. The redistricting made the district that runs mainly north of U.S. Highway 2 stretch from North Havre to Glasgow through four counties.

He said he has been in production agriculture his entire life, and operates a business in Malta as well, also citing his experience in his first term serving on the agriculture, business and labor and federal relations, energy and telecommunications committee and on the interim energy and telecommunications committee.

Gilbert wants to bring jobs to Indian Country

Meyers said at the Saturday Republican event that his reason for running is simple.

“Jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said.

He said he already is working to serve and has been in touch with a Bozeman-area entrepreneur, whom he did not name, who has started businesses across the state and challenged him to do the same at Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation and throughout Indian Country.

Wheat: Experience and fairness on the court

Wheat said during the Pasma-Peck Dinner that his opponent is casting him as a Democrat sitting on the court. He said that when he is on the court, that is his focus, not politics — there is a difference between serving in the trenches and on the bench, he said.

He said his years working as a prosecutor as well as a private-practice attorney in defense and civil cases gives him the experience and ability he needs to listen to every case on the Supreme Court — and each is a human drama, he said. Wheat added that his experiences help him look at and understand those stories.

He said VanDyke’s experiences have not prepared him for a seat on the state’s highest bench.

“If you compare my record with my opponent’s, you will see that he just isn’t quite ready for the big league,” Wheat said.