Schreiner stumps for governor in Havre

Montana House of Representatives Minority Leader Casey Schreiner, D-Great Falls, was in Havre Saturday at Viszla Brewing, talking to voters about his gubernatorial campaign.

Schreiner said Saturday it was his fourth time campaigning in Havre.

  "It's going great, it's wonderful to be able to go all around Montana, it's a lot of miles, it's 147,000 square miles around this state," he said. "If you want to be governor, it should be a hard job to get, but it's a lot of windshield time, a lot of talking to people in small groups.

"... We are building momentum for sure," Schreiner added.

Schreiner faces Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney; Missoula businesswoman Whitney Williams, daughter of former U.S Rep. Pat Williams; and former Montana Rep. Reilly Neill of Livingston in the Democratic primary.

Schreiner said he noticed while campaigning that one of the biggest things people are concerned about is health care and, depending who wins the governor seat, some of the advancements and protections that have been put in place over the years could go away away, especially in smaller, rural towns in Montana.

"We fought really hard over the last few years to, one, put Medicaid expansion in place and, two, protect it last session because that is the lifeblood of our critical access hospitals. If that goes away they are in a bind and I think people around the state recognize that," he said.

He added that as a father of three boys, he recognizes the importance of health care and education.

"I am a special needs dad myself, I have two kids on the autism spectrum, and I'm in a unique position to be somebody who has been a teacher, so I have sat on one side of the table during individual education plan meetings as a teacher, but now I get to sit on the other side of the table as a parent and see how that dynamic plays out," Schreiner said. "We need better funding. The state needs to prioritize that in their funding. There are a number of things that fall into what we call the inflationary for school education, which means every legislative session they are automatically given a bump in the cost that goes directly into the budget." 

He said special education has never been put into that inflationary, it's a lot harder to put things into the budget than it is to take them out.

"It's harder to get across the finish line because that is actually increasing the budget (when) it should've been there from the beginning, so that's one place we are going to focus on," he said. "We already have a co-op system in the state of Montana that is fairly successful. I am looking for ways to expand on that because that system specifically has been hit very hard over the years."

He  added that politics shouldn't get in the way of families being prosperous.

He said another thing people want to have a conversation about is education and that it is prioritized.

"I think there is a feeling while some really good work has been done, the Legislature, thus far those in charge have not really focused on what most Montana families always want," Schreiner said. "One, people want the education system to flourish and they want the kids who have the most needs to be taken care of and have the opportunity to be successful, but they are also kind of tired of people putting it on the backs of local property tax payers, so they would like to see the state play a larger role in how we help our school out rather than diverting those costs locally, which has happened year after year since I have been in the Legislature."

He added that another major issue is public lands and that people want to make sure they still have the opportunity to hunt and fish to help provide food for a family. In a state that doesn't always have the best-paying jobs, and that opportunity needs to be improved.

He said he plans to advocate for public lands access by helping protect the access that they currently have as the governor sits as the chair of the land board.

"You definitely have to leverage those lands to make sure our schools are adequately funded, but you also need to make sure they aren't sold to private entities that (charge) a ticket price for your kids or yourself to go there when you are a tax-paying citizen in the state of Montana and you have a constitutional right to our public lands," Schreiner said. "So, I think protections need to remain in place, but I also think we need to be harder on those that are putting up barriers to access to those public lands, we see across the state private landowners, wealthy private landowners that will put a gate on a road."

"Part of the reason, I threw my hat into the ring to run for governor is I think Montana deserves a governor who knows what it is like to live like every native Montanan but by knowing how to live like an everyday Montanan ... you have skin in the game," Schreiner said. "Our family still has over $40,000 in student loan debt, our family still lives paycheck to paycheck to pay for those services that my kids need all time and around this time of year, the holidays, we're making payments on our medical bills like many Montana families are across the state because we also want to be able to give our kids a good holiday season."

Schreiner said those are the kind of things many Montanans face every day, and they should have a governor who understands them.

"We are regular human beings, and I think if you want to have a system where the laws and the people that are elected reflect the common people across the state of Montana, we actually need folks to run that actually have those life experiences."