Meyers, Windy Boy face off in rematch for House District 32: Jonathan Windy Boy

Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, is running for re-election in House District 32 and faces former Rep. G. Bruce Meyers, R-Box Elder, in a rematch of of a race in a district both have represented.

Windy Boy served in the Montana House of Representatives from 2003 to 2008, then ran for the Senate, defeating Democratic Sen. Frank Smith in his bid for re-election. He beat Smith again in a race for that seat in 2012.

Meyers ran for the House seat in 2014, defeating incumbent Rep. Clarena Brockie, D-Harlem.

In 2016, with Windy Boy termed out of the Senate, Windy Boy ran unopposed for the House seat while Meyers challenged Smith, who again was running for the Senate. Smith won that race.

In 2018, Meyers made an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Windy Boy in his bid for re-election, with Windy Boy winning that race.

The district stretches from northeastern Chouteau County and southeastern Hill County through southern Blaine County and Phillips County and includes Rocky Boy's and Fort Belknap Indian reservations.

Windy Boy said he thinks Governor Steve Bullock has handled COVID-19 well and moved quick enough in responding to it, but it should've also done it sooner.

It should have been done sooner in responding to COVID-19 on the federal level as well, he said.

"We needed leadership from the top down," he said. 

He doesn't think the federal government has given adequate support and guidance to Montana, he added.

"If we would've given notice and taken this thing more seriously then more serious as there was when it happened back in December, January-area when we were first aware of this and (President Donald Trump) should've taken this as

serious as it was then, because if we would've acted early on in January or February around then instead of April and May, we probably could've saved half of the 200,000-plus lives that we lost," Windy Boy said.

In the next Legislature session, he said, they need to make resources more readily available just in case the next predicted round of COVID-19 comes back.

"When they are talking about COVID-19 and this next round they are saying COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 with a mixture, if there's a mixture of SARS and COVID somebody is playing around with stuff they shouldn't be playing around with it makes harder on everybody else," he said. "Somebody must be behind this."

SARS-CoV-2 is the scientific name for novel coronavirus 2019, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Jobs are going to be one of the biggest issues for him facing the Legislature next session, Windy Boy said.

"Historically how this whole thing works, is in the past the governor puts together his wish, his requirements, Legislature comes to session and once the Legislature convenes and those in power in our case, both Houses are Republican controlled with a Democrat governor, so basically what happens is the Democrat governor's wishes are tossed out the window and start from scratch, start from zero and all 90 days of the session it looks like the controlling party is doing great justice to the rest of Montana," Windy Boy said. "As far as the prioritization of what is going to be remaining is probably going to be laid to who gets elected the next governor, because if you take a look at it, if a Republican gets elected he is going to have different priorities. If a Democrat is elected the Democratic governor is going to have his priorities, but it won't matter because whoever is controlling the House, where the Appropriations process begins, it won't matter because it will be based up on that party's priorities."

He sees what is important is more likely going to be irrelevant when the session comes because he is one out of 150 voices, he said.

He added that language preservation is the most important because it is in the Constitution. 

He said meetings held by the legislative Joint Rules Committee this summer are not legal. 

Republicans of the Legislature's Joint Rules Committee have been holding meetings in the past few weeks that the Montana Democratic Party - and the Democratic members of the committee - say are being held in violation of state law, which says the committee cannot meet out of session until after the election and party caucuses have been established.  

This issue is an issue of separation of powers playing into hand, he said.

He said the courts won't want to step in here because their thought is probably that this is a legislative internal fight struggle going on.

"In my nine sessions, going on 10, after I win this next election will be my 10th Legislature, and every legislative that we've voted on the rules is after everybody's sworn in after under oath - all 150 members - and this is the first time I've seen this right before an election," Windy Boy said. "If anybody says this is unprecedented, it has never been done before, like I said in the nine sessions, I've done we have never played with the rules before especially right before an election. It kind of smells fishy here as far as politics are being thrown into the mix."

As for state bonding bills being used for construction, he said, there has to be some type of a pyramid and process that requires the government to give out contracts or whatever otherwise there aren't contracts for construction.

He does support state bonding, he said, adding that there has got to be a tracking mechanism that prohibits those who abuse it.

He also said he is glad Medicaid expansion passed.

There was a fraction of people who didn't meet the threshold - above or below, he said.

He said 93,000 people who qualified for the expansion made too much to be on Medicaid but not enough to get insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

"This was more of a fairness issue as I see it, and I'm glad it passed in the state, because, right now, if you take a look at it, there is a lot of these states that didn't have Medicaid Expansion and this is a party fight issue - Republicans, Democrats and those that did not vote for Medicaid expansion are the ones who are hurting now, especially with this pandemic," Windy Boy said. "Thank goodness that there was something available in Montana to cover these because if you take a look at the coronavirus it was unprecedented, and later on, now that it is going to be considered a pre-existing condition," he added. 

He said when he first got into the Legislature in 2002, his predecessor voted against an issue that dealt with human services when he was a tribal leader that was going to have a huge impact in his district.

In House District 32, he said, 60 percent of the population is Native American and that is when he decided to run.

It'll be 20 years after he gets elected in this election he will have served, he added. 

"I have withstood a lot of people trying to take me out in any shape or form," Windy Boy said. "Why did I last so long? Because some people say that you work on both parties, both sides of the aisle - I did it. I was successful in bringing home the bacon, tens and tens of millions of dollars I brought home. Some people say that is pork spending, but if I don't do it Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Missoula and Kalispell will take the majority of the funds."

  He said he is more qualified than his opponent because of his record.

Throughout his nine sessions in the Legislature, people can look at how many bills he had and his success rate, he said. 

"My Republican opponent that is running right now, he was successful in serving in the 2015 election and ... in that session he proposed two bills, he was a Republican at the time, he had a Republican-controlled House, he had a Republican-controlled Senate and those two bills that he proposed both died in the process, so that should tell you how effective a legislator that he was because his record shows it," Windy Boy said.

The main thing he wants to get across to the constituents in House District 32, he said, is that he gets things done regardless of who he has to work with.

"If I am not elected then there goes the tens and tens of millions that I got out of the Legislature that will not be coming back to our district and that is a fact because nobody is going to pursue what I've accomplished or pursued," he said.