Rosendale, Williams face off to take U.S. House seat: Matt Rosendale

Republican candidate State Auditor Matt Rosendale faces former state Rep. Kathleen Williams, D-Bozeman, faces in the race to take the seat of U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., in the U.S. House.

Gianforte, who won a special election in 2017 to take the House seat when Ryan Zinke left to become secretary of the interior and defeated Williams to retain the seat in 2018, is running for Montana governor this year. He faces Democratic Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney and Libertarian Lyman Bishop in that race.

Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock cannot run for re-election due to term limits and is challenging U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., in Daines' bid for a second term in the Senate.

Rosendale, who was a state representative 2011-12 and a state senator from 2013-16, lost to Zinke in the Republican primary in the House race in 2014, won the state auditor race in 2016 and lost to Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., in the 2018 Senate race.

He is running for the House this year instead of running for re-election as auditor. Republican Troy Downing of Big Sky and Rep. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, are running for that seat.

Rosendale said he looks at President Donald Trump's actions from the beginning in how the federal government handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I think that if we look at the president's actions starting all the way back in January, where as soon as he was alerted to the fact there was virus put together a task force to see, evaluate exactly what was going on then in February when he saw that was emanating from China he stopped travel from China, very soon thereafter he stopped travel from Europe - those two actions alone saved thousands and thousands of lives, the medical professionals have stated that that's not me," he said. "He then took the next phase to implement the Defense Production Act, which made personal protective equipment more readily available across our nation when it was discovered that we were so heavily reliant on China, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party that they were hoarding their own supplies."

Factcheck.org reports that the restrictions were not a true ban, with many exceptions allowed, and that cases already had entered the U.S. from China before the ban was put in place.

A study found that many of the first cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. came into the country from Europe.

Rosendale said the U.S. ramped up production of personal protective equipment and on researching treatments and vaccines and relaxed regulations to make it easier to use telemedicine as well as Congress passing relief aid early in the pandemic.

"Check the boxes," he said "I think with the information that was available to him at any given time and that was available to Congress at any given time that they responded in a quite positive manner."

He said eliminating processes needed to implement a plan is better.

Allowing increased telemedicine is an example, he said.

"We had other people who had been tested positive with COVID that they could actually stay quarantined and receive medical treatment through telemedicine, so that way they weren't exposing other people," Rosendale said.

He said it has been tragic the number of lives lost and the amount of people that have suffered throughout this whole process with illness. Once health improves, the economy will improve.

"I have put an eight bullet plan to reignite our economy: Providing long-term regulatory relief, unleashing investment in America businesses, creating permanent pro-growth tax code, protecting businesses from pandemic liability - these are things that are going to be critically important for us to implement so that we can get the economy back on track again," Rosendale said.

He said Williams is looking to increase taxes and set up government-run health care.

While Williams has made improving health care a priority in her campaign, she has not endorsed Medicare for All or a public option in her campaigning.

"I've shown right here, at the state level that we have the ability to build a framework with which people who have pre-existing conditions can not only purchase high-quality, affordable health care, but we've done it in a cheaper fashion," Rosendale said. "We actually lowered premiums by 15 percent this year with the framework that I was able to put together while serving as the insurance commissioner."

He has always supported repealing the Affordable Care Act, he said.

"What we need to do is clean the slate - I have built a framework here in the state that shows we can provide high-quality, affordable health care and cover pre-existing conditions, and we can do that," Rosendale said. "The first step you take is again we had that plan in place and then you have to have other alternatives for the balance of the population that determines they want other options.

"We have health care sharing ministries that people have been utilizing and so we have to make sure all of these options are available for people to accommodate their health care in a way that recognizes their specific budget, their specific health care needs and then their personal choices as well," he added.

Rosendale said trade tariffs President Donald Trump started enacting were used as a temporary tool to bring the international trading partners to the table, he said.

He said the tariffs had been working effectively until the negotiations had been shut down through this pandemic.

"When we look at the Chinese Communist Party and the unfair trade practices that they have been using against the United States and the unfair treatment that our agriculture producers as a direct result of that the tariffs were put in place to bring them to the table to negotiate fairly and they were on the way back to the table pre-COVID," Rosendale said.

He said the first thing needed to do is get the economy back on track again.

"Once we see that the physical health of our population is heading in the right direction and we see that their are new treatments on the horizon, we see that there is a vaccine on the horizon, the next thing we need to focus on is get the economy back on track and I've developed a plan to help us take care of that as opposed to my opponent who again, continues to bring up additional taxation that she wants to place upon our businesses and our families across the state of Montana," he said.

He said he is the best candidate for this position because he is a businessman.

Every solution proposed by Williams, he said, involves more control over to the government instead of the response being, "What can we do as an individual, as a community to try and solve this at a local level?"

He said one cannot allow their businesses to grow by adding additional taxation on them and additional regulation.

He said he not only has enjoyed his work on the State Land Board over the last four years, but the board has been very effective in expanding access to public lands around the state to the tune of about 45,000 acres including additional fish access sites, expansions of the wildlife management areas, one of the largest purchases of land for public use in the Land Board's history, he said.

He said not only did they expand access to public lands, but maintain the harvesting of the timber and utilizing the resources on those lands properly.