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A confession: I cover the Montana state Legislature as a not-insignificant part of my work here at MTFP. As is also the case with our other reporters, it’s literally my job to know the names, faces and agendas of Montana’s 100 representatives and 50 senators.
One place I struggle though? The boundaries of their districts. At one point in the last election cycle, I realized I didn’t know who my incumbent state representative was until she knocked on my door while campaigning for re-election. (She was, as it turned out, someone I routinely grill at press conferences.)
I can imagine that matching names to districts to neighborhoods is even more of a challenge for readers who, like most normal Montanans, don’t spend dawn to dusk in the Capitol when the Legislature is in session. And that’s doubly true this election year, when the state is using newly drawn legislative maps for the first time.
That presents a bit of a conundrum for the idea that voters elect lawmakers to represent their interests in the Legislature. If Montanans don’t know whose campaigns to follow, whose votes to watch and who to email when they think the Legislature has done something dumb, one of democracy’s essential feedback mechanisms slips off its tracks.
Because another part of my job is delivering the information people need to be effective citizens, I thought I’d try to do something about that uncertainty this year. Over the course of the last month, I spent several solid days parked in front of my office computer, building an atlas of Montana’s 150 new House and Senate districts. We published the initial result of that work earlier this week as part of a story on this year’s legislative candidate filings.
Mapping legislative districts is tricky for a few different reasons. For starters, since House districts are supposed to reflect roughly equivalent populations, they vary wildly in size — from 16,500 square miles for southeast Montana’s House District 34, which runs from Alzaeda to Circle, to less than 2 square miles for central Missoula’s House District 95.
From a cartographic standpoint, that means you have to zoom out to nearly statewide scale to get the boundaries of large rural districts in your frame, but then zoom in to the scale of cities or neighborhoods to make small urban districts more than just specks on the page.
Furthermore, the district boundaries themselves, drawn by a nominally independent districting commission that was inevitably beset by all manner of political concerns, are rarely straightforward lines. I abandoned pretty quickly any hope of trying to squeeze in the specific names of the streets, streams and mountain crests that form each district’s undulating borders. For those interested, that level of detail is I think easier to see on an interactive web map, as opposed to the thumbnail-style approach I chose in an effort to help readers quickly grasp how each district’s broad geography fits into its surroundings.
Speaking of which, I’d love to hear whether these maps are helpful to you in your pocket of the state — especially if you have creative ideas about how we can help you and your neighbors become more geographically informed citizens by the time the June primary and November general election roll around. (Also, as an aside, my editor thinks I’m opening a Boaty McBoatface-esque can of worms by suggesting this, but I’d love to hear any fun nicknames you think might be appropriate for your local districts.)
SEE ALL 150 MAPS HERE: With candidates filed for Legislature, Democrats hope to edge into GOP supermajority.
—Eric Dietrich, Deputy Editor
Close-up 📸
The beloved “Red Buses” of Glacier National Park have moved tourists around the park for decades, but keeping the oldest and most intact fleet of passenger vehicles anywhere in the United States on the road has required a massive restoration project. Justin Franz, an MTFP correspondent and frequent visitor to Glacier, wrote this week about the buses, their history and how the park’s concessioner, Xanterra Parks & Resorts, plans to keep them in service for decades to come.
READ MORE: Rebuilding Glacier’s ‘Reds’
Hot Seat 🔥
Legislative and executive leaders of Montana’s K-12 public school system clashed this week as lawmakers in Helena sought answers for a series of alleged blunders and delays in the rollout of education laws passed in 2023. The dispute quickly centered around Republican state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen, whose absence from the proceedings drew the ire of Democratic and Republican legislators alike.
It all began with a question: What is holding up the full implementation of a string of bipartisan bills addressing early childhood literacy, public charter schools, Indigenous culture instruction and other student needs? The short answer lawmakers received was that the Office of Public Instruction, headed by Arntzen, has interpreted key legal details of those bills differently than the Legislature’s own attorneys.
For example, the Board of Public Education approved 19 public charter contracts last month, the bulk of which intend to open this fall. Legislative attorneys, the board and the bill’s author himself, Rep. Fred Anderson, R-Great Falls, agreed the approval process was intended to end there. OPI countered it believes the new charters must comply with separate school opening laws that would require them to obtain additional approval from the state superintendent, county superintendents and county commissions.
The agency’s message was delivered by Deputy Superintendent and Chief Legal Counsel Rob Stutz, who fielded two consecutive days of questioning and criticism on Arntzen’s behalf. Lawmakers continually pressed him whether OPI would change its legal position in order to implement the laws in a more timely fashion, but Stutz — serving as a proxy for the elected leader of public education in Montana — indicated he could only serve as an intermediary. Incensed, Rep. David Bedey, the Hamilton Republican who chairs the Legislature’s Education Interim Budget Committee, moved to send a letter to Arntzen formally chastising her for her absence from a critical policy discussion.
“Frankly, we are powerless to force anything to happen. However, we are not powerless to communicate our discontent,” Bedey said of the letter, which committee members approved on a 6-2 vote.
That Arntzen, who is currently running in the Republican primary for Montana’s eastern congressional district, was keeping close tabs on the proceedings became clear immediately. Within minutes of the committee’s vote, Stutz delivered a response from Arntzen decrying the letter as “political persecution” and arguing that ceding ground to the Legislature “would be dereliction of OPI’s duty.”
—Alex Sakariassen, Reporter
Wildlife Watch 🐑
The owner of an alternative livestock ranch northwest of Great Falls pleaded guilty to two felony wildlife crimes associated with his endeavor to create “giant sheep hybrids,” the U.S. Department of Justice reported Tuesday.
Arthur “Jack” Schubarth owns and operates Sun River Enterprises, LLC, also known as Schubarth Ranch, where he purchases, sells and breeds “alternative livestock” such as mountain sheep, mountain goats and other ungulates for use in captive hunting operations.
During an eight-year period, Schubarth, 80, conspired with at least five other individuals to bring “biological tissue” from the largest sheep species in the world, Marco Polo argali sheep, into the U.S. from Kyrgyzstan without declaring the importation, according to court filings. Federal prosecutors say he then used the material he acquired in an illegal breeding operation and in the process violated international, national and state wildlife laws.
Schubarth paid for a lab to create cloned embryos that he then implanted in his ewes in pursuit of a “single, pure genetic male Marco Polo argali that he named ‘Montana Mountain King,’ or MMK,” according to the DOJ. Marco Polo argali can weigh up to 300 pounds and have horns that span five-plus feet.
Other illegal activities prosecutors say were associated with Schbarth’s breeding operation include the falsification of veterinarian records, the sale of MMK semen and purchasing testicles from a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep — a species native to Montana — from a hunting guide for $400.
Todd Kim, an assistant attorney general with the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, called Schubarth’s enterprise “an audacious scheme” that violated the Lacey Act, which aims to protect native animals.
The maximum penalty for each count is five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and three years of supervised release. A federal judge is scheduled to sentence Schubarth on July 11.
—Amanda Eggert, Reporter
Following the Law ⚖️
For the last three weeks or so, my work days have consisted of a fairly steady routine: Send some emails. Refresh the Montana Supreme Court page of daily orders and opinions. Read unrelated documents. File a records request. Refresh the Montana Supreme Court page of daily orders and opinions. Listen to a public hearing. Refresh the Supreme Court page again.
Like many interested Montanans, I’ve been waiting for a ruling on whether the ballot proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution will be allowed to proceed to the next step of the lengthy citizen’s initiative process. The case was filed by abortion rights advocates in January after Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen deemed the proposed ballot measure, initially submitted by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana in November, “legally insufficient.” The case file of arguments and amicus briefs was handed off to the Supreme Court for consideration on Feb. 12. At that point, the waiting game began.
It’s a holding pattern with significant consequences. As we reported this week, even if the court sides with the initiative’s sponsor group to overrule Knudsen’s determination, many other hurdles and procedural steps could delay the signature-gathering necessary to place the measure on the fall ballot. To put the constitutional initiative before voters, backers need to collect more than 60,000 verified signatures across 40 state House districts before a June 21 deadline.
The timeline — which could include other legal challenges over the “yes” or “no” statements that describe the measure on the ballot and must allow a legislative interim committee to review the initiative — is getting tight enough that the supporter group, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, filed a note with the court Thursday expressing anxiety about the delay.
“Given the strict statutory requirements governing the qualification process, unless a decision issues imminently it will be virtually impossible for MSRR to obtain the requisite signatures prior to the June 21, 2024, deadline,” attorneys for the group wrote.
As of Friday morning, the court had not yet released its ruling.
The delayed timeline is undoubtedly a blessing for opponents of the initiative — Knudsen and other Republican office holders, as well as local and national anti-abortion advocacy groups that filed court arguments against the proposal. But even some conservatives who plan to vote against the initiative express frustration with bureaucracy and political delays that have become a routine part of bringing initiatives before voters.
“You can’t have a frickin’ legislative interim committee being the gatekeeper for citizens’ initiatives,” said Bozeman attorney Matthew Monforton, the sponsor of two recent property tax cap initiatives that failed to make it on the ballot. “The whole reason we have citizen initiatives is to allow citizens to bypass incompetent legislators.”
Meeting the signature-gathering threshold, Monforton and other initiative sponsors noted in interviews this week, is a substantial challenge in itself. While roughly 60,000 is the threshold for signatures, campaigns typically try to over-collect by tens of thousands to account for signatures that can’t be verified.
“By the middle of March, if you’re not out collecting signatures, you better have a truckload of money and you better be able to start collecting signatures soon if you’re going to get your initiative across the finish line,” he said.
— Mara Silvers, Reporter
Verbatim 💬
“One is a foster care dad who works and has four children. I worked through the application with him. We sent it in, and then he got a denial notice. I have no idea why. And I tried to get through on the helpline, but, he just gave up. And I don’t know what to do with him. He just said, ‘I don’t have time for this.’ And it’s his own health insurance. The kids are covered. And so he just gave up.”
— Rep. Mary Caferro, D-Helena, expressing frustration to state health department director Charlie Brereton on Wednesday about her experience trying to help a constituent enroll in Montana Medicaid.
The state health department is still wrapping up its multi-month review of the state’s Medicaid rolls, an effort intended to determine if enrollees still qualify for coverage. As of the state’s most recent update in February, more than 127,000 people out of the 330,000 enrolled in the program last April have been removed from the health coverage program, 64% of them because of a “failure to provide requested information.” Brereton encouraged Caferro and other lawmakers to contact him directly by email or phone when they hear about constituents caught on snags in the application process.
READ MORE: Health department shares Medicaid disenrollment numbers for children, seniors, Native Americans.
Glad You Asked 🙋🏻
A reader reached out following our story on the March 11 candidate filing deadline for the 2024 election cycle to ask if it also applied to independent candidates. The answer: Those who aren’t running under the imprimatur of a major political party have some more time.
Per the state’s official election calendar, independent and minor party candidates have until May 28 to submit the signatures necessary to qualify for ballot access to their county election administrator, and until June 3 to file a declaration of intent to run for office. Write-in candidates also have some more time: April 9 is the deadline to file a declaration of intent to run.
— Arren Kimbel-Sannit, Reporter
On Our Radar 
Amanda — I love the creativity photographer Annie Wang employed to document the “time-tunnel” of her relationship with her son from the day before his birth in 2001 to 2018. The New Yorker has more on what inspired her “Mother as Creator” series and how it — like her relationship with her son — evolved. Poignant stuff.
Alex — I understand this week’s massive snowstorm in Colorado caused a lot of disruptions for locals. But as a skier who still feels robbed of a good chunk of the season this year, can y’all forgive me for a fleeting pang of envy?
Arren — Billy Gibbons, of ZZ Top fame, recently became the co-owner of a bar in Wise River where Evil Knievel used to get drunk and try to ride the “pet elk.”
Brad — It comes and goes, but I’m currently cycling back through a noodle stir fry phase, which means trying to cook with a wok, which means another leisurely trip down YouTube lane. I no longer have the shoulder strength (and I’ve never had access to the BTUs) to cook like a Cambodian street food vendor, but if someone set up this outdoor kitchen in downtown Helena I’d pay just to stand and watch.
JoVonne — South Dakota will soon be home to one of the first Native American boarding school memorials that honors the 50 children lost at the Rapid City Indian Boarding School. Amelia Schafer with ICT and the Rapid City Journal reported on the upcoming Remembering the Children Memorial, which is made of clay sculptures of children produced by local artists.
Mara — Helena locals ready to pour one out for the Corner Bar can wait a while longer. The beloved divey establishment has had a lot of closing tributes lately, but, as the Helena Independent Record reports, the logistics of transferring the bar’s liquor license has provided enough delay to justify reopening for at least a few weeks — just in time for St. Paddy’s Day.
Eric — I am not one to care much for gossip about the British royals. But, as a reporter, I’m fascinated by how truth tends to distort around power — and this Nieman Lab piece dissecting the interplay between palace press officials, mainstream news coverage and the social media rumors currently swirling around the princess of Wales is among the most thought-provoking things I’ve read in ages.
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