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November 27, 2024
A recount in Montana’s tightest state House race, which Bozeman Democrat Scott Rosenzweig entered with a lead of 20 votes, started Wednesday in Park County, home to the Republican candidate, Marty Malone.
The Park County elections office started hand-counting ballots at 9 a.m. Elections officer Maritza Reddington divided counters into four groups for a count that lasted about three hours.
“Marty Malone had 2,889, and then he ended up with 2,891,” Reddington said. “Rosenzweig went from 1,767 to 1,766.”
Malone posted a $5,400 bond to cover the estimated recount costs in both Park and Gallatin counties. Gallatin County plans to conduct its recount Dec. 2.
Recounts are rare. House District 57 is the only legislative race tight enough to warrant a recount this year. Even rarer are recounts that change the outcome of a race.
Since 2000, there have been eight general election recounts in Montana legislative races and no change of winner in any of the contests, according to state election data.
The recounts tend to happen in the same counties. Candidates who survive a couple of recounts gain notoriety. Capitolized is referring to Margaret “Margin” MacDonald, the southside Billings Democrat who won recounts in 2014 for state House against Tony O’Donnell and in 2016 for state Senate when MacDonald defeated Don Roberts, a Billings dentist and former legislator. Following her second recount win, Margie, as MacDonald was known, earned the nickname “Margin.”
O’Donnell was elected to the Public Service Commission two years after the defeat. He terms out this year.
Yellowstone County has been home to four of this millennium’s Montana recounts. Park County has had two, the first being Livingston Republican Dan Skattum’s 2010 win over then-incumbent Democrat Bob Ebinger. Cascade and Missoula counties have one each.
Five of the recounts took place after the redistricting of 2014. Those districts expired in 2022.
—Tom Lutey
A Changing Energy Current
As expected, Gov. Greg Gianforte reiterated his “all of the above” approach to energy policy Wednesday while blasting the Bureau of Land Management’s decision to end coal leasing in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming.
Members of the state Land Board, meanwhile, expressed skepticism about leasing state land for commercial-scale renewable energy.
The governor’s remarks on coal stem from recent federal decisions not to make more federal land available for coal mining in the Powder River Basin. The first ruling came Nov. 20 when BLM decided to end coal leasing in Wyoming. In that decision, BLM noted that there is currently enough coal under lease to keep Wyoming mining on federal lands through 2041. The second ruling, posted to BLM’s Miles City Bureau website, issued the same end to leasing in Montana. The 102-page decision discusses the coal needs for the Colstrip power plant, noting that there is enough coal currently under lease to fuel the power plant, which is losing markets as its Pacific Northwest owners prepare to exit the plant in the coming years. Montana utility NorthWestern Energy plans to stick around through 2042. Talen Energy indicates it will stay for the foreseeable future.
The Land Board, which consists of the top five statewide elected officials, hit the pause button on the question of whether to lease state land to the developer of a $1.85 billion wind energy project. That decision, made two days before BLM called a halt to coal leasing in the region, centered around local community concerns and questions board members don’t normally ask about energy leases — namely, whether the energy generated by developer NextEra would be consumed out of state, as most oil, natural gas, coal and electricity resources in Montana are.
Some of the very first countywide zoning in Montana is being proposed in the southeastern part of the state. Expect to see more on energy policy in 2025 with tax breaks for wind farms being revisited.
Gianforte was absent from the meeting. The Land Board will take up the NextEra project again Dec. 16. A vote for the project would allow NextEra to proceed with its plans to include state land in its project, which spans Wibaux, Dawson and Prairie counties.
—Tom Lutey
On Background
- The rise of renewable energy sources poses life-changing questions for Montana’s coal country.
- The Montana Legislature is reviewing a pair of proposals that would add new legal requirements — and new costs — for county election officials.
- Supporters of a transmission line proposed along the Montana-North Dakota border say the project has “huge” implications for Montana energy development.