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May 22, 2025
Nevada Democrats were heaping praise on Montana Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke on Thursday for objecting to the proposed sale of hundreds of thousands of federal acres in Nevada and Utah.
Nevada Democratic U.S. Rep. Dina Titus thanked Zinke personally for the removal of the language from President Donald Trump’s major tax and border security package, which would have put the 450,000 acres located in the two states up for sale.
The amendment to sell the land belonged to U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nevada. Titus had attempted to amend property within her district out of the proposed sale, but the amendment didn’t pass muster with the House Rules Committee as it prepared the bill for a floor vote. A second Democratic representative from Nevada, Susie Lee, attempted to amend out the Utah parcels.
Zinke, who represents western Montana, organized a Public Lands Caucus to oppose selling the land located along a critical water pipeline route.
Public lands are a staple of Montana Democratic campaigns. Zinke’s opponents put him in the hotseat when he first ran for Congress in 2014 and have repeatedly accused him of wanting to sell federal acres. As Trump’s Interior secretary in 2017, Zinke oversaw a trimming of the Bears Ears National Monument from 1.35 million acres to 201,000. Trump successor former President Joe Biden restored the monument to its original size. The cuts are being reconsidered by Trump in his second term.
Titus, during Zinke’s Interior days, accused him of “snorkeling, fundraising, and undermining the integrity of the Interior Department.”
Of the proposed sale, Lee on Thursday told the Nevada Independent that “Republicans, led by Zinke, acknowledged that it would wrongfully change the way the federal lands are managed.”
Both Zinke and eastern Montana Republican U.S. Rep. Troy Downing spent weeks leading up to the early Thursday morning vote emphasizing their opposition to selling federal property. There are 27 million acres of federal land in Montana, mostly controlled by the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management.
In the days before the vote on Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the Montana representative declared that striking the land sale language would be his “San Juan Hill,” a reference to an 1898 battle site defended by U.S. forces in the Spanish-American War. Zinke had been saying as much since January, when he reintroduced a bill package to block large federal land sales.
The Utah and Nevada land sales were removed from the proposal through an amendment by the bill manager to settle Republican lawmakers’ concerns ahead of a floor vote. Republicans had few votes to spare, which played to Zinke’s advantage.
Montana Democrats blasted Zinke and Downing for supporting cuts to Medicaid and the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which prior to 2008 was known as food stamps.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill” renews tax cuts proposed by Trump in 2017 at the end of the first year of the president’s first term. Because Congress never trimmed government spending to match the 2017 tax cuts, a deficit of $1.9 trillion resulted, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which this week indicated extending the tax cuts would cause the federal government to be another $3.3 trillion short of paying its bills without borrowing.
The CBO estimated that 8.6 million people would lose health coverage over the next 10 years because of $700 billion in Medicaid funding cuts proposed in the bill.
Federal revenue from oil, gas and coal mining royalties were expected to drop as the percentage collected fell in the bill from 12.5% to 7% into 2034. Montana’s current share of royalties from federal leases is about $45 million a year, according to the Department of the Interior. Several renewable energy subsidies would be phased out.
The bill increases government spending on farm programs, including higher subsidies for wheat, by $53 billion. Montana is the third-largest wheat producer in the United States with more than $1 billion sold in 2024.
—Tom Lutey
Nobody’s home
State Sen. Mary Ann Dunwell, D-Helena, had a proposal for repurposing the vacant brick home built in 1959 to serve as the residence for Montana’s governor: turn the building into a shelter for the unhoused.
The 12,000-square-foot house on the corner of Carson Street and East Broadway Avenue in Helena near the state Capitol has been vacant for a few years and is in need of repairs. Lawmakers were told during the 2025 legislative session that while sitting empty, the building costs the state $100,000 a year, Dunwell said.
She’s also proposed using the house as a child care center for the families of government workers, or temporary lodging for state employees. The Democrat had two unsuccessful pieces of legislation to deal with the building in the session that ended in April.
The executive residence was in Dunwell’s district when she first ran for state Senate in 2022. She said she heard concerns about the property while visiting with constituents, namely dissatisfaction with Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte not living there. Gianforte moved out of the building in 2021 to make way for repairs, to which the Legislature committed $2.4 million. The building is still in disrepair.
—Tom Lutey
Correction: In the May 15 edition of Capitolized, the entry titled “Republicans line up to replace Don K,” has been changed to accurately reflect the order of finish in the 2024 Republican primary for Montana’s eastern U.S. House district.
