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May 7, 2026
One of Montana’s relatively quiet utility commission races showed signs of life this week when primary challenger David Sanders accused incumbent Republican Public Service Commissioner Annie Bukacek of not living within her district, as is required by state law.
Sanders, who works for State Auditor Jim Brown, made the allegation during the public comment period of a State Administration and Veterans’ Affairs meeting Monday. Sanders, who not long ago worked in a non-elected job as PSC executive director, told lawmakers he’d done some sleuthing and found that Bukacek’s Flathead Valley home is located several miles outside the boundaries of PSC District 5, which includes portions of Kalispell, Great Falls, Helena and Missoula. Sanders said Bukacek declared the home as her primary residence to qualify for a property tax break created by the 2025 Montana Legislature.
“My opponent, it was told to me by a member of the Flathead County Republican Committee, lives in Marion, Montana. I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but I know that Marion is some several miles west of the western boundary of my district, and in fact, it’s not in my district at all,” Sanders told lawmakers.
By the time Sanders did think enough of Bukacek’s place of residence to bring it to SAVA’s bimonthly meeting on May 4, the start of voting in the 2026 PSC primary was the very next day. And according to Sanders, he wasn’t the only one thinking about where Bukacek lived.
“A gentleman who approached me at the Cathedral of St. Helena this weekend after I was leaving mass told me that he had actually filed this with the Commissioner of Political Practices,” Sanders continued.
At least one SAVA member, Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, suggested to Sanders that COPP, not SAVA, which has oversight over several executive branch agencies and doesn’t regulate campaign matters, is the appropriate venue for the candidate’s observation.
SAVA meetings are live-streamed so Sanders’ presentation was viewable by the public. COPP filings about alleged campaign violations aren’t very animated. A look through COPP documents Thursday did not reveal a filing against Bukacek.
Bukacek, who said she will appear on the ballot as Dr. Annie Bukacek, the handle she’s used for more than a decade as an anti-abortion activist, told Capitolized Thursday that she has been living in an apartment in Helena, within the bounds of District 5, for the last two years. She said she voted in Helena this week.
By law, the state Legislature draws Public Service Commission districts. (Legislative and congressional districts are drawn by a bipartisan redistricting commission.) Lawmakers redrew the PSC map in 2023 following a court ruling that the districts had gone unadjusted for so long they violated the “one person, one vote” provision of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Lawmakers drew Bukacek out of the district to which she had been elected just months earlier, in November 2022. It isn’t uncommon for elected officials to remain in office when redistricting changes political boundaries mid-term.
It’s been a couple of years since the residence of a Public Service commissioner was called into question. The last time was 2020, when Sander’s current employer, Jim Brown, was running for the PSC. Brown claimed a residence in Dillon, where he had registered to vote a year before the election. Dillon was in his district. Then-executive director of the Montana Democratic Party Sandi Luckey filed a complaint with the COPP, arguing that Brown lived outside his district at 1822 E. Broadway in Helena, where he owned a home, and according to property records, still does.
Brown prevailed because then-COPP Jeff Mangan concluded that Brown’s residence in Helena was work-related and that “Dillon is the place he chooses to remain when not called elsewhere, for other temporary purposes, and that Dillon is the place to which he returns in seasons of repose.” Mangan ruled that Brown had also proven to COPP that the candidate had “lost” his Helena home and gained a residence in Dillon.
The defense Brown used was informally known as the Laslovich defense, named after Jesse Laslovich, who as a legislator was accused of running for an Anaconda area legislative seat while living in Helena. COPP ruled in 2009 that while Laslovich lived in Helena, he had “not become a resident of Helena.” Laslovich, COPP concluded, still banked in Anaconda, where his vehicle was licensed and he was a part-owner in his family’s construction business. Brown voted, banked and licensed his vehicle in Dillon.
COPP rulings do not set precedent. Each one can be challenged in District Court, which would start a ruling down the road toward permanence, provided the state Supreme Court weighed in at some point.
Candidates both Republican and Democrat have cited the Laslovich defense and also argued against it before the COPP, but none has taken it before a judge.
—Tom Lutey
Daines back in China
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, is back in China, a country he’s visited several times as a U.S. senator. The Chinese press is speculating that Daines and his bipartisan posse of four are in the country doing advance preparation for a meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China scheduled for May 14.
The senator’s staff said on background that Daines is in China as a member of the Senate, not as an envoy for the White House.
A Thursday Senate readout of Daines’ trip said the lawmakers discussed with Chinese officials “the importance of direct and open communication between the leadership of the two countries as well as issues of international and local importance. Topics of discussion included cooperation to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, and supply chain security. The Senators discussed the importance of reciprocal trade and opening up China’s markets to sustained agriculture trade across beef, wheat, pulse crops, potatoes, apples, cherries, soybeans, grain sorghum, seafood, and other industries. The delegation also discussed the importance of China’s relationship with Boeing and the proposed aircraft purchase currently under consideration. The Senators expressed their hope for an impactful and successful summit between President Trump and President Xi next week.”
Daines’ most highly-publicized trip to China occurred in 2017, when he snuck a red Coleman cooler full of Montana steaks onto a China-bound Air Force cargo jet in an attempt to sell then-Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on allowing the sale of Montana beef. China was buying no beef directly from the United States at the time.
The senator’s pitch drew interest from an online grocer in China, but the deal fell apart in 2018 during the launch of a Trump trade war and a change of personnel on the China end of the deal.
—Tom Lutey
