The outcome of the Montana Senate race will be crucial in deciding Senate control. Given the stakes, Republicans are using dirty tricks to try and change Montana’s election laws in hopes of defeating Senator Tester. Their tactics are shameful and unambiguous.
ECU // LAV denounces this egregious election meddling that is designed to advance an extremist agenda and ignore the voice of the people. Montana Republicans should reject this plot and abide by the rules.
New York Times: Facing Tough Senate Race, Montana G.O.P. Looks to Change the Rules
Nick Corasaniti
04/14/2023
Key Points:
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The bill would rewrite the rules for the state’s next U.S. Senate race, and only that race, for 2024. The effort to oust Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, is expected to be one of the tightest in the country.
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The legislation would shift the contest from a traditional election into a “top two” primary system, making it exceedingly difficult for third parties to reach a general election ballot.
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While supporters of the bill say it makes elections fairer, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Helena have claimed that the bill reeks of political interference.
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Chuck Denowh, a lobbyist who worked for Mr. Daines’s 2020 campaign and has ties to the Montana Republican Party, has been working closely with Mr. Hertz. At one point he suggested critical changes that focused the bill on Mr. Tester’s race, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.
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“We would like it to apply only to United States Senate races,” Mr. Denowh said in an email sent on March 26 to multiple lawmakers, including Mr. Hertz. “We’d like a sunset in 2025,” he added. It was not clear whom “we” was referring to, and Mr. Denowh declined to answer questions.
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At least two Republican lawmakers in Montana said they had been pressured by Mr. Daines’s office to support the bill. And one Republican state senator received a text message from state Republican Party officials explicitly saying the bill was needed to defeat Mr. Tester.
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Some Republican lawmakers who were supportive of the idea of a top-two election system balked when they saw that the proposal had been amended to apply only to the 2024 Senate election.
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As news about the bill spread around the state, Republican lawmakers said they were receiving calls and texts from constituents claiming an unease with the bill. Senator Jeff Welborn, a Republican state senator, noted that the complaints weren’t coming from just Democrats.
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