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ACLU plans to spend $1.3M in educate Montana voters about state Supreme Court candidates

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ACLU plans to spend .3M in educate Montana voters about state Supreme Court candidates


HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union plans to spend $1.3 million on campaign advertising to educate Montana voters about where state Supreme Court candidates stand on abortion and other civil rights issues with a measure constitutionally protecting protect abortion access also on the ballot.

The expenditure comes after Republicans tried unsuccessfully in 2022 to unseat a justice by making an unprecedented partisan endorsement of her challenger. GOP lawmakers also argue that the Supreme Court has been legislating from the bench in blocking laws to restrict abortion access or make it more difficult to vote.

“With politicians passing increasingly extreme laws, including abortion restrictions and bans, voters have the opportunity to elect justices who will protect fundamental rights in the state from these attacks,” the national ACLU and the ACLU of Montana said in a statement Thursday.

State Supreme Court candidates cannot seek, accept or use partisan endorsements. The ACLU of Montana said it was not endorsing any candidates.

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“From abortion to marriage equality and Indigenous voting rights, the people we entrust with seats on the Supreme Court of Montana will play a critical role in determining whether we keep the rights Montanans value or whether politicians will be allowed to take away our freedom,” Akilah Deernose, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

The ACLU wants to make sure voters know where Supreme Court candidates stand on those issues “so that they can cast an informed ballot this November,” Deernose said.

The $1.3 million is the most the ACLU has spent on a Montana election, spokesperson Andrew Everett said. The ACLU is also spending money on Supreme Court races in Arizona, Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina.

Money has increasingly poured into state Supreme Court races in recent years, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and sent the abortion issue back to states, said Mike Milov-Cordoba of the Brennan Center for Justice.

Voters generally don’t have “strong preconceptions” of candidates in Supreme Court races, so the ad buy is “potentially significant,” he said.

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Total spending on two Montana Supreme Court races in 2022 was a record $4.6 million, including $500,000 by the state Republican Party, according to the Brennan Center.

Milov-Cordoba said he wouldn’t be surprised to see similar spending this year, “especially given the conservatives’ frustration with the Montana Supreme Court pushing back on unconstitutional laws.”

The ACLU ads and mailers note that chief justice candidate Jerry Lynch and associate justice candidate Katherine Bidegaray agree with the analysis in a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling that found the state’s constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion from the provider of the patient’s choice.

Chief justice candidate Cory Swanson said it was not appropriate for him to comment on a case that may come before the court in the future, and associate justice candidate Dan Wilson did not respond to a survey sent out by the ACLU of Montana, the organization said.

A campaign committee, Montanans for Fair and Impartial Courts, has reported spending just over $425,000 for television ads endorsing Lynch, state campaign finance reports indicate.

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What to know about the 2024 Election

Montana voters are being asked this fall whether the 1999 Supreme Court ruling should be enshrined in the constitution.

Historically, conservatives have accounted for a far greater share of spending in state Supreme Court races, Milov-Cordoba said. But since Roe v. Wade was overturned, groups on the left have nearly equaled that nationwide.

While abortion is a major issue driving the increased spending, state Supreme Courts are also being asked to rule in cases involving partisan gerrymandering, voting rights and climate change, he said.

“So who sits on those courts is a high-stakes matter,” he said.

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Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for May 8, 2026

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The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.

Here’s a look at May 8, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Mega Millions numbers from May 8 drawing

37-47-49-51-58, Mega Ball: 16

Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.

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Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from May 8 drawing

09-14-18-20, Bonus: 16

Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 8 drawing

14-16-21-43-51, Bonus: 03

Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

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When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?

  • Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
  • Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
  • Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
  • Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
  • Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
  • Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
  • Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
  • Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.

Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.



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“It’s Life Alert or rent”: Montana trailer park tenants are on rent strike

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“It’s Life Alert or rent”: Montana trailer park tenants are on rent strike


Mobile home residents in Bozeman, Montana, say they’re being forced to choose between paying rent and paying medical costs.Courtesy of Jered McCafferty

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35-year-old Benjamin Moore has lived in Mountain Meadows Mobile Home Park, outside Bozeman, Montana, since he was 17. This month, for the first time, he’s withholding his rent.

On May 1, Moore received a rent bill for $947, up 11 percent from the month before, and the second hike in nine months—the product of the park’s sale to an undisclosed buyer. 

Moore hung a sign on his trailer that says “RENT STRIKE.” He and his neighbors in Mountain Meadows and nearby King Arthur Park, organized with the citywide group Bozeman Tenants United, are collectively withholding over $50,000 a month from their landlord. 

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Historically, trailer parks have been a relatively affordable housing option—a third of trailer park residents in America live below the poverty line. But on average, their cost of living has risen 45 percent over the past decade. By unionizing, the Bozeman trailer park tenants believe they might be able to fight the most recent rent hike—especially given the state of their housing. 

For years, tenants say, the maintenance hasn’t been attended to: tree limbs hang perilously over trailers, and water shutoffs are a regular occurrence. “I cannot recall a time in the past 20 years where we had three straight months of water and power working all day, every day,” Moore said. 

Shauna Thompson, another resident, calls the water “atrocious…like a Milky Way, like you’re drinking skim milk. It’s very nasty and turned off all the time, without any notice.” And tenants allege that they’ve experienced retribution for maintenance requests, punitive eviction attempts, and unsafe conditions. 

A group of protestors in support of a rent strike rip up rent notices.
Members of Bozeman Tenants United, including Benjamin Moore and Shauna Thompson, rip up their rent increase notices. Jered McCafferty

“It’s really hard on people here,” Moore said. Some residents are “already paying their entire Social Security check for rent. It’s a very poor neighborhood. We’ve got old folks. We’ve got young families. We’ve got working-class people who can’t afford anything else.”

For the past four decades, a group called Oakland Properties has owned both trailer parks. When they learned about the sale, tenants were scared that their parks would be bulldozed, or that their rent would be increased even further, forcing them to move. 

The tenants attempted to buy the parks themselves, but were decisively outbid. The winning bidder demanded an NDA. The transaction should be finalized next month, park owner Gary Oakland said, but residents still don’t know who’s going to own the land they live on.

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This month’s rent hike, Oakland acknowledged, was “part and parcel” of the sale. But for tenants, it’s a catastrophe. On top of the $947 lot rent—more than double the national average—many residents also pay off home loans on their trailers, as well as insurance and utilities costs.

Oakland calls claims of broken utilities “nonsense”: “If it was such a bad place to live, why would the homes be selling for such high dollars?” he said. The rent strike, Oakland points out, is “just a group of people not paying their rent.”

Some people are rationing their medication to make ends meet, Moore said. “There’s one person who canceled Life Alert. It’s either Life Alert or rent, and if you don’t pay rent, they evict you and throw you in the streets.” 

An older woman in a wheelchair with oxygen tubes holds a rent notice and a rent strike sign.
Many of the tenants of King Arthur and Mountain Meadows parks rely on a fixed income to pay their rent.Jered McCafferty

Tenant organizers across the nation have found a foothold in recent years organizing against individual landlords, and Bozeman’s tenant union, situated in one of the fastest-growing communities in the state, is no exception. Tenant unions from Los Angeles to Kansas City to New York have organized to win rent freezes, maintenance, and security in their homes.

Mobile home parks—increasingly private-equity-owned and uniquely at-risk in the face of climate disasters—are organizing, too: a group of trailer park residents in Columbia, Missouri, unionized in February. In Montana, as Rebecca Burns recently wrote for In These Times, mobile homes were already once a site of tenant organizing: buoyed by the state’s miners unions, the first Bozeman-area mobile home tenants’ union won an agreement with their landlord in 1978.  

Oakland says park residents “have been terrorized by the union,” and plans to evict the strikers. The strikers say they’ve retained a lawyer and will fight to stay in their homes.

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“I wish none of this was happening,” Moore said. “Your utilities should work. Your place should be safe. You should be able to get in and out of it. These are the absolute basics, and they just haven’t kept them up. And if you call them on it, they threaten you.”



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Montana’s fastest man who started as a walk on

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Montana’s fastest man who started as a walk on


Karsen Beitz arrived at Montana with no scholarship offers, one remaining walk-on spot and no guarantee that his track career would last.

Now, the former Sentinel High School standout is one of the fastest athletes in Montana history.

Beitz, a Missoula native and junior sprinter for the Grizzlies, has turned an unlikely college opportunity into a record-setting career. He owns Montana’s 100-meter and 200-meter program records and enters next week’s Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships as one of the top sprinters in the league.

Coming out of high school, Beitz was a football and track athlete without a Division I offer.

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“I was upset about it,” Beitz said. “But at the same time, I was fine with just going to college and living a normal college life.”

That changed after conversations between Sentinel coach Dylan Reynolds and Montana coach Doug Fraley.

“You may not think he’s a D-I prospect based on his times,” Reynolds told Fraley, “but I’m just telling you, if he gets in the right program, he’s going to be a D-I runner.”

Fraley had one walk-on spot left on his roster. He brought Beitz into his office, talked with him and decided to take a chance.

“I liked him. We had a good conversation, so I decided to give him the last walk-on spot,” Fraley said. “I’m sure glad I did.”

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Beitz became a Division I athlete in his hometown, but his first goal was modest. He wanted to prove he belonged and earn a scholarship.

He did that quickly.

As a freshman, Beitz placed at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships and helped Montana’s 4×100-meter relay reach the podium with a school-record performance.

“There was no doubt he earned that scholarship,” Fraley said.

Beitz continued to climb in 2025. He placed second in the 200 meters at the Big Sky indoor meet, but a hamstring injury kept him out of the outdoor championships.

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“It sucked to deal with,” Beitz said. “But I’m young and still had two years left, so I shifted my mindset to how I could come out these next two years.”

He has not looked back.

Beitz won the 200 meters at the 2026 Big Sky indoor championships, the first individual conference title of his track career. His time of 21.09 seconds edged Idaho State’s Alex Conner by one-hundredth of a second.

“I think the best part about it was seeing how happy Doug was,” Beitz said. “He was jumping up and down, gave me a big hug. After last year, I knew what I was capable of, so to go out there and do it was amazing.”

Then came the outdoor season.

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In April, Beitz broke Montana’s 58-year-old 200-meter record, running 20.55 seconds at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate in Long Beach, California. The previous record had stood since 1968.

Two weeks later, he added the school’s wind-legal 100-meter record, running 10.25 seconds at the Bengal Invitational in Pocatello, Idaho. Which broke a 44-year-old program record and gave Beitz both sprint marks.

“He’s a really competitive guy, and he wants to be the best in the Big Sky,” Fraley said.

The records have not left Beitz satisfied. They have made him hungrier.

“You have all these goals and numbers in your mind,” Beitz said. “Then once you hit those numbers, you’re not satisfied. There’s just more numbers to chase.”

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The next chase begins at the Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships, scheduled for May 13-16 in Portland, Oregon.

After college, Beitz hopes to follow his mother’s footsteps and become a pharmacist. Maybe even the world’s fastest pharmacist.

“If I’m running around the hospital talking to doctors,” Beitz said, “I’ll do it pretty fast.”

From a walk-on few people noticed to a conference champion and school-record holder, Beitz has become Montana’s fastest man — and he is not done running.



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