Montana

Montana Chamber of Commerce endorsements can't be trusted

Published

2 years ago

August 18, 2024

Montana Chamber of Commerce endorsements can't be trusted

The Montana Chamber cannot be trusted when it comes to Montana Supreme Court candidate endorsements.

The Montana Chamber of Commerce board of directors will formally endorse candidates in the 2024 Montana Supreme Court elections. Sadly, they have a penchant for endorsing extremely partisan, unqualified candidates over highly qualified Justices. Lucky for us the Chamber’s Supreme Court picks haven’t been winning.

This year may be no different. There are two important elections for the Montana Supreme Court on the ballot in November – one for chief justice and one for a justice seat, both open due to retirements. Judge Jerry Lynch and Cory Swanson are running to succeed the chief justice, and Judge Katherine Bidegaray and Dan Wilson are running for the justice seat.

What the Montana Chamber doesn’t tell their membership or you about their supposedly fair endorsement process is they have already spent thousands of dollars advocating for the extreme politically partisan candidates – Swanson and Wilson – even before making their endorsements official. Swanson and Wilson both share the same extreme partisan leanings and are professionally and personally connected to last election cycle’s unqualified losing hyper-partisan candidate James Brown.

Voters are already seeing Chamber-backed advertising filled with lies, half-truths, and obfuscations. These ads are expensive. Out-of-state corporate and special interest-funded political action committees with fake names pour money into them to mislead voters.

For example, Montanans for Fair Taxes is funded by out-of-state pharmaceutical companies, tobacco companies, uber-wealthy political extremists and Montana Chamber money. The same is true for another shady group hypocritically called Montanans for Judicial Accountability.

It’s a scheme cooked up by a group of partisan political hacks.

Here’s how it works. A partisan hack creates a generically named PAC that accepts money from a special interest account filled with tens of thousands from out-of-state corporations, wealthy political extremists and the Montana Chamber. Then, the partisan hack creates more misleadingly named PACs and fills them with the tainted Montana Chamber money.

Next, negative and misleading text and email messages, direct mail pieces and Facebook ads barrage you and our fellow Montana voters, maligning and denigrating very well-qualified non-partisan judges with lies, half-truths and nasty pictures. It’s disgusting and should be questioned. Voters have seen through this smoke screen in the past. And, you should see through it again in this election.

Only you decide who to support in the upcoming Montana Supreme Court elections. Let’s choose the most qualified candidates with decades of Montana legal experience as attorneys and jurists, like Judge Lynch and Judge Bidegaray.

We need experienced Supreme Court justices who are impartial, can’t be bought off, adhere to the Constitution, back the blue and eschew politics and partisanship. And let’s be very clear, Montana voters and Chamber members are being misled by dishonest partisan endorsements from the unethical Montana Chamber of Commerce.

Jayson O’Neill is former director of the Western Values Project and previously worked with the Gov. Brian Schweitzer administration. He lives in Helena.

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Montana

Christi Jacobsen enters race for Western House seat

Published

3 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

Christi Jacobsen enters race for Western House seat

HELENA, Mont. — Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen is running for Montana’s Western Congressional District seat, entering the race a day after U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke announced he would not seek reelection.

Jacobsen’s announcement sets up a new contest for the open seat after Zinke, a Republican, said he would seek reelection.

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“As your Secretary of State, I’ve stood up to Washington overreach, defended election integrity, and delivered real results for Montanans. In 2020, voters gave me a mandate to clean up our elections, grow Montana business, and push back against radical liberal special interests. I delivered. Now it’s time to take that same results-driven, America First leadership to Congress.”

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Montana

Montana Lottery Powerball, Lotto America results for March 2, 2026

Published

15 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

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

Here’s a look at March 2, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Powerball numbers from March 2 drawing

02-17-18-38-62, Powerball: 20, Power Play: 2

Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Lotto America numbers from March 2 drawing

03-08-17-24-34, Star Ball: 06, ASB: 02

Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from March 2 drawing

06-12-19-29, Bonus: 11

Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Powerball Double Play numbers from March 2 drawing

21-28-58-65-67, Powerball: 25

Check Powerball Double Play payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from March 2 drawing

28-41-42-50-55, Bonus: 02

Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

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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Montana

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Published

1 day ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Everyone makes mistakes, even experienced professionals; a good reminder for the rest of us to learn from those mistakes. The motion in State v. Stroup starts off well in its initial pages (no case law hallucinations), but is then followed by several pages of two other motions, which I don’t think the lawyer was planning to file, and which appear to have been AI-generated: It begins with the “Below is concise motion language you can drop into …” language quoted above.

Griffen Smith (Missoulian) reported on the story, and included the prosecutor’s motion to strike that filing, on the grounds that it violates a local rule (3(G)) requiring disclosure of the use of generative AI:

The document does not include a generative artificial intelligence disclosure as required. However, page 7 begins as follows: “Below is concise motion language you can drop into a ‘Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions’ keyed to 45-6-204, 45-6-201, and 4614-102. Adjust headings/captions to your local practice.” Page 10 states “Below is a full motion you can paste into your pleading, then adjust names, dates, and styles to fit local practice.” These pages also include several apparent hyperlinks to “ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws,” “ppl-ai-fileupload.s3.amazonaws+1,” and others. The document includes what appears to be an attempt at a second case caption on page 12. It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief….

There’s more in that filing, but here’s one passage:

While generative AI can be a useful tool for some purposes and may have greater application in the future, when used improperly, and without meaningful review, it can ultimately damage both the perception and the reality of the profession. One assumes that Mr. Stroup has had, or will at some point have, an opportunity to review the filing made on his behalf. What impression could a review of pgs. 12-19 leave upon a defendant who struggles with paranoia and delusional thinking? While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived.

The Missoulan article includes this response:

In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney’s office for filing a “four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI” instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.
“That’s not helping the client or the case,” Smith said, “and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus.”

As I mentioned, the lawyer involved seems quite experienced, and ran for the Montana Public Service Commission in 2020 (getting nearly 48% of the vote) and for the House of Representatives in Montana’s first district in 2022 (getting over 46% of the vote) and in 2024 (getting over 44%). “Его пример другим наука,” Pushkin wrote in Eugene Onegin—”May his example profit others,” in the Falen translation.

Thanks to Matthew Monforton for the pointer.

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