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Montana GOP elects new chair, after rules fight over legislative party split

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Montana GOP elects new chair, after rules fight over legislative party split


HELENA — Delegates of the Montana Republican Party gathered in Helena Saturday to choose the party’s next chair – a process that took several hours and rules battles to complete.

The party picked Art Wittich, an attorney and former state lawmaker from Gallatin County, to lead them for the next two years.

(Watch the video to see the debates during Saturday’s party convention.)

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Montana GOP elects new chair, after rules fight over legislative party split

Wittich will replace “Don K” Kaltschmidt, who chaired the Montana GOP for the last six years. Over that time, Republicans won all the statewide elections in Montana and held firm control of the state Legislature – but Wittich said Saturday that he doesn’t believe that’s translated into the kind of conservative policy victories they’ve been hoping for.

“We’re not delivering on the full results the voters expect,” he told delegates in a speech before Saturday’s vote. “We are a 55% red state. We did not get 55% ideas out of the Legislature.”

Initially, 241 delegates participated in the party’s officer’s convention. However, almost immediately, there was a rules fight over whether the group of state senators known as “the Nine” should be allowed to vote.

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Jonathon Ambarian

At the Montana Republican Party’s 2025 officer’s convention in Helena, June 28, 2025, Sen. Barry Usher, Rep. Jane Gillette and Sen. Theresa Manzella (standing, left to right) backed a vote to remove credentials from nine state senators who broke with the party during this year’s session, including Sens. Jason Ellsworth, Denley Loge and Russ Tempel (seated center and right in dark suits, left to right).

The nine senators drew criticism from other Republicans during this year’s legislative session, when they broke with party leadership and sided with Democrats on a series of key procedural votes. In April, the state party’s executive committee released a statement saying they were “no longer considered by the MTGOP as Republicans.”

While Republican elected officials are entitled to vote at the state convention, some delegates challenged the Nine, arguing the April statement meant they were no longer eligible to represent the party.

“It is us who decides who is Republican,” said Rep. Jane Gillette, R-Three Forks. “Our executive board, through the powers vested to them through us electing those leaders, voted to declare the Nine not recognized Republicans in our private association, GOP.”

Kaltschmidt said, regardless of what he thought of the Nine, he didn’t believe party rules allowed him to remove their credentials.

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“While the Executive Committee has expressed a clear belief about the senators, the Executive Committee does not have the ability to amend the party’s bylaws unilaterally,” he said. “The nine senators are elected Republicans, and our rules make them members of this convention.”

But delegates forced a roll-call vote on whether to uphold Kaltschmidt’s ruling.

"Don K" Kaltschmidt

Jonathon Ambarian

“Don K” Kaltschmidt, the outgoing chair of the Montana Republican Party, presided over the party’s 2025 officer’s convention in Helena, June 28, 2025.

Some in attendance said those seeking to remove the Nine were trying to change rules that people had already agreed on.

“Imagine if you were in one of these counties with ‘the Evil Nine,’ and you show up, and you’re not getting that vote for your county, for the representatives that we are to vote on,” said Jason Stephenson, chair of the Big Horn County Republican Central Committee. “So I’m asking you guys, think about fairness.”

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But, after 20 minutes of roll-call voting, Kaltschmidt announced 136 delegates had voted to reopen the issue of credentials, with 97 voting to sustain his decision and 3 abstaining. A majority of the body then took a second vote to accept all the delegates except the Nine. The senators – along with proxy voters representing several of them – were asked to give up their seats at the event.

After the rules issues, leaders opened voting for the next party chair. There were four candidates for the position. In addition to Wittich, they included:

  • Stacy Zinn, a former state supervisor for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a 2024 U.S. House candidate for Montana’s eastern district.
  • Troy Miller, a financial planner and finance chair for the Gallatin County Republican Party.
  • Tanner Smith, an excavation company owner, former state lawmaker and 2024 gubernatorial candidate.

Delegates voted by ballot. No candidate received a majority after the first round, so Wittich and Zinn, the top-two finishers, moved on to a second round.

Montana GOP Delegates Voting

Jonathon Ambarian

Delegates at the Montana Republican Party’s 2025 officer’s convention placed their ballots for party chair into a flag-patterned box, June 28, 2025.

Wittich was backed by some of the most conservative members of the party, including an endorsement from the Montana Freedom Caucus. During his speech before the vote, he criticized the property tax legislation passed during this year’s session, and he said lawmakers haven’t done enough to promote judicial transparency and election integrity. He also said he would establish a “conservative governance committee” that would vet and endorse candidates for office.

“I think that, if we show that conservative governance works – we’re a red state, we could become a bright red state,” he told delegates after his election.

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Kaltschmidt told MTN he thought the delegates had made the right selection, and that their actions Saturday signaled that they wanted the party “to unify in the Legislature as well as the voting booth.”

Wittich will be party chair for a two-year term, continuing through the 2026 elections and the 2027 legislative session.





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Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for June 23, 2026

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

Here’s a look at June 23, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Mega Millions numbers from June 23 drawing

48-51-60-63-66, Mega Ball: 20

Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.

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Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from June 23 drawing

06-21-22-31, Bonus: 13

Check Big Sky Bonus 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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Man Driving Giant Banana Gets Pulled Over in Montana

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Man Driving Giant Banana Gets Pulled Over in Montana


We cover lots of hard news here at The Drive. Y’know, the stuff that keeps you updated on the automotive industry and enthusiast scene. Other times, we don’t. Other times, we write silly car-related stuff because it’s fun. This is one of those times. A giant banana recently got pulled over in Montana, and as the Cowboy State Daily put it, it wasn’t its first time.

According to the Montana State Police, the giant banana car and its driver, Steve Braithwaite, were pulled over near Billings because part of the license plate was blocked. He did not receive a ticket. Also, the plate reads “SPLIT.”

“We’ve stopped speeders, distracted drivers, and even a few unusual vehicles… but this one definitely stands out.
The Big Banana Car was stopped cruising near Billings today. While it may be apPEALing, traffic laws still apply to fruit. 😎 🍌
Safe travels, Montana,” said the Montana State Police’s Facebook page.

According to the report, Braithwaite has been pulled over hundreds of times over the decade he’s been driving his banana car across the country. In fact, he believes that during the first few years he had the thing, he was one of the most frequently pulled-over men in America.

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“Driving around in a banana and having all these people, all these smiles and waves, affects me. It actually does something fantastic,” he told the outlet.

He even claims to have been pulled over once for “peeling out,” which was, of course, a joke.

Another report claims that Braithwaite began working on the fiberglass banana in 2008 and finished it in 2011. It’s based on a 1993 Ford F-150 and is a bout 23 feet from tip to tip.

Keep on keepin’ on, Steve.

Got a tip? Email us at tips@thedrive.com

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As deputy editor, Jerry draws on a decade of industry experience and a lifelong passion for motorsports to guide The Drive’s short- and long-term coverage.




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The Latest ‘Sustained Yield’ Scam Will Devastate Montana’s National Forests

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The Latest ‘Sustained Yield’ Scam Will Devastate Montana’s National Forests


Log landing, western Montana. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Way back in 1995 Bob Brown, the Republican president of the Montana Senate, called me into his office.

He had co-sponsored a bill with a pro-logging Missoula Democrat to establish a “sustained yield” level of logging on Montana’s state trust lands – and he was worried it wasn’t working out the way he hoped.

Bob was right to be worried then and Montanans are right to be worried now because Trump’s Forest Service Chief and former timber industry lobbyist Tom Schultz, has just unleashed the “sustained yield” scam on Montana’s National Forests.

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To appreciate Brown’s concerns, it’s important to understand that the 1995 Montana legislature had two-thirds Republican majorities in the House and Senate and Republican Marc Racicot in the Governor’s Office.

Those majorities put Montana’s environment in the cross-hairs with a raft of industry-friendly deregulatory bills.  That included the timber industry, which was losing the “timber wars” in large part because Plum Creek Timber, one of the largest private forest landowners in the West, had decided to “liquidate” its “timber assets” – also known as “forests.”

That decision resulted in massive clearcuts since there were virtually no regulations on logging private land.  Plum Creek scalped the forests of northwest Montana, including the lands around Bob’s home in Whitefish, leaving barren, knapweed infested stumpfields that remain to this day. His goal was to protect the lands around the trout streams he’d fished growing up and hoped the bill would do that.

It was the closing weeks of the session and Bob wanted to know if it was possible to reduce the environmental impacts of his bill since it had been heavily amended to favor extraction, not “sustained yield.”  My advice was to let the bill die because he didn’t have the votes to remove the amendments the timber industry lobbyists stuck on the bill.  But he didn’t take that advice, the bill passed, and the logging level for Montana’s state forests was set at 52 to 55 million board feet per year.

Two years later, Tom Schultz went to work for Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, heading the trust lands timber division and earning the sobriquet “Chainsaw Tom” for his pro-logging zeal.  Like the stumpfields, his dedication to the timber industry remains to this day – only now he’s in charge of the United States Forest Service and bringing chainsaws to millions of acres of our remaining intact forests.

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If you believe that “sustained yield” is supposed to be a carefully calculated determination of how many millions of board feet of timber can be logged every year on a sustainable basis that means limiting logging to the pace at which the forests can regrow – regardless of the demands of the rapacious timber industry.

In the “old days” loggers liked to refer to forests as “100 year gardens.”  But of course forests aren’t gardens, they’re complex ecosystems – and the timber industry doesn’t wait a century for forests to regrow.

It’s unlikely that quaint misnomer is even applicable in today’s climate with hotter, longer summers, minimal snowpack, and extreme drought.  Yet, Montana’s “sustained yield” is now nearly 10 million board feet a year higher than when Brown’s bill passed, defying logic and science and justifying his concerns from 30 years ago.

“Chainsaw Tom” Schultz has now reappeared and demands that 350-500 million board feet of Montana’s national forests be logged over 10 years. Schultz’s timber industry lobbyist background offers a clue as to where that “sustainable yield” number came from — and the reason we will likely be left with nothing but stumpfields and knapweed from his “landscape scale” logging of our remaining intact forests.

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