Montana
Montana Senate Candidates Spent 7 Minutes Sparring Over 1 Issue
Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheehy spent a full seven minutes of Monday night’s one-hour debate sparring over the issue of federal public lands.
Tester, who is running for a fourth term in a pivotal race that could ultimately decide which party controls the Senate next year, repeatedly painted Sheehy as a threat to America’s public lands and the Montana way of life.
He referred multiple times to HuffPost’s reporting that first revealed Sheehy called for federal lands to be “turned over” to states or counties; failed to disclose his post on the board of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Bozeman-based property rights and environmental research nonprofit with a history of advocating for privatizing federal lands; and appeared to doctor a recent TV ad to remove PERC’s logo from the shirt he was wearing.
Sheehy largely avoided engaging in the specifics of Tester’s attacks, instead continuing a muddled effort to rewrite his record on the issue and accusing Tester of trying to tear down any organization he has been affiliated with.
The extensive back-and-forth came after Montana PBS journalist John Twiggs asked the candidates which entities are best equipped to manage the approximately 27 million acres of federal lands in Montana while maintaining public access.
“Bottom line: Public lands belong in public hands,” Sheehy said.
Tester marveled at what he described as Sheehy’s “incredible transformation on this issue” while warning voters to “watch out what people say in back rooms.”
“What they say in back rooms, when they don’t think the recorder is going or the camera is running, is usually what they think,” he said. “And Tim said we need to turn our lands over to either his rich buddies or county government. That’s not protecting public lands.”
William Campbell via Getty Images
Tester was referring to comments Sheehy made to a ranching podcast last October, shortly after launching his Senate bid. As HuffPost first reported, Sheehy told the “Working Ranch Radio Show” that “local control has to be returned, whether that means, you know, some of these public lands get turned over to state agencies, or even counties, or whether those decisions are made by a local landlord instead of by, you know, federal fiat a few thousand miles away.”
While Sheehy has spent the past year doing damage control on this issue, claiming he opposes the sale or transfer of federal lands despite his own words to the contrary, his comments Monday make clear that when he says “public hands,” he means the hands of Montanans only.
“Public lands belong to the public, that’s you — the people of Montana,” Sheehy said. “Public lands belong to the people, especially those who live amongst them. And I believe that if you’re a Montanan and you share a fence line with National Forest property, if you’re a rancher who has a [Bureau of Land Management] grazing lease, if you live next to state trust land, you should have more input into what happens on that land than bureaucrats 3,000 miles away.”
Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and multimillionaire businessman, owns a sprawling ranch in Martinsdale, Montana, that, notably, shares a fence line with Forest Service land and once offered high-dollar hunting excursions with what it called “private access to over 500,000 acres of National Forest.”
Sheehy’s position — that federal agencies are poor stewards of the federal estate and that locals know best how to manage federal lands — disregards the fact that federal lands, in Montana and everywhere else, are held in trust for all Americans, regardless of where they live, not just those who happen to live next door.
“I, absolutely, will every day advocate for more local control of those lands, because I believe they belong to you, not the government,” Sheehy said.
Michael Ciaglo via Getty Images
Sheehy is walking the same fine line as many members of the GOP. Republicans in Western states have spent decades working to wrest control of federal lands from the federal government. But broad public support for protecting public lands has forced them to largely abandon calls for outright transfer and sale and instead advocate for giving states broad management authority — a move that would ultimately allow them to achieve many of the same industry-friendly goals that would come with stripping lands from federal control.
Again and again, Tester brought the conversation back to Sheehy’s record.
“Tim even served on a think tank, on their board of directors, that’s job was to privatize our public lands,” Tester said. “In Tim’s case, his view of turning these lands over to counties or opening ’em up for his rich friends to buy them, is just the wrong direction to go for Montana.”
Sheehy defended himself with a false claim about PERC: “No one, including myself, in that organization has ever advocated for selling our public lands — never have, never will.”
In fact, in a 1999 policy paper titled “How and Why to Privatize Federal Lands,” PERC’s then-director, Terry Anderson, and others laid out what they called “a blueprint for auctioning off all public lands over 20 to 40 years.” (PERC previously told HuffPost that that paper “is not representative of PERC’s current thinking.”)
“Tim, it’s time to be honest with the people of Montana,” Tester fired back. “You were on a board of an organization that wanted to privatize our public lands. In fact, you even dulled out a badge on one of your ads of a shirt that you wore that was promoting that group. When you found out that badge was on there you said, ‘Hey we can’t be doing that because these guys, I served on their board and they want to get rid of our public lands.’”
“You also didn’t even disclose to the public when you filed for this position that you belonged on that board,” Tester added. “Why? It wasn’t because they were a great organization doing great things for our public lands. It was because they wanted to get rid of our public lands and you were a part of that organization and you didn’t want anybody to know about it.”
As HuffPost first reported, Sheehy failed to include his post on PERC’s board in his Senate financial disclosure — a violation of Senate rules that Sheehy’s campaign chalked up to an “oversight.” Since its founding in 1980, PERC has called for privatizing federal lands, including national parks, and been a staunch opponent of Montana’s unique stream access laws, which provide anglers and recreationists virtually unlimited access to the state’s rivers and streams, including those that flow through private property.
Sheehy’s pro-transfer comments and ties to PERC have been a consistent thorn in the side of his campaign, which over the past year has run a damage-control effort aimed at recasting Sheehy as a champion of public lands. Sheehy’s campaign recently aired a public lands-focused TV ad that featured a current PERC board member, and last month sent out public land mailers to Montana voters that included a picture of Sheehy wearing a flannel shirt with the PERC logo clearly visible on one sleeve. More recently, Sheehy’s team doctored a TV advertisement to remove PERC’s logo from the shirt he was wearing.
At Monday’s debate, Sheehy said Tester’s attacks against PERC are part of a pattern.
“The reason that organization has been criticized by Jon Tester is simply because I was affiliated with it,” he said. “And this has been their plan this entire campaign. If Tim Sheehy is affiliated with anything, attack it, tear it down, smear it.”
If Monday’s debate shined light on anything, it’s that Sheehy has gotten an earful from Montana voters who support protecting and preserving federal public lands. But unlike Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), who credited voters with changing his mind on transferring federal lands to states when he ran against Tester in 2018, Sheehy is refusing to acknowledge the reason for having walked back, or disguised, his anti-federal land views.
Whether Sheehy’s newfound opposition to pawning off public lands would survive a six-year Senate term remains to be seen — if he manages to defeat Tester in November.
During the debate, the Montana Republican Party took to X, formerly Twitter, to defend their candidate against Tester’s repeated swings.
“@SheehyforMT will work to preserve and expand public access to your public lands and he will KEEP PUBLIC LANDS IN PUBLIC HANDS!” the party wrote.
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Just three months ago, the Montana GOP — the party Sheehy is seeking a leadership role in — adopted a party platform that explicitly calls for the “granting of federally managed public lands to the state, and development of a transition plan for the timely and orderly transfer.”
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EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Following widespread neighborhood concerns first reported by KTSM 9 News on Friday, residents of the Montana Vista area came face-to-face with developers of the proposed “Pecos West” transmission line project on Saturday morning, May 9 during a community meeting held at the Montana Vista Community Center.
The multi-million dollar project, spearheaded by power grid developer Grid United, aims to build a massive transmission line connecting the El Paso area to southeastern New Mexico.
While developers tout the project as a crucial link to prevent grid bottlenecks, families living in the path of the proposed line continue to voice mounting frustration and distrust over how the land acquisition is being handled.
On Friday, Grid United released a statement to KTSM insisting their one-on-one land negotiations were conducted out of respect for private property rights. But at Saturday’s community gathering, residents and advocates made it clear they aren’t buying it.
“People are afraid. I’m not afraid. I’m angry,” said Armando Rodriguez, president of the Union of Montana Vista Landowners, who previously said that developers had been quietly approaching his neighbors for months with varying buyout offers.
Only about a dozen residents and advocates attended the weekend meeting, but they loudly questioned why the company spent the past year approaching landowners individually rather than addressing the community as a whole.
During the exchange, project officials admitted they have already acquired about 50 percent of the properties in the impacted area. Grid United later clarified to KTSM that the exact number fluctuates frequently, just like the proposed route.
Community organizers argued that the company’s isolated approach leaves residents vulnerable and misinformed.
“When a company like this turns up and says, ‘We’re going to buy your property.’ We must ensure that community members understand that they have the right to say no, or that they have the right to negotiate a higher value,” said Veronica Carbajal, an organizer with the Sembrando Esperanza Coalition.
Carbajal highlighted that the lack of widespread notification and a standardized compensation formula is creating deep unease.
“They’ve already bought properties, but they have not established notification to every resident that will be impacted, nor have they set up a formula for compensation,” Carbajal said. “So what we can see online through the title transfers is that there is a very wide distinction between how much people are being paid. We don’t want the community to be divided. We also want people to understand that this is voluntary. They do not have to sell if they don’t want to.”
A major point of contention at Saturday’s meeting was the threat of eminent domain. Grid United explained that, as a private company, they do not possess eminent domain authority, insisting that if a landowner refuses to sell, the company will simply find an alternative route.
“At Pecos West we’re very landowner-first approach,” said Alexis Marquez, Pecos West community relations manager. “So if a landowner does not want (the transmission line) on the property, then we would find alternative routes.”
But Rodriguez remains highly skeptical that the developers would simply walk away from targeted plots.
“A corporation as big as you, a multi-million dollar corporation, I find it hard to believe that you would invest money into something this big and just walk away if the family said, ‘No, I don’t want to sell it,’” Rodriguez told officials during the meeting. “The question is: Are you really serious about what you’re saying here? Or is this just another dog and pony show?”
Project leaders conceded they need to adjust their efforts in engaging and informing the community, promising more meetings to come. However, residents emphasized that trust is currently broken and will only be rebuilt with concrete action.
El Paso County Commissioner Jackie Butler, who helped organize the meeting, said the County has no power to halt the proposed project, but she said she has been communicating with project officials and is trying to connect them with community advocacy organizations.
“I learned very quickly that the County does not have any authority or permitting process to stop these kinds of projects. And so that’s when I started connecting Pecos West to community members so that they could get directly involved,” Butler said. “My questions to Pecos West have been, Why do you have to come through our community? And even if you have to build through our region, you should go around it.”
Moving forward, the residents in attendance made it clear they do not intend to sell their property. They are demanding Grid United bring all impacted neighbors to the table as a collective before any more land is purchased.
If the project continues to move forward, construction is not expected to begin until the mid-2030s.
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.
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
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.
Mobile home residents in Bozeman, Montana, say they’re being forced to choose between paying rent and paying medical costs.Courtesy of Jered McCafferty
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.
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.
“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.
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.”
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.
“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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