Montana
New group put more than $500K into Montana Public Service Commission race • Daily Montanan
In one Public Service Commission race this week, incumbent Republican Jennifer Fielder walloped her challenger despite an infusion of cash by an independent committee for her opponent late in the campaign.
Independent Elena Evans, who criticized Fielder for supporting recent steep rate increases the PSC approved, had raised significantly more money than Fielder on her own.
Then, an independent committee, the Montana Ratepayers Association, reported raising nearly $500,000 for the race to support Evans and defeat Fielder.
Evans lost her campaign anyway, but the windfall of six figures is an anomaly in these races.
Neither the Montana Ratepayers Association nor its dark money funder, American Jobs and Energy Security, returned requests for comment from the Daily Montanan.
However, a political analyst said the big money may be an attempted warning to the Public Service Commission to reconsider its energy priorities — and a state senator and newly elected PSC member said he fears it is and could affect future campaigns.
State Sen. Brad Molnar, a Republican who also previously served on the PSC, noted the push of money in the race in a news release last week.
He said he wanted to alert Montanans that a “moneyball” awaits commissioners who don’t support the agenda of the funders, citing another donor, the Climate Cabinet Action.
Based in San Francisco, the organization identifies itself as using a “moneyball” approach — identifying and supporting under-the-radar politicians who back climate initiatives. Records show it gave $20,000 to the Montana Ratepayers Association.
The American Jobs group then gave $475,000.
“We do not know the donors’ motives in funding the Montana Ratepayers Association, but plainly it is not open/fair elections or consumer protection,” said Molnar, himself a previous and future Public Service Commissioner, in a statement.
***
The Public Service Commission, made up of five commissioners elected by district, has been criticized for approving high rate increases for energy utilities.
Detractors also argue the PSC, currently all Republican, has been slow to encourage more affordable and sustainable power sources for Montana consumers.
Earlier this year, a coalition of 40 businesses and other organizations submitted a formal request asking the Public Service Commission to consider the adverse impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in utility regulation.
The climate petition is pending.
Most of the late push of more than half a million dollars into the race came from the American Jobs and Energy Security group, which lists its purpose as to support clean energy candidates and initiatives.
The group could not be reached for comment through phone numbers and an email address on file with its registration with the Commissioner of Political Practices.
American Jobs and Energy Security reported sending $475,000 later in September and $40,000 later in October to the Montana Ratepayers Association, plus additional in-kind contributions.
The Montana Ratepayers Association reported spending part of the money on “creative testing,” or polling research, and the bulk of it on digital and print advertising to support Evans.
In an interview last Friday, political analyst Lee Banville said large infusions of dark money are unusual in down-ballot races in Montana. However, he said they have taken place before, such as in Montana Supreme Court races.
“We saw it in the ballot initiative to get marijuana legalized,” said Banville, journalism professor and head of the School of Journalism at the University of Montana, of the 2020 effort. “There was a single group that funded the entire thing that we know almost nothing about.”
In this case, Banville said funders might be those who are frustrated by the lack of transition to renewable energy, which the PSC has not been pushing. The money may be a way to “change the conversation,” but be a warning to other commissioners and hopefuls as well.
“‘Maybe you should be taking renewables more seriously,’” Banville said of the possible message.
Prior to the election, however, Banville said Fielder had the advantage in the race regardless, being a Republican with incumbency and plenty of name recognition as a former state legislator.
But Banville also said he wanted to know the true purpose of the Montana Ratepayers Association: “Are they a real organization doing things to protect ratepayers? Or are they serving as a pass-through for money that is otherwise dark?”
The Montana Ratepayers Association is not registered with the Secretary of State’s Office. It did not respond to an email last week from the Daily Montana or a request for comment in a form submitted through its web portal.
The only information on its website is about recent PSC rate hikes, and the only candidates it mentions are Evans, whom it supported, and Fielder, whom it accused of “corporate cronyism.”
In a phone call the day after the election, however, Fielder said she suspects the funds spent to oppose her are “corporate money from entities that tend to profit from PSC decisions.”
But Fielder said she did not know for sure, and regardless, she didn’t see the expenditure as a threat from those who want the PSC to respond to the harmful effects of climate: “I don’t operate that way.”
“I do what is right under the law and in the public interest,” Fielder said. “I do my best, and fortunately, the people have tended to agree with that kind of thinking and have sent me back to continue working for them.”
Fielder had earned 55% of the vote to Evans’ 45%, according to the election results on the Montana Secretary of State’s elections site Thursday.
***
In an email to the Daily Montanan about the Montana Ratepayers Association, Evans said she learned about the group from people in her district who received its mailers and shared them with her.
Although she lost, she said she was “overwhelmed” by the response from Montanans — “Trump voters and Harris voters” — who wanted to see change on the PSC.
In a public statement after the election, Evans said she would not stop advocating for “forward-thinking” energy sources and “a better future for our children.”
Besides Fielder and Molnar, one other Republican won his race for the Public Service Commission this week. State Sen. Jeff Welborn, a moderate from Dillon, had 62% of the vote Thursday to Leonard Williams’ 38%.
Welborn said when it comes to energy sources, reliability is key for the people he has talked to during his campaign — to keep refrigerators cold and hospitals open, for instance — even if consumers have to pay a little bit more.
But he said it’s hard to raise money for Public Service Commission races, more so than for legislative races, and the six-figure contribution is striking.
Four- and five-figure campaigns are more commonplace for the PSC.
“I’m here to tell you that it is a big effort to raise even $5,000 one check at a time from donors,” Welborn said.
The groups didn’t insert themselves in his campaign, but Welborn said big money won’t change the way he approaches his decisions regardless: “I’m not going to be bullied or pushed around by any organization.”
Still, he said, the fact that some entity can drop even $100,000 on a PSC candidate — “exponentially” more than candidates can raise on their own — and help them buy 20 times the name recognition is significant. And he said it raises questions.
“What is that expectation for the return on investment?” Welborn said. “And at whose feet does that expectation fall?”
Support, direct and indirect
The groups behind the half a million dollars for PSC candidate Elena Evans, separate from her candidate campaign, did not return calls or emails for comment from the Daily Montanan.
American Jobs and Energy Security lists an address at a Delaware building with a business that registers companies and helps make sure others “stay out of your business.”
It couldn’t be reached by phone last week or this week.
Montana Conservation Voters political director Molly Bell said her organization supported Evans, and it received indirect help from the groups.
In August, a consultant with Ship Creek Group, a creative and political agency in Alaska, contacted Montana Conservation Voters to see if it wanted to pool resources in conjunction with a poll, Bell said.
Ship Creek received support from the Montana Ratepayers Association, funded mostly by American Jobs and Energy Security, according to campaign finance reports.
The consultant on the project did not return a request for comment from the Daily Montanan.
Late last week, Bell said she didn’t know much about the groups that were also wanting to support Evans and clean energy, although she was pleased to hear they shared similar goals.
Bell had hoped to see Evans declare victory, but she said the aim from her organization is a PSC that supports new energy and commissioners who won’t be a “rubber stamp” for the fossil fuel industry.
Tragedy brought people together in Crans-Montana and brought the country to a standstill.
On Friday, just down the road from the bar where 40 young people were killed by fire on New Year’s Eve, church bells rang in their memory.
They tolled right across Switzerland, to mark a national day of mourning.
Then, moments after the last notes of a special memorial service had faded, came the news that one of the bar’s owners had been detained.
Swiss prosecutors said Jacques Moretti, a French national, was a potential flight risk. He and his wife Jessica, who is also French, are suspected of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.
Many of the victims’ families had demanded action like this from the start: more than a week after the fire, the anger in this community has been increasing.
At the main ceremony in Martigny, down in the valley, relatives of the dead were joined by survivors. Some had come from hospital for the memorial. People held white roses in their laps and gripped each other’s hands for support.
“The images we faced were unbearable. A scene worse than a nightmare. Screams ringing out in the icy cold, the smell of burning. It was apocalyptic,” a young woman called Marie told the audience.
She had been in a bar opposite Le Constellation when the fire broke out and suddenly found herself helping the injured as they ran from the flames.
She said she would never forget what she’d seen.
Listening in the front row were the presidents of France and Italy, whose citizens were among those killed and injured in the fire. Both countries have opened their own investigations.
Back in Rome, Italy’s prime minister vowed to make sure all those responsible were identified.
“This was no accident. It was the result of too many people who did not do their jobs,” Giorgia Meloni said.
She wants to know why the music wasn’t cut as soon as the fire started.
“Why did no-one tell the young people to get out? Why did the council not make the proper checks? There are too many whys.”
In Crans-Montana people have the same questions and many more.
For now, the only two formal suspects are the co-owners of Le Constellation, Jacques and Jessica Moretti. Early on Friday, the pair were called in by prosecutors. They are being investigated for causing death and injury through negligence but have not been charged.
Now Jacques Moretti has been remanded in custody. In a statement, the public ministry said the move followed a “new assessment of the flight risk.”
“I constantly think of the victims and of the people who are struggling,” his wife told a crush of TV cameras after several hours of questioning at the ministry.
It was her first public comment since the fire.
“It is an unimaginable tragedy. It happened in our establishment, and I would like to apologise.”
Nine days on, Le Constellation is still obscured from view behind white plastic sheets. A lone policeman stands guard, his face covered against the relentless snow.
What unfolded inside the building’s basement has gradually become clearer – and it’s the story of a disaster that should never have happened.
Mobile phone footage shows a sparkler tied to a champagne bottle apparently starting the fire as it brushes the ceiling. Covered with soundproofing foam that was never safety tested, it ignites quickly.
When the crowd eventually rush for the exit in panic, there is a crush on the stairs. It seems the emergency doors were blocked.
But another video, from six years ago, suggests the risk was well known. On the footage, a waiter can be heard warning that the material on the ceiling is flammable.
“Be careful with the foam,” the voice shouts, as people wave the same sparklers.
But the questions here are not just for the owners.
This week the local authorities in Crans made the shocking admission that they hadn’t carried out mandatory safety checks of the bar for five years.
They offered no explanation.
“It was a hell inside that bar. More than 1,000 degrees of temperature. There was no way to escape,” Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told the BBC, citing a long list of safety violations.
Six Italians were killed as a result.
“Italy wants justice, the Italian government wants justice and the Italian people want justice, for sure. The families want justice,” the ambassador stressed.
That includes for those with life-changing injuries.
The regional hospital in Sion took the first major influx of patients. The stress was compounded by the fact that many doctors’ own children were partying in Crans for the New Year.
“They were all scared the next stretcher to arrive would be carrying their own child,” hospital director Eric Bonvin remembers.
But he’s proud of how his team coped.
Some casualties were unconscious and so badly burned, it took time to identify them.
The most serious cases were moved to specialist burns centres elsewhere in Switzerland and in Europe where some are still in a critical condition.
All face a long, tough path to recovery which the doctor likens to a “rebirth” because many of his young patients have severe burns to the face.
“First the body needs to be protected, like the foetus in a mother’s womb. That’s what’s happening for many now. Then they will have to re-enter the world and find their identity,” Professor Bonvin says.
“It will take a lot of work and resilience.”
Add to that the anguish of surviving.
“They came round and at first they felt lucky to be alive. But some now feel this guilt, wondering why they are here, but not their friend or brother,” Bonvin explains.
“It is a delicate moment.”
In central Crans, the heap of tributes for the dead is still growing, protected from the elements by a canvas.
After leaving their own fresh flowers on Friday, many people then stood in front of the ruins of the bar itself for a moment. Remembering, in silence.
This story is excerpted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis published every Friday.
On Monday, Jan. 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would downgrade six vaccines on the routine schedule for childhood immunizations. The changes scale back recommendations for hepatitis A and B, influenza, rotavirus, RSV and meningococcal disease.
That decision — shared by top officials at the federal Department of Health and Human Services — took many public health experts by surprise, in part because of how the administration of President Donald Trump departed from the CDC’s typical process for changing childhood vaccine recommendations.
Montana Free Press spoke to Atty Moriarty, a Missoula-based pediatrician and president of the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, about her perspective on the CDC’s changes. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MTFP: What happened in this most recent change and how does that differ from the CDC’s normal process for adjusting childhood vaccination schedules?
Moriarty: The way that vaccines have traditionally been recommended in the past is that vaccines were developed, and then they traditionally went through a formal vetting process before going to the [CDC]’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which did a full review of the safety data, the efficacy data, and then made recommendations based on that. Since November 2025, that committee has completely been changed and is not a panel of experts, but it is a panel of political appointees that don’t have expertise in public health, let alone infectious disease or immunology. So now, this decision was made purely based unilaterally on opinion and not on any new data or evidence-based medicine.
MTFP: Can you walk through some of the administration’s stated reasons for these changes?
Moriarty: To be honest, these changes are so nonsensical that it’s really hard. There’s a lot of concern in the new administration and in the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC that we are giving too many immunizations. That, again, is not based on any kind of data or science. And there’s a lot of publicity surrounding the number of vaccines as compared to 30 years ago, and questioning why we give so many. The answer to that is fairly simple. It’s because science has evolved enough that we actually can prevent more diseases. Now, some comparisons have been made to other countries, specifically Denmark, that do not give as many vaccines, but also are a completely different public health landscape and population than the United States and have a completely different public health system in general than we do.
MTFP: Where is the American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] getting its guidance from now, if not ACIP?
Moriarty: We really started to separate with the [CDC’s] vaccine recommendations earlier in 2025. So as soon as they stopped recommending the COVID vaccine, that’s when [AAP] published our vaccine schedule that we have published for the last 45 years, but it’s the first time that it differed from the CDC’s. We continue to advocate for immunizations as a public health measure for families and kids, and are using the previous immunization schedule. And that schedule can be found on the [AAP’s] healthychildren.org website.
MTFP: Do any of the recent vaccine scheduling changes concern you more than others?
Moriarty: I think that any pediatrician will tell you that 20-30 years ago, hospitals were completely full of babies with rotavirus infection. That is an infection that is a gastrointestinal disease and causes severe dehydration in babies. I’m nervous about that coming roaring back because babies die of dehydration. It’s one of the top reasons they’re admitted to the hospital. I’m nervous about their recommendation against the flu vaccine. [The U.S. is] in one of the worst flu outbreaks we’ve ever seen currently right now and have had many children die already this season.
MTFP: Do you think, though, that hearing this changed guidance from the Trump administration will change some families’ minds about what vaccines they’ll elect to get for their children?
Moriarty: Oh, absolutely. We saw that before this recommendation. I mean, social media is such a scary place to get medical information, and [listening to] talking heads on the news is just really not an effective way to find medical information, but we see people getting it all the time. I meet families in the hospital that make decisions for their kids based on TikTok. So I think that one of the effects of this is going to be to sow more distrust in the public health infrastructure that we have in the United States that has kept our country healthy.
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The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big. Here’s a look at Jan. 8, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Lucky For Life numbers from Jan. 8 drawing
05-12-13-39-48, Lucky Ball: 13
Check Lucky For Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from Jan. 8 drawing
05-15-20-28, Bonus: 16
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.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
Winning lottery numbers are sponsored by Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network.
Where can you buy lottery tickets?
Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets.
You can also order tickets online through Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network, in these U.S. states and territories: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and West Virginia. The Jackpocket app allows you to pick your lottery game and numbers, place your order, see your ticket and collect your winnings all using your phone or home computer.
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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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