Montana
New Montana legislative website has problems, Legislative Services working on fixes • Daily Montanan
The Montana Legislature used to have the best legislative website in the country for tracking bills — that’s what Sen. Andrea Olsen was told roughly eight years ago.
This year, a new system launched, complete with new bugs.
The chief information officer for the Legislative Services Division said Wednesday a technology team is delivering code on a daily basis to fix the problems, and the goal is to have a top-notch system once again.
In the meantime, however, legislators, lobbyists and members of the public are running into roadblocks in trying to follow the work of the 69th Montana Legislature.
“Unfortunately, it truly is a disaster to start the session without efficient capacity to track bills,” Olsen said. “This is for us as legislators, but particularly for the public.”
Olsen, a lawyer, said the lack of transparency also runs contrary to protections in the Montana Constitution.
“We have a constitutional right to know, and a constitutional right to participate, and those two things are infringed when we have a system that is so difficult, and when there’s so many bugs to still work out,” Olsen said.
Jerry Howe, executive director of Legislative Services Division, and Dale Gow, chief information officer, said Wednesday the old system was a workhorse, but nonetheless, on its last legs.
Howe said he feared it wouldn’t make it through 2025, and the Legislative Services Division decided to create a new one in house. He said the goal is to have a website that works better than the old one, and the team is making progress.
“We understand that there is some frustration,” Howe said. “Be patient with us as we build this system from scratch. We think that people will be pleased with it as it unfolds and as it reaches its maturity.”
Problems, some solutions
Charles Denowh, with the Montana Group, has worked legislative sessions since 2003, and he said the old system was “very functional.” However, he said it was also dated, and the user interface was rudimentary.
“I understand why they decided it was time for an upgrade,” Denowh said.
He said Legislative Services couldn’t fully test the new system until the session started, and launching now means having to “fix it on the fly.”
“I feel bad for those guys,” Denowh said of the workers. “I know a lot of people are pretty angry at them. They’re fixing it as fast as they can, and I’ve been pretty impressed at how dedicated they’ve been to getting things right.”
He said he’s figured out some workarounds, but some features are still missing.
At least midday Wednesday, the third day of the session, he still hadn’t seen committee assignments listed on legislator pages. He’d also seen cancelled hearings still show up as taking place in a data export feature.
“That’s probably been the biggest difficulty I’ve seen is getting an accurate committee hearing schedule,” said Denowh, a lobbyist.
In the Senate, a political power struggle is taking place, and committee meetings have stalled. The stalling ended up demonstrating new shortfalls in the system too, Howe said.
“When they cancelled hearings in bulk, it created issues we had not foreseen or contemplated in the past,” Howe said.
On the other hand, he said it means developers can address it and create a more robust site.
“I’m not sure the old system would have accommodated the cancellations,” Howe said.
Time for an update
Howe said the redo didn’t come out of some desire to improve the system, it came out of necessity.
“We got through last session, but it took a lot of effort and work to hold that thing together,” he said.
A major upgrade was needed, and Gow said they decided to bring the project in house with a new suite of applications and the goal of “all the functionality that everybody has been using the past 30 years.”
They couldn’t dig into it right after the 2023 session because staff still have work to do afterwards, he said. They get funding to start their projects in July, but he said money wasn’t the issue, and time was.
“This was replacing 30-year-old technology within 10 months to get to baseline for the session,” Gow said.
A security application that was part of the project had some issues too, and that took nearly two months to sort out, Gow said. But he said the new applications are more secure.
“They used to be wide open,” he said.
In the past, he said, they relied on someone in Ireland to help fix system problems, and they decided to do the baseline work in their own shop in order to support the system themselves.
“Now we’re able to do all of these enhancements and bug fixes in house, and we’re able to turn those around very quickly,” Gow said.
People are calling to report problems, and since Monday, the number of tickets related to the new website was 51 as of Wednesday, Howe said. That’s out of 202 total tickets for all tech issues, such as a legislator needing help with a printer.
Gow said eight developers and six analysts are working to address problems, in addition to their other duties.
A timeline for when the new system could be considered largely complete wasn’t set.
“It does take time to develop software in that way, and we’re confident that in time, this new system will be able to accomplish all the needs the public has with respect to bill status and transparency of the legislative process,” Howe said.
Moving forward
Matt Leow, with Tenacious Campaigns, said the old system was not just functional, it was familiar. The lobbyist said the new system is making Capitol veterans like him, around for 20 years, feeling like it’s the first day of school.
“What people are doing to try to address the problem is they’re buying the subscription services, which is great if you’re a well-paid lobbyist, not so great if you’re a member of the public who wants to stay informed and get involved in the process,” Leow said.
Years ago, Olsen said she attended the National Conference of State Legislators, and software sales people trying to sell bill tracking programs wouldn’t try to sell to her when they learned she was from Montana.
“They looked at me and said, ‘Oh, well you already have the best system in the country,’” Olsen said.
So she said she appreciates the goal with the new system is to emulate the old one, although the clock is ticking with the lack of transparency.
“It’s a disaster for public notice purposes,” Olsen said.
Sen. John Fuller, a Kalispell Republican, said he hasn’t heard complaints from constituents, but the slowdown in the Senate is part of the bigger picture too.
“Of course, part of the problem is we haven’t done anything yet,” Fuller said. “When we start cranking stuff out, if it’s not fixed by then — I think it will be — but if we start cranking stuff out, then people have the right to get upset.”
He said no one is to blame because the project involves a lot of changes, and he knows staff are working hard on the “hiccups.”
“We’re trying to increase accessibility while maintaining cybersecurity. Duh. Those are opposing ends,” Fuller said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the number of tickets logged for problems with the website, which was unavailable at press time.
WASHINGTON ― Montana Republican Senate nominee Kurt Alme, who previously served as his state’s U.S. attorney, cut a plea deal in 2020 that allowed a tribal police officer who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl to serve less than a year in prison and avoid being registered as a sex offender.
Alme, who has President Donald Trump’s backing in his bid for Senate, served as Montana’s U.S. attorney in two stints. Trump appointed him both times; Alme served in the role from September 2017 through December 2020, and then again from March 2025 through March 2026.
Alme oversaw the case of Mychal Thomas Damon, who was indicted in June 2019 by a grand jury on one count of abusive sexual contact with an individual under 12, which carries a maximum punishment of a lifetime in prison, a $250,000 fine and no less than five years to a lifetime of supervised release. The average sentence for this crime is less severe, but still significant: 62 months in prison, no fine and 143 months of supervised release, based on an analysis of 2025 data provided by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Damon, 28, had admitted he touched the 6-year-old’s genitals. But in February 2020, Alme’s office filed a plea deal in his case that reduced his charge to felony child abuse.
The changes in the plea deal raised the alleged age of the victim from below 12 to below 14, stripped out the language of sexual intent and moved the offense out of the federal sex crime framework, meaning Damon would no longer be required to register as a sex offender. It jointly recommended Damon be sentenced to the time he’d already served of 324 days, and required only a sex offender evaluation. Alme’s name appears on the bottom of the document, along with a signature by his assistant U.S. attorney, Cassady Adams.
In June, Alme filed a sentencing memorandum that described Damon’s conduct, which included details of him touching the child’s vagina with skin-to-skin contact, and the adverse effect it had on her mental health. Local reporting at the time said the victim had told a therapist “Mychal touched me” and hurt her by putting his fingers in her “hoo hoo.”
Ten days later, Alme announced Damon was being sentenced to time served of 324 days and two years of supervised release. As of June 2026, Damon is not listed in the national sex offender registry or in Montana’s Sexual or Violent Offender Registry.
It’s not clear why Alme reduced the charges against Damon as significantly as he did. During part of his tenure as U.S. attorney, his office declined 64% of sexual assault cases. He conceded in a 2019 interview that this “is something that has to be worked on,” and noted that a lot of these cases are declined due to “weak or insufficient evidence.”
Asked what happened in Damon’s case, an Alme campaign spokesman on Thursday lashed out at unnamed Democrats for trying to make him look bad.
“Kurt’s liberal opponents are twisting the facts to manufacture a fake narrative that exploits crimes against women and children,” said Alme’s spokesperson. “Department of Justice policy required defendants to plead to the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence. Kurt strongly supported the Multi-Disciplinary Teams on our Native American reservations, led by his office, to support investigations of crimes against children and to support victims.”
His spokesperson also pushed back on the idea that Alme unreasonably declined a large number of sexual assault cases during his tenure as U.S. attorney.
“Kurt’s office prosecuted every viable sexual abuse felony referred to it and pursued the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence,” the spokesperson said. “Many ‘declined’ cases were to allow more appropriate tribal prosecutions ― they were not dropped. Kurt will bring his years of experience prosecuting criminals and working with the Sexual Assault Response Teams on our Native American reservations to the U.S. Senate to strengthen investigations, support victims, and better protect women and children.”
The campaign pointed HuffPost to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office that found the most common reason for U.S. attorney’s offices to decline sexual abuse cases referred in from Indian country was “weak or insufficient admissible evidence.” It also highlighted statements of support for Alme in an October 2025 press release by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), when he celebrated Alme being confirmed as U.S. attorney.
Alme is currently running for Daines’ Senate seat, and Daines went out of his way to clear the path for him. In a stunning and orchestrated maneuver, the two-term senator in March abruptly withdrew from reelection as Alme filed to run for his seat, minutes before the state’s filing period closed. Daines’ last-minute change-up was an effort to block potential Democrats or any major Republican challenger from jumping into an open Senate race.
Alme is taking on Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November election. Bankhead and Bodner have been duking it out for weeks, with each appealing to different factions of the Democratic party and calling on the other to drop out.
Bankhead, a retired Air Force officer, unexpectedly won the Democratic primary earlier this month, boosted by grassroots supporters and more than $2.5 million in outside money from a progressive veterans’ PAC. But Bodnar, a former University of Montana president who did not appear on the primary ballot, has bipartisan endorsements from prominent establishment figures, including former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. He’s also significantly outraised Bankhead and Alme.
This Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook’s Political Report, meaning Alme is well-positioned to win the general election. But this race would be more competitive if Bodner and Alme were going head to head, without Bankhead in the running.
Where Khloe Kardashian Stands With Ex French Montana More Than 10 Years After Breakup
French Montana is done keeping up with reality TV.
In fact, he only agreed to appear on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Kourtney & Khloé Take the Hamptons over a decade ago as a favor to then-girlfriend Khloe Kardashian.
“She said to get on the show,” he exclusively told E! News at the BET Awards on June 28. “And I got on the show. Shout out to Khloe.”
The “Ever Since U Left Me” rapper, who split with Kardashian in December 2014 after eight months of dating, said the experience was “fun” because her family kept it real.
“They filmed their real life,” he continued. “And we were part of something together that one time. So it felt great. It didn’t feel like work because they film what they do everyday.”
As for his future in reality TV, the 41-year-old said those days are over, shutting down any prospective offers with a simple, “Negative.”
Although the “Unforgettable” artist—whose real name is Karim Kharbouch—may not be returning to television anytime soon, he has no problem hanging out with his ex-girlfriend these days.
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