Montana
Op-Ed: Montana Plan Hurts Montana Businesses
According to the New York Times, 300 individual billionaires spent more than $3 billion during the 2024 election cycle. Keep those figures in mind as you consider I-194 and its potential impact on Montana values.
The Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, and the Billings Chamber of Commerce have taken a clear and united stand against Initiative 194. We believe Montanans deserve a full and transparent explanation of why.
No doubt, I-194 would prohibit Montana businesses and nonprofits from participating in the political process. Under this initiative, family-owned businesses including farms, ranches, restaurants, and retail stores could not respond publicly to a ballot initiative targeting them. A Main Street restaurant could not support a local levy to improve public safety. A small business coalition could not push back against misleading claims that threaten their livelihoods and their employees’ jobs. These are not hypothetical concerns; they are the everyday realities of how Montana businesses engage in the civic life of our communities.
But make no mistake, I-194 does not remove big money from our politics.
While cleverly named “The Montana Plan,” I-194 should be called the “California Plan” since California is home to more than 200 individual billionaires and places no restrictions whatsoever on out-of-state wealthy individuals. Under I-194, a single well-funded outsider could bankroll a campaign to devastate a Montana agricultural practice, a logging operation, or a ranching family, while the Montana businesses under attack would be legally silenced. That is not campaign finance reform. That is a one-sided disarmament of Montana’s own voices.
The supporters of I-194 like to reference the Copper King’s influence that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. And while this initiative would have prohibited the Anaconda Copper Company from supporting candidates, the actual individual Kings of copper–the millionaires that owned those companies–would have still been free to bankroll their preferred candidates, while the rest of Montana’s small business community sat in silence. They would have loved this proposal.
Montana has a proud history of fighting outside influence in our politics, from the battles against the Copper Kings to the Corrupt Practices Act of 1912. But that Act targeted corruption and covert control of government, not the right of businesses and community organizations to have an open voice in the state they call home. There is a meaningful difference between a corporation secretly buying a legislator and a chamber of commerce publicly advocating for its members.
We raised constitutional and legal questions about I-194’s scope before the Montana Supreme Court because those questions deserved an answer. We respect the Court’s ruling. And now we are doing exactly what any organization or individual is entitled to do: making our case openly, with our names attached, and letting Montanans decide.
That is what chambers of commerce do. We advocate for Montana’s businesses and workers—the coffee shops, hardware stores, family farms, and yes, the larger employers whose presence helps keep smaller businesses alive. We are Montanans representing Montana’s economic engine.
We agree that Montanans deserve a political system where their voices matter more than outside money. Silencing Montana businesses while leaving out-of-state billionaires free to spend without restriction does not achieve that goal. It simply changes who gets silenced.
We urge every Montanan to read I-194 carefully—all of it—and ask: Does this make our democracy stronger, or does it make some voices louder by making others disappear?
Montana Chamber of Commerce, Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, and Billings Chamber of Commerce
Montana
Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for June 23, 2026
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.
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.
Montana
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.
“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
Montana
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.
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.
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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