Healthcare costs are crushing Montana families and small businesses. Montanans are paying more and getting less. Montana faces serious hurdles to mental health access, especially for young people, students, and rural Montanans. We must take real, practical steps now to lower costs and ensure everyone has access to healthcare when they need it.

In the U.S., we spend nearly twice as much per person on healthcare than any other developed nations. Yet, our average life expectancy is in decline. Until we achieve universal healthcare, we must ensure everyone receives basic preventive care. When people cannot afford preventive, routine, or mental health care, they delay care and rely on expensive emergency room services.

This drives up costs for everyone.  Add in the complex insurance and administrative hurdles to paying for healthcare, and this further stymies prompt attention to health matters, contributing to the US having the most expensive healthcare system in the world.

As your representative in the state legislature, I will fight to:

• Increase access to community-based mental health services.

• Introduce a program for healthier school lunches that relies on local, sustainable agriculture and makes them free for all students without means.  Healthy food is a basic human right, not a privilege.

• Ensure Montanans have easy access to Medicaid and Medicare by increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates to keep rural hospitals open.

• Work with partners across the aisle to fund some of the lost Obamacare subsidies our federal leaders could not ensure.

• Invest in healthcare workforce recruitment and retention (see section on Housing).

Housing costs and the affordability crisis are pushing working families, seniors, and MSU graduates out of this community we call home. We must do better and build more affordable housing for all Montanans to afford to live here.

The state legislature needs to give local communities the freedom to solve their housing challenges. Montana is a big state, and the housing challenges in Fairview are not those of Bozeman. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work.

We need to incentivize affordable housing in new developments that make sense. Give communities the tools to reduce sprawl and infrastructure costs. Let’s be innovative: As a developer, if you build 10% of your units as affordable, you can build a community solar project and retain higher revenue from it.  Give incentives for building up in zoning-restricted areas or for mixed-use developments, reducing costly infrastructure and property tax costs.

As your representative in the state legislature, I will fight to:

• Introduce a Montana Renters Rebate that gives Montana renters relief for the property taxes they pay as part of their rent. Property owners get tax rebates, and the Homestead Tax exemption gives a de facto reduction for their property taxes, as well. Those earning under $72,000 (below 1.2x Montana’s median household income) would qualify for a sliding-scale refund. This is real, meaningful relief for renters and more breathing room for students and working families.

• Incentivize sustainable development to protect open spaces and agricultural land that are essential and vital to the cultural fabric of the communities in this valley and part of this state.

• Support repealing the ban on inclusionary zoning.

• Ensure a right to counsel statewide for renters facing eviction, and push for landlords to produce receipts for claims against deposits.

Montanans are deeply concerned about rising energy bills. Montana has some of the nation’s best renewable energy resources.

Wind and solar are the cheapest and quickest ways to add new energy to the grid. Increasing our share of energy with homegrown renewable energy reduces energy costs for regular Montanans. Renewable energy creates high-quality jobs in rural areas and adds a significant tax base, lowering property tax burdens and enabling better roads and schools in communities that need them.

Our energy policy approach needs to consider all possible alternatives to lower costs for all Montanans and build a reliable energy system that can power Montanans’ way of life. With 18 years as an engineer in the renewable energy industry, I will bring real expertise and experience to the state legislature.

As your representative in the state legislature, I will fight to:

• Pass legislation to require the Public Service Commission to consider all energy options when reviewing Northwestern Energy rate cases.

• Ensure AI data centers are approved only when they can prove water efficiency and that their energy demand does not increase bills for Montanans by 1 red cent per kilowatt hour.

• Build a new renewable energy supply, or face an energy usage tariff that compensates current consumers for the increased costs. Show that your data center will not interrupt power to Montanans in our harsh winters.

• Modernize our state’s utility model to put Montanans first by lowering costs and prioritizing local production, such as community solar and wind.

• Invest in more energy alternatives by expanding regional transmission, creating long-term, good-paying jobs, and generating millions of dollars in tax revenue for local communities.

I believe that investing in our public education is important to defending our democracy, which depends on building a future workforce. Montana has the lowest starting teacher salary in the nation. While there was some good legislation in the 2025 legislative session, we need to do more.

As your representative in the state legislature, I will fight to:

• I will fight to raise teacher salaries to be more competitive and to help find more housing solutions for teachers and staff.

• We must eliminate the 3% cap on inflationary spending for education, which forces our schools to fall behind in the affordability crisis.

Public lands and the Environment are the most important and valuable resources in this state and always must be protected — they’re part of our way of life in Montana.  I know this firsthand, learning to fish on the Gallatin River 30+ years ago. They’re where we hunt, fish, hike, camp, and teach future generations what it means to have access to great outdoor recreation.

Meanwhile, unchecked sprawl and corporate development aimed at the super-wealthy out-of-state buyers put extreme pressure on our public lands, water, and wildlife. This kind of development fragments wildlife and fish habitat, strains water scarcity, increases septic pollution, and encroaches on our public lands.

For example, unfettered development in the Gallatin River watershed has already borne the consequences, listed recently as an Impaired Water for algae. 30 years ago, it was still a tough wade during high flows, but the algae has increased noticeably in recent years, making it even slipperier to cross and damaging our valley's crown jewel. When powerful interests bend the rules or act as if the rules don’t apply to them, not only is it a threat to our ecosystem, but it’s also a threat to our livelihoods and democracy.

As your representative in the state legislature, I will fight to:

• Advocate that the state fully funds Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP) and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) so they can pay competitive wages with other states to attract the best minds and talent available.

• Review our septic system rules and ensure they support our ecosystem’s long-term health; propose changes if not.