Local women campaign for Senate District 6 seat
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After a tough primary with Republican candidates Carmine Mowbray, Mike Larson and Janna Taylor vying for the Senate District 6 seat, Taylor emerged the winner of that election. Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jim Murry removed Democrat candidate Craig McClure from the primary ballot in March. Candidates are removed if they fail to file statements or reports required by state law. In such a case, the Democratic Party can appoint a new candidate, and they chose Nancy Lindsey. Lindsey is challenging Taylor for the SD 6 seat.
The district encompasses the west side of Flathead Lake and includes precincts 1 through 12 and runs to St. Ignatius in the south.
Nancy Lindsey
Lindsey has three grown children and one grandchild and lives in Polson. She graduated from Polson High School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology with engineering and business management degrees. She’s a business owner, and her strengths are problem solving and designing systems since she’s an engineer and a businessperson.
Lindsey said she is running for senator from SD 6 because in the state and nationally, things are moving in a really bad direction. People aren’t making a living wage. A massive amount of wealth has been taken out of the middle class, and upward mobility has stalled. The American dream of opportunity has largely vanished. She would like to restore the balance, strengthen the educational system to make it effective and bring fairness into our tax system.
As far as what a state senator’s job entails, Lindsey said that’s what she will have to learn. She won’t be alone, since every Montana legislative session has a large number of new senators and representatives.
“When I go to Helena,” she said, “I will have to be learning the ropes and working on issues as I learn.”
Lindsey said her opponent is a far-right Republican and the far right is promoting a values agenda that says each of us is responsible for only ourselves, and there is freedom from social responsibility.
Lindsey said she believes each person is responsible for his or her own actions, but we provide a governmental institutional environment that offers everyone the opportunity for a good life. Our government creates an environment in which business and commercial success is possible, including everything from a system of roads, communication, Internet, court system to ensure fairness, educational system to guarantee a strong work force and safety net systems to help those who need support and who can’t necessarily take care of themselves entirely.
Lindsey’s top three issues are:
1. Montana needs to strengthen its business base so people are making a livable wage. If people aren’t making money, the businesses will suffer. We need to carefully review and redesign policies to create a framework that’s conducive to business success.
2. Montana needs a strong educational system. In the public schools, we need to modernize our programs so we are really training our children for success in this century.
We need job retraining so that our people can fill available jobs, and we need to ensure that higher education is accessible for all our families.
3. We need to look at our taxes, review them and make sure they are fair, particularly property taxes, to ensure that local people aren’t driven out of their homes because of rapid escalation of property taxes.
As far as party politics, Lindsey said a commitment to working together is the first step, speaking openly and straightforwardly about issues.
“We can’t keep choosing up sides; we have to work together to create solutions,” Lindsey said.
Janna Taylor
Taylor and her husband Mike live in Rollins. They have two grown sons and three grandchildren. Taylor attended the University of Minnesota and in involved in agri-business, with a family farm, ranch and an orchard.
Taylor’s special skills are her experiences in the legislature on the budget and tax committees as well as serving as speaker pro tempore. She also signs both sides of a paycheck, as both an employee and an employer, and still operates a small business.
The No. 1 reason Taylor is running is so “Montana can once again be a place where our young people and all Montanans can find good jobs.”
She already is studying some of the 550 bill drafts in the hopper. Taylor is also working with some senators and representatives on issues, such as making Montana more business-friendly, changing the way Montana funds education and working on what to do with the boom-and-bust cycle in eastern Montana near the Bakken oil fields.
Taylor said a typical day for her during the last legislative session began with a legislative leadership meeting at 7 a.m., often with the House and Senate together, and then at 8 a.m., legislators meet in their committees. If there are lots of bills to consider, the meetings go until noon; if the load is lighter, the meeting ends at 11 a.m. Floor sessions are every afternoon from 1 to 3 p.m. Afternoon committees meet at 3:15 p.m. and run until 5 p.m.
To prepare for the full legislative day, Taylor said she finds out what bills will be coming, what questions to ask and what bills are on the floor. Since some of the bills are 900 pages or better, she checks with members of the committee and reviews the testimony on the bill in committee.
What sets Taylor apart from her opponent is her experience and knowledge of the budgeting process and the tax process.
Her three main issues are:
1. Jobs and the economy — The rules should result in a level playing field with neighboring states. Teachers are paid more in Wyoming, Taylor said. Montana has six times more coal, “the cleanest coal in the country,” than Wyoming, but Wyoming is the No. 1coal producing state.
2. Fairer taxation, especially on property tax.
3. A toss-up among water rights, states rights’ and the unfunded liability in the Public Employees Pension Plan.
As for ways to bridge the party divide in Helena, Taylor said she’s been in the legislature twice when it’s been 50 percent Republican and 50 percent Democrat, and “the state kept working.”
“I think some of the problems will be ‘east vs. west’ and ‘cities vs. rural,’” she explained. “... How can what’s right for Billings have anything to do with what’s right for Ronan?”
