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Articles written by Arren Kimbel-sannit


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  • Candidate filing deadline firms up 2024 election bracket

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Mar 14, 2024

    At 5 p.m. Monday, the window closed for candidates to file to run for elected office in Montana this year, officially setting the stage for a hugely consequential election season. Toward the top of the ballot - not counting the presidential contest between presumptive nominees Joe Biden and Donald Trump - voters will have a choice between incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and a slew of challengers intent on stopping the Democrat from winning a fourth term, chief among them...

  • Rosendale drops out of race for U.S. Senate

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Feb 15, 2024

    Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale, who just last week announced a highly anticipated run for U.S. Senate, is dropping his campaign after former President Donald Trump — the ultimate kingmaker in modern GOP politics — endorsed his primary opponent Tim Sheehy last Friday, shortly after Rosendale’s announcement. “I have long been a supporter of the President, and remain so. But I have been forced to calculate what my chances of success would be with Trump supporting my opponent,” Rosendale said in a statement relayed by his ca...

  • Gov. Gianforte announces run for second term

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Jan 18, 2024

    Gov. Greg Gianforte will seek re-election, he announced on MTN News Tuesday. He will again be joined by Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras on the ballot, he said. Gianforte, a Republican, was elected by a wide margin in 2020, breaking a 16-year streak of Democrats in the Montana governor’s office. In the last four years, he’s presided over two legislative sessions featuring substantial GOP legislative majorities, helping to shepherd through income tax cuts, charter school expansions, restrictions on abortion and LGBTQ health care and...

  • Gianfortes buy $4 million Helena mansion, say they will donate the historic home to the state when the governor's term ends

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Jan 11, 2024

    Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and First Lady Susan Gianforte have purchased a new private residence in Helena, the two announced Monday. For a sum of $4 million, the Gianfortes now own Helena’s Samuel T. Hauser House, a 9-bedroom mansion built in 1885 by the industrialist and territorial governor of the same name. The Gianfortes purchased the home, located on Madison Avenue in Helena’s historic Mansion District, with their own funds, according to a statement, but intend to ultimately donate the property to the state, which wou...

  • Judge rules in favor of news outlets in right-to-know lawsuit

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Jan 4, 2024

    A district court judge has determined that candidates for judicial positions do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when being interviewed by representatives of the governor’s office, the result of a lawsuit filed by the Choteau Acantha newspaper and Montana Free Press. The Acantha and MTFP lawsuit contended that an advisory council that Gov. Greg Gianforte appointed to help him winnow the field of candidates for a judicial vacancy in north-central Montana unconstitutionally conducted interviews and deliberations i...

  • The veto and the void

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Sep 7, 2023

    Gov. Greg Gianforte is asking a Lewis and Clark County district court judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging his veto of Senate Bill 442, major bipartisan legislation from the 2023 session that reallocated marijuana tax revenue to conservation and county road projects. In a recent court filing, attorneys for the governor argued that the question at the heart of the litigation - whether Gianforte vetoed the bill in a way that prevented an override by the Legislature on the...

  • Proposed ballot initiatives would mean big changes for Montana elections

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Aug 24, 2023

    A coalition of former Republican officials and a longtime third-party candidate are pushing a pair of constitutional amendment ballot initiatives for the 2024 cycle that would fundamentally alter Montana’s elections in what they describe as an effort to “reform our broken political system.” The most substantive proposal would create a system of top-four open primaries for most state and federal elections in Montana, regardless of party. That would replace the current system — in which a voter can participate in the partisa...

  • Rosendale wins race for Montana's eastern U.S. House seat

    Arren Kimbel-Sannit, montanafreepress.org|Updated Nov 10, 2022

    Republican Matt Rosendale, the current representative of Montana’s at-large U.S. House district, has handily won his race to return to Congress. With nearly all votes in Montana’s expansive eastern U.S. House district counted as Wednesday morning, Rosendale beat independent businessman Gary Buchanan and Democratic former Billings City Council member Penny Ronning, receiving 114,330 votes, more than the rest of the field combined. Buchanan received 44,512 votes, two percentage points more than Ronning’s 40,570 votes. Liber...