This story was updated at 10:42 p.m. with additional developments. 

In yet another twist in Montana’s western U.S. House District contest, Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen announced Tuesday that she will be running to replace U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.

Jacobsen made her announcement on Facebook with a campaign video portraying her as both a political outsider and a favorite of President Donald Trump, who endorsed Jacobsen’s 2024 reelection campaign. In the ad, Jacobsen chops wood, rides a horse and drives an all-terrain vehicle in a forested area, before ending with a video of Trump repeatedly endorsing her for secretary of state. The Trump footage is from an August 2024 rally in Bozeman to promote U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy’s 2024 election. 

“Montana deserves a fighter who delivers America First leadership, lower costs, secure borders, and unleashed energy. No career politicians. Just results,” Jacobsen wrote on Facebook. “Are you with me?”

Jacobsen’s announcement follows Zinke’s statement Monday that he won’t seek a third term in Montana’s western U.S. House District, citing health problems. The development tees up a three-way primary with conservative statewide radio talk show host Aaron Flint and former Kalispell legislator Dr. Al Olszewski, who both joined the race Monday shortly after Zinke bowed out. 

In 2024, during her race for secretary of state, Jacobsen led all Republican statewide candidates in raw votes, including Donald Trump. She did the same as a first-time candidate in 2020. Term limits prevent Jacobsen from running for reelection.

Hours after Jacobsen’s video was posted touting her 2024 Trump endorsement, Flint’s campaign produced a letter from President Trump endorsing Flint’s congressional campaign. On Monday, Flint also touted his high-profile Republican endorsements, claiming support from Zinke, Gov. Greg Gianforte, Sen. Tim Sheehy, Eastern Montana Congressman Troy Downing and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

Flint’s campaign manager, Heather Swift, posted a photo of Jacobsen fishing Monday off the coast of New Zealand, before the secretary of state announced her candidacy. Jacobsen had shared the same on Facebook. Swift, who is Zinke’s chief of staff, commented that Jacobsen’s fishing trip occurred when hundreds of candidates were registering their campaigns with Jacobsen’s office, which handles elections and business registrations.

“This week is the filing deadline for candidates across Montana. Christi Jacobsen is the MT SOS. One would expect the SOS to be in the freaking office for it. It didn’t exactly sneak up on her,” Swift said on X.

“But no! After spending taxpayer money on election mailers …she disappeared on a luxe vacation in New Zealand. Now she is trying to launch a campaign for MT-01, a district where she doesn’t live. Poor excuse for a doomed pre-governor run.”

The mailers Swift mentioned sparked controversy among Republican and Democratic state legislators in January over political messaging and cost. As previously reported by Montana Free Press, Jacobsen issued 467,000 postcards to Montana households with pictures of herself and Trump, promoting their attempts to identify non-citizen voters. The mailers cost $196,829 to produce and mail, according to the Montana Department of Administration.

The secretary of state’s staff had declined to disclose how much was spent.

Flint indicated months ago that he had moved from Billings to the Kalispell area in 2025 between school years. Kalispell is within the western congressional district. 

One Democratic observer, 50-year Montana campaign veteran Joe Lamson, told MTFP  Monday that while Flint and Olszewski offered his party a less difficult opponent than Zinke, he cautioned that a successful statewide candidate like Jacobsen, would present less of an opening for Democrats. 

“Neither of them, they have not run statewide races, and that’s important,” Lamson said. “I would think either Jacobsen or Knudsen are experienced and would be interested.”

Four Democrats — Ryan Busse, Russ Cleveland, Sam Forstag and Matt Rains — have announced their intentions to run in the primary in the western district.

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This story was updated on Monday at 4:57 p.m. with additional developments. 

U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke said he won’t seek reelection in Montana’s western U.S. House District on Monday, citing health problems. Shortly after his announcement, conservative talk radio firebrand Aaron Flint and former Kalispell legislator Dr. Al Olszewski announced plans to run in the Republican primary in June.

The development could improve the slim chance of a Democratic contender winning the race, according to one Democratic analyst.

“Neither Olzewski, nor Flint has general election experience for federal office,” said Joe Lamson, a veteran Democratic campaign manager who served on the 2020 districting commission that created the western congressional district. That detail could make a difference in the race — if no other Republican candidate is to step forward, he added. Candidates have until Wednesday, March 4 to file with the state.

Zinke, 64, has been elected as a Republican to represent Montana in the U.S. House four times since 2014. He said in his announcement that injuries sustained during his Navy SEAL career had caught up with him and that he needed surgery and time to recover.

“I have made the decision to leave office at the end of my fourth term and not seek re-election,” Zinke said in a letter to constituents, which he posted online.

The congressman had been expected to seek re-election in Montana’s western U.S. House District, which the Whitefish native has represented since 2023. Zinke was elected Montana’s at-large representative in 2014 and 2016, before the state was divided into two congressional districts following the 2020 census.

“I do not take this decision lightly and have informed President Trump, the Governor, and senior leadership of this difficult but necessary decision,” Zinke also wrote.

He stated that he is not chronically ill, but had nagging injuries from his military career.

Zinke gave no hints during a Friday visit to Butte that he would announce his retirement three days later. The congressman joined Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for a tour of the Montana Tech campus. He wore his trademark black cowboy hat and appeared relaxed and comfortable as the entourage went up and down stairs through the mining department’s labs and testing rooms. In an hour-long roundtable presentation, Zinke took questions from several reporters.

Zinke was appointed President Donald Trump’s first Interior secretary in 2017, but resigned from the position in 2019 during several investigations and political pressure.

Shortly after Zinke announced his retirement, talk radio personality Aaron Flint posted a dramatic campaign video on X, highlighting his role as a radio personality, family man and veteran, while invoking Donald Trump. He also issued a press release stating that he had been endorsed by Zinke, Gov. Greg Gianforte, Senator Tim Sheehy and other Republican officials. The listed contact for Flint’s campaign was Zinke’s chief of staff, Heather Swift. 

Flint, who hosts a three-hour, conservative statewide morning radio show from Billings, staffed Zinke’s office as an employee of the U.S. House Clerk for more than three months in 2017 after the representative resigned his at-large Montana district to become Interior secretary. Flint held the position until Gianforte was elected to replace Zinke in the 2017 special election.

Former congressional candidate Dr. Al Olszewski told Montana Free Press that he was filing to run as a Republican in the western district. Olszewski, a former Kalispell state senator, said he had been watching candidate filings to see if Zinke would run. He said that he suspected Zinke wouldn’t.

Zinke defeated Olszewski in the 2022 primary. The race was so close that it took a few days to confirm the outcome.

Four Democrats — Ryan Busse, Russ Cleveland, Sam Forstag and Matt Rains — have announced their intentions to run in the primary in the Western District. Zinke won the seat by 4 percentage points against Democrat Monica Tranel in 2022, and then 7.6 points in 2024 as an incumbent against Tranel again.

Lamson, who worked on many Montana Democratic campaigns including that of former U.S. Rep. Pat Williams, said that a successful statewide candidate like Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen or Attorney General Austin Knudsen running in the west would present a more difficult opponent for those Democratic hopefuls.

Forstag issued a press release declaring the district an “open race” without Zinke. 

“Ryan Zinke quit because he saw what was coming: all of us. People across western Montana who are hungry for real representation and a new generation of leadership,” Forstag said.

He and other Democratic candidates have previously told MTFP that they expected dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump, who won more than 58% of the Montana vote in 2024, to make the Western District competitive as they sought to challenge Zinke.

Gianforte thanked Zinke for his service in a press release following the announcement. “He’s been an outspoken advocate for Montanans and our values from protecting public lands to restoring accountability in the federal government,” Gianforte said.

U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy called fellow Republican Zinke a mentor. Sheehy, like Zinke, is a former Navy SEAL commander. “Montana owes him a deep debt of gratitude, and he will be deeply missed in the halls of Congress,” Sheehy said in a press release.

Rob Chaney contributed reporting.

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A discussion about whether Montana’s Constitution should be changed drew protests Tuesday night outside a hotel in Montana’s capital.

Dozens of opponents of changing the Constitution blew whistles and banged on pots along North California Street outside the Delta Hotel. Inside, Montana’s governor and other conservatives listened to a presentation by the Coeur d’Alene-based Mountain States Policy Center about the Constitution’s alleged need of a rewrite.

The existing state Constitution, enacted in 1972 and widely considered progressive in content, gives voters the chance to approve a new constitutional convention every 20 years — an opportunity Montana voters have twice rejected, in 1990 and 2010.  The next vote on Montana’s blueprint for state government is in 2030. The prospect of a new constitutional convention, at which delegates could propose revisions and rewrites, comes as Montana’s Republican legislators grow increasingly frustrated with state courts rejecting conservative laws on constitutional grounds.

“All of this has aggravated division rather than yield,” speaker Rob Natelson told his audience of roughly 100. “Of course, by and large, many in the media and some of Montana’s old guard have protected the court and the court’s distorted view of the Constitution. But numerous problems persist, and they simply cannot be papered over that way.”

Natelson, a former University of Montana law professor and Montana gubernatorial candidate, spoke as the policy center’s senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence. Natelson is a contributor on constitutional matters for several conservative think tanks. Before the event, he strolled along the protest line on North California Street. Few seemed to realize the jaunty man in khakis and a sport coat was the trigger of their objections. 

“There’s a meeting in there, regarding changing the Montana Constitution to suit those who want to destroy our state, in my opinion,” said protester Joanne Gores, gesturing toward the hotel’s front door. 

Bundled up against the February chill, Gores wore a giant yellow bird head crafted from cardboard. The cacophony of drums and whistles around her made her difficult to hear.

“I grew up in Montana. I remember when the Clark Fork ran orange. I remember when a lot of the kids in Anaconda had arsenic in their blood … I’ve seen it, and we don’t want to go back,” Gores said.

Specifically, Gores expressed concern about the future of Montanans’ right to a “clean and healthful environment,” a signature provision of the state Constitution. The state Supreme Court in 2024 ruled that the right includes the right to a “stable climate system,” meaning the state has to consider greenhouse gas emissions when reviewing industrial projects for permitting. Gov. Gianforte has said that decision will lead to “open season on Montana’s all-of-the-above approach” to power plants, coal mining and energy development.

Inside the Delta, where more than 140 people had made reservations for the free-admission night of conservative agenda discussion and crusted chicken parmesan, Natelson called for constitutional revision.

The state Constitution isn’t the sacred document some have suggested, Natelson said. Drafted in the first three months of 1972 and put on the ballot that June, the Constitution barely passed muster with voters. The Montana Farm Bureau organized and supported a lawsuit against the document’s ratification, alleging procedural problems and claiming the margin of support for ratification wasn’t adequate.

The state Supreme Court ruled against the Farm Bureau-backed challenge in a 3-2 split decision. 

Voters support for leaving the Constitution as it is was 82% in 1990, and dipped to just over 58% in 2010, according to state election data.

The sections of the Constitution that have disqualified several state laws passed with Republican support since 2021 mostly concern voting rights, environmental protections, and privacy rights regarding medical decisions, specifically reproductive health and gender transition. The state Constitution also grants the state university system the right to govern itself, including the regulation of guns on campus, which legislators have attempted to override.

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A Republican push to ratchet up voter registration requirements nationwide has passed the House with the support of Montana’s representatives and will now head to the Senate. 

The SAVE America Act is intended to make voter registration more secure — and too difficult for many Americans to comply with, opponents say. 

Republican Montana Reps. Ryan Zinke and Troy Downing spent the week ahead of Wednesday’s House vote telling Montanans that the proposed law, backed by President Donald Trump, is necessary for election security. 

“I’m proud to stand on the side of common sense and use my vote to restore confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections that has been eroded by progressive governance and four years of systematic illegal immigration,” Downing said in a statement emailed Wednesday.

The bill calls for new voters to produce proof of citizenship, and for states to cross-check voter rolls with a Department of Homeland Security system used to screen for federal benefit eligibility. 

Zinke described the act’s increased registration standard as essential at the Republican Winter Kickoff in Great Falls Feb. 6. He told Montana Free Press in a text message Tuesday that his vote is in step with his constituents. 

“Seventy percent of Americans support voter ID,” Zinke said. “The SAVE America Act is straightforward common sense. Only Americans should be voting in American elections, and each vote should only count once.

“Protecting the integrity of our elections is not controversial, it is essential to maintain trust in our elections.”

Gallup, in an October 2024 poll, put support for proof of citizenship for new registrants at 83% 

Critics of the act say voter fraud is rare in the United States. A Stanford University study found that statistical claims alleging voter fraud used by President Donald Trump and his allies to challenge Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden were “shockingly flimsy,” stemming mostly from misunderstandings about voter file information. There were 62 lawsuits filed challenging the 2020 results. None were successful. 

The voter registration requirements in the SAVE America Act would likely disenfranchise millions of lawful voters, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, an elections watchdog group. The Brennan Center looked at decades of investigations by state and federal governments, as well as election data, and concluded that voter fraud in the United States is “vanishingly rare.”

The bill passed by the House this week requires Americans to produce a paper birth certificate or passport when registering to vote. The Brennan Center estimates that 21 million Americans don’t have easy access to those documents. 

“It presumes access to documents that I think it’s fair to say many of us don’t have. I mean, I certainly don’t know where my paper birth certificate is located. And I think that that is probably not unusual for most 50-year-olds in Montana,” said Alexander Rate, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, which advocates for voting rights.

The bill also requires states to run their voter rolls through a Department of Homeland Security database to check for citizenship issues. The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE program, is designed to check for government benefit eligibility. The Brennan Center told MTFP on Feb.3 that information in the SAVE database has proven too old to be effective and generates too many false positives. 

The bill now heads to the Senate, where previous versions of the SAVE America Act have failed to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, is one of 48 co-sponsors of the bill. He was unable to accommodate an interview for this article, said Daines spokesperson Gabby Wiggins. Daines became a sponsor of the bill in January. On social media, Daines has been correcting messages inaccurately declaring that he opposes the SAVE America Act. 

U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Montana, did not respond to emails for this article. 

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Editor’s note: After this story was published on Feb. 4, Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen’s office denied that it had provided the U.S. Department of Justice with unredacted voter files, but declined to provide an explanation for what that office meant when it stated in writing that it had “fully satisfied” DOJ’s Aug. 14 request to do so.

Attorneys for the secretary of state’s office also issued a cease and desist demand, calling for Montana Free Press to retract the story. 

The story was updated Feb. 5, 2026, to include post-publication response from the secretary of state’s office and legal counsel, and to add additional information about MTFP’s attempts to seek pre-publication comment from the secretary. 

The story was also updated to clarify that documents obtained through a public records request show that Jacobsen communicated to the Department of Justice that her office had complied with DOJ’s request, which stated: “…the statewide VRL [Voter Registration List] must contain all fields, including the registrant’s full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number …”

The documents provided to MTFP did not include any attachments or voter registration lists. 

The story was additionally updated to include downloadable copies of the Aug. 14, 2025, and Dec. 9, 2025, correspondence between the U.S. Department of Justice and the secretary of state’s office. 

Emails from her office say Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen has handed over confidential voter data to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has asked the state to remove, upon demand, any voters who may be deemed ineligible by federal officials.

The described provision of voter data, as well as the federal government’s proposal to screen Montana’s voter list, was brought to light through a records request filed by Montana Free Press in November and fulfilled this week.

The Department of Justice has been demanding unredacted voter files from most states since the spring of 2025, and has sued multiple states for refusing to deliver them. In a July 14, 2025, email to Jacobsen’s staff, Maureen Riordan, then acting chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote that Montana’s voting records were required to “facilitate a review for noncitizens and dead voters via [the Department of Homeland Security].” 

The federal government’s request for state voter data escalated in December when the Department of Justice asked secretaries of state to sign a memorandum of understanding stating that changes to voter rolls deemed necessary by the federal government would be enacted by the states, which would then be required to resubmit the voter rolls to the DOJ for confirmation. The memorandum’s terms also allow the federal government to share the voter information with private contractors.

The emails obtained by MTFP show that Jacobsen communicated to the DOJ that she had submitted the voter information requested by the department’s Civil Rights Division last fall, but in December declined to sign the memorandum of understanding allowing the DOJ to dictate changes to Montana’s voter rolls.

After the publication of this story, Clay R. Leland, an attorney in the secretary of state’s office, contacted MTFP to assert, in full: “No ‘confidential voter data’ was turned over. Additionally, no ‘unredacted voter file’ was provided. Your below referenced article is filled with false information, deception, and dangerously inaccurate assumptions that are causing immediate damage. You specifically state in multiple places in the article that the above was turned over. Such was not. A public voter file is entirely different from a confidential, unredacted voter file.”

Also on Wednesday evening, the secretary of state’s official Facebook page posted the following: “We are aware of a recklessly false article published by the Montana Free Press this evening. The ‘article’ is a blatant lie, beginning from the opening sentence, and we’ve demanded its immediate retraction. This kind of irresponsible journalism is unacceptable and Montanans deserve better.”

Subsequent attempts by MTFP reporters and editors to clarify the nature of the article’s alleged inaccuracies have gone unanswered.

The Trump administration has sued 24 states that declined to share their voter information, which includes partial Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and dates of birth. Social Security numbers are classified as personally identifiable information in federal and state law and are guarded as confidential under the federal Privacy Act of 1974.

Many of the states that have been sued provided the DOJ with “public” versions of the list with sensitive information redacted, as Montana appears to have done on July 31, 2025, before the Justice Department expressly made a legal argument on Aug. 14, 2025, for the unredacted file, which emails from Jacobsen’s office later confirmed providing.

Few secretaries of state have signed the memorandum of understanding empowering the federal department to dictate changes to state voter rolls, according the the Brennan Center for Justice, which watchdogs the process as part of the New York University School of Law 

Jacobsen communicated her decision to not sign the agreement offered by DOJ on Dec. 29, 2025, explaining in a letter to Civil Rights Division attorney Eric Neff that Montana would carefully consider any voter-disqualifying information submitted by the feds, but would not guarantee action solely on federal authority. 

“Should you find any individuals who are suspected of being ineligible, please send any and all information used to identify the individual. Please also include the reason and any source of information used in determining potential ineligibility,” Jacobsen wrote. 

Jacobsen’s office did not respond to repeated requests to interview Jacobsen placed with three different parties at the secretary of state’s office over two days, including two staffers directly involved in voter data discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. Specifically, MTFP contacted SOS Communications, which on Dec. 2, 2025, informed U.S. DOJ that “Montana fully satisfied the August 14 request” made by the department. That Aug. 14, 2025, request from the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division specifies that voter data from the state “must contain all fields, including a [registered voter’s] full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number.” 

After receiving no response from anyone affiliated with SOS Communications, MTFP, on the morning of this story’s publication, emailed Austin James, chief legal counsel to the secretary of state. Records provided to MTFP by the office showed James was copied on most communications between the secretary’s office and the DOJ. MTFP specifically asked James to confirm whether the secretary had fully satisfied DOJ’s Aug. 14 request, as her office’s Dec. 9, 2025, email stated. We again asked to interview Jacobsen.

James did not respond.

Jacobsen’s apparent sharing of the state’s voter data came as news to legislators who regularly interact with Montana’s secretary of state on election matters. Several lawmakers told MTFP this week they knew nothing about the sharing of confidential voter information with the federal government, and were unaware of the DOJ’s memorandum of understanding, despite having received a briefing on election matters from the secretary of state 15 days after Jacobsen rejected the federal agreement.

State Administration and Veterans’ Affairs Interim Committee Chair Sen. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton, has consistently expressed concern about non-citizens voting in Montana elections and urged cooperation with Trump administration directives, but said she hadn’t been briefed by Jacobsen’s staff about the provision of Montana’s voter rolls. Manzella has consistently said the secretary of state’s office isn’t doing enough to clear voter rolls of ineligible voters.

When President Donald Trump issued an executive order on March 25, 2025, calling for broad federal intervention in state election practices, and specifically voter registration policies, Manzella advised Montana officials to get in line. But that doesn’t necessarily mean acquiescence, she told MTFP Wednesday.

“That sounds pretty reasonable to me, actually,” Manzella said of Jacobsen’s refusal to sign the federal memorandum. “I don’t want her to be a doormat for the federal government.” 

SAVA committee Vice Chair Rep. Marc Lee, D-Butte, said Tuesday that he was also unaware of Jacobsen’s dealings with U.S. DOJ concerning Montana’s voter rolls.

“That’s something that I don’t recall, and I haven’t missed a meeting,” Lee said. “I don’t recall any information being provided whatsoever concerning that.”

The SAVA committee meets at the Capitol every other month and receives updates from Jacobsen’s staff. Nearly every meeting includes testimony from members of the public concerned that little is being done to remove deceased people and foreigners from Montana voter rolls, though repeated election audits show voter fraud is rare. 

Lee said most Montanans he knows wouldn’t want their personal information shared. 

“Montanans immensely value their privacy,” Lee said. “They would be very upset about being in a national voter list, especially if it’s including driver’s license information and very sensitive information. I would believe that the vast majority of Montanans would be up in arms to know that this was just done, and not only just done, but done without their knowledge.”

On Monday, Trump told listeners of Dan Bongino’s podcast that Congress should take control of elections — a power given to states in the U.S. Constitution. 

“We have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won,” Trump told Bongino. “Like the 2020 election, I won that election by so much. Everybody knows it.”

U.S. courts have repeatedly dismissed lawsuits alleging Trump campaign claims of 2020 election fraud. 

At the same time that Jacobsen was refusing to sign the U.S. Department of Justice’s memorandum, the secretary of state issued a mass mailing to Montana voters touting her election-security work in coordination with Trump. 

“Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen is partnering with the Trump Administration to strengthen election security,” the mailer reads. Republican and Democratic state legislators have since criticized the cost  of the mailer, which state records document as $197,000.

Though voter registration, as defined in the U.S. Constitution, is controlled by states, the Civil Rights Act of 1965 empowers the Department of Justice to intervene based on evidence that voters’ rights are being denied. 

It’s the Civil Rights Act that the Department of Justice cited when directing states to hand over their voter information, as the federal government did in an Aug. 14, 2025, letter to Jacobsen.

But there must be basis and purpose for a request for the federal government to intervene, said Eileen O’Connor, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice.

“It was passed in the 1960s because, in the South, part of the attempts to prevent Black Americans from registering and voting were not only not permitting Black Americans to register to vote, but also destroying records so that there was no way of proving that they were blatantly discriminated against,” O’Connor said.

States involved in lawsuits over the federal request for state voting records argue that the federal government hasn’t provided legal evidence supporting the request. Merely wanting to screen voter data for eligibility isn’t reason enough, O’Connor said. The responsibility of managing voter rolls belongs to states.

The security of voters’ sensitive information is also a major concern, according to the Brennan Center, which monitors interactions between the Department of Justice and the states. O’Connor described the security protocols spelled out in the federal government’s memorandum of understanding as extremely basic two-step authentication of the sort necessary to shop online. The DOJ agreement also states that the federal agency can share the voter information with private contractors. 

In September, the Brennan Center reported that organized groups of 2020 election deniers used Eagle AI artificial intelligence to match public voter data with other data sources, like the National Change of Address database and court records, to generate lists of allegedly ineligible voters. The resulting lists have been error-prone, according to the Brennan Center. 

The primary Department of Justice contact for Montana has experience with organizations that believe voter fraud is common in U.S. elections. Neff, a Civil Rights Division trial attorney who in 2022 was at the center of a $5 million legal settlement with Los Angeles County, California, prosecuted a case based on a bogus tip from True Vote, a conspiracy group alleging that the 2020 election was stolen, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

In December, after the clerk of courts in Fulton County, Georgia, refused to turn over that state’s voting records, Neff was part of the federal legal team that sued, arguing that the sweeping powers of the Civil Rights Act required Fulton County to comply. 

Neff wrote to Jacobsen on Dec. 2, providing the memorandum of understanding and giving the secretary of state seven days to sign it. The document pointedly commits Jacobsen to changing Montana voter rolls as directed by the U.S. Department of Justice. The terms require that the revised voter rolls be resubmitted to the federal government. 

“You agree therefore that within 45 days of receiving that notice from the Justice Department of any issues, insufficiencies, deficiencies, anomalies, or concerns, your state will clean its [voter data] by removing ineligible voters and resubmit the updated [voter data] to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to verify proper list maintenance has occurred,” the MOU states.

Seven days later, when Jacobsen had not responded, Neff applied more pressure. 

“If I have missed any reply or attempts to reach me, please let me know,” Neff said in a Dec. 9, 2025, email. “If I do not hear anything by end of day today, the DOJ will take that as a refusal to comply.”

Jacobsen responded that her office had months earlier delivered everything requested by the U.S. DOJ in its Aug. 14 letter requesting the voter data. It’s that August letter that specifies that voters’ partial Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and dates of birth be included in the handover. 

“Hopefully, you are aware that Montana fully satisfied the August 14th request thereafter,” Jacobsen informed Neff on Dec. 9, confirming that she had provided the DOJ with Montana’s unredacted voter rolls. “We received the new proposal with the additional terms outlined in an MOU. The legal team is reviewing, and we look forward to partnering, once again, with President Trump on his election integrity agenda, under the laws I took an oath to uphold.”

Jacobsen then asks for more time to decide whether to sign. Secretaries of state would be meeting with U.S. Department of Justice on Dec. 16 to discuss the memorandum, the secretary told Neff in an email. She wanted to know the outcome of that meeting before signing anything.

Neff then delivered another prod on Dec. 18, 2025.

“We had our meeting with 2 SOS on Monday, including Michael Watson of Mississippi. Earlier today, Mississippi agreed to provide their unredacted voter list. This brings the number of states who have turned over their data or are in the process of doing so to 9. Where does Montana stand on this?” 

In response, Jacobsen informs Neff on Dec. 29, 2025, that she will not sign the memorandum of understanding. 

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Montana U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy has added his name to an amicus brief supporting the Trump administration’s effort to challenge the United States’ longstanding policy of granting citizenship to nearly any child born in the country as the matter is heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sheehy is one of 12 Republican senators and 16 Republican representatives who have signed onto a brief headlined by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, which argues for a narrower interpretation of which children count as falling under U.S. “jurisdiction” for the purposes of the automatic citizenship guarantee enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

“The Framers would have recoiled at the present debasement of citizenship, understanding that ‘jurisdiction’ requires more than mere physical presence,” the brief reads in part. “It demands total allegiance to the sovereign. To hold otherwise places sovereignty, citizenship, and our nation’s survival in jeopardy.”

The case arises from President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order that sought to end the practice of automatically granting citizenship to babies born to parents who are in the U.S. temporarily or without legal authorization. That order was subsequently challenged by civil liberties groups, which have argued the Trump administration’s position conflicts with the longstanding interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause as applying to all U.S.-born children with narrow exceptions, such as children born to foreign diplomats or invading soldiers.

The 14th Amendment, ratified following the Civil War in 1868 to grant citizenship to former slaves, specifies in part that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Sheehy’s involvement in the brief was criticized this week in a statement by Michael Black Wolf, a Fort Belknap Indian Community member who is seeking the Democratic party’s nomination to challenge Montana’s other U.S. senator, Republican Steve Daines, in this year’s election.

Black Wolf faulted the brief in part for citing an 1884 case where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Native Americans shouldn’t be granted citizenship under the 14th Amendment because they owed allegiance to their tribes.

“He wants to replace our birth right with a litmus test of earning your citizenship through ‘singular allegiance,’” Black Wolf wrote. “Senator Sheehy is reviving the logic that being ‘too Indian’ makes you ‘less American.’ This is a 19th-century prejudice being used as 21st-century law.”

The 1884 ruling was later superseded by an act of Congress, the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.

Daines, a Republican, is not among the lawmakers who signed onto the Cruz brief. A Daines spokesperson, Gabby Wiggins, didn’t provide answers to questions from Montana Free Press Wednesday about why Daines didn’t sign onto the brief and about his specific opinion of birthright citizenship but did provide a statement emphasizing the senator’s general support for the president’s immigration policies.

“Sen. Daines supports the administration’s immigration policies to secure the border and enforce the rule of law and looks forward to this case being before the Supreme Court,” Wiggins wrote. 

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BILLINGS — A bipartisan group including former Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester made its pitch Saturday for a ballot initiative to ban corporate spending in Montana elections. 

The proponents also included Jeff Mangan, a former Democrat-appointed commissioner of political practices; former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot; and former independent candidate for Congress Gary Buchanan. They spoke to a crowd of about 800 in the Lincoln Center downtown. Mangan said all traveled “on their own dime” to speak at the event. 

Organizers of the effort, dubbed The Montana Plan, said there is plenty of appetite for a ban, but getting it on the November ballot would take significant groundwork in a short timeframe. The event was hosted by the group Yellowstone Indivisible.

Efforts to put the ban before voters have faced some initial hurdles. In January, the Montana Supreme Court agreed with Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s findings that the proposed constitutional initiative affected multiple parts of the state Constitution and therefore couldn’t be condensed into a single voting measure. 

Plan architect Mangan quickly filed new language, which is now under review by the Legislative Services Division. The Attorney General’s office and the governor’s budget director must also complete reviews.

The timing of those reviews will determine just how much of a crunch organizers face in getting the measure on the ballot. Mangan said in an interview before the public forum that petitioners would have at most 12 weeks — but possibly as little as two weeks — to gather enough signatures to qualify it for the November general election ballot. The constitutional initiative would need approximately 60,000 signatures, with representation from at least 40 legislative districts, in order to qualify.

Mangan said the idea wasn’t to try out a new system for election spending in Montana but to restore the old one, which banned corporate cash and was in place until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling nullified it in 2010.

“We forgot,” Mangan said. “People think it must have been years and years and years— decades. No. It’s only been since 2010 that this has happened. We can get back to the system in Montana that we were proud of and that we had before.” 

The group repeatedly lamented how political spending has changed the dynamics between candidates and voters. 

“You might ask yourself, ‘Well why does money in politics keep people from having town hall meetings or meetings eyeball to eyeball?” Tester said. “‘They still need to do that.’ Well, they really don’t. And the reason is — is if you’ve got enough money, you can buy your advertisements, you can buy the interviews, you can buy what’s going to be said in a town hall meeting. And then as the candidate or person, you control the message entirely and you don’t have to field difficult questions because you don’t know what’s coming. By the way — which is part of what democracy’s about.”

Tester lost his Senate seat in 2024 to Republican Tim Sheehy in the most expensive race in state history, with more than $300 million spent, Montana Free Press previously reported. He served three terms. 

The Montana Plan would prohibit any incorporated entity operating in Montana from spending money to influence local, state or federal elections. It would apply to any group with a charter, including nonprofits, unions and for-profit companies, filed in the state. 

Originally proposed as a constitutional ballot initiative, plan organizers have since submitted a statutory ballot initiative as a backup. A statutory initiative would change only state laws and not the Constitution. It has a lower threshold to qualify for the ballot.

Supporters present The Montana Plan as a clever workaround to Citizens United, the watershed U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2010 that allowed for unlimited corporate spending in elections. While the court ruled that the government can’t block a corporation from exercising its right to free speech through political spending, the Montana Plan leaps backward to clarify that those rights don’t exist. 

Buchanan, who owns the investment advisory firm Buchanan Capital in Billings, acknowledged that larger corporations will fight the proposal. But he predicted much of the business community would support it, saying they “don’t like being asked for money all the time.” 

“If you’re a business … around campaign time, you get accosted by folks asking for money,” Buchanan said.  

Mangan cited the cryptocurrency, energy, technology and finance industries as examples of big political spenders that needed to be reined in. 

He said he expects opponents to argue the measure would hurt small businesses. 

“And quite honestly, ladies and gentlemen, that’s poppycock,” Mangan said, noting Montanans, spurred by the corrupting influence of the Copper Kings, banned corporate spending in elections in 1912. Citizens United nullified that ban in 2010. 

“You know what didn’t happen for those hundred years?” Mangan said. “Those corporations didn’t leave the state of Montana … They’re still here. So we already have a track record, even though they’ll be telling you something else.”

The Montana Plan has attracted national attention. New York lawmakers have introduced legislation modeled after it. Mangan said he has fielded calls from California, Colorado and other interested states. 

Racicot commended Mangan for his work developing The Montana Plan, calling it a “brilliant idea.”

“Frankly, if we get this done, it’s going to spill over and be an example for every other state in the nation,” Racicot said.

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BOZEMAN — Thousands of Montanans around the state held protests Sunday and Monday in the wake of Alex Pretti’s killing by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis on Jan. 24 and in response to the Trump administration’s immigration policies writ large.

Hundreds gathered in front of the Gallatin County Courthouse on Sunday afternoon. In Missoula, a crowd of more than 1,000 people, enough to span the 325-yard Beartracks Bridge, rallied according to some reports. There were also two events in Billings on Sunday, and another set for Helena Monday night.
As Montanans took to the streets, Montana’s congressional delegation indicated support for an investigation into Pretti’s killing, but sidestepped questions Monday about the Second Amendment right of Pretti, who had a permitted, holstered handgun. All four politicians have campaigned as defenders of gun rights.

Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who worked for Veterans Affairs, was shot and killed by federal officers Saturday morning in an act that has roiled the country. While Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended DHS agents’ actions, describing the DHS officer who shot Pretti as “fearing for his life and the lives of his fellow officers around him,” that account — and the federal government’s denial of state investigators’ access to the crime scene — has come under sharp criticism as a proliferation of videos taken by onlookers indicate that federal officers had already sprayed chemical irritant into Pretti’s eyes, pinned him to the ground and seized the firearm he was authorized to carry before shooting him up to 10 times.

Bozeman residents who participated in the “emergency protest” carried cardboard signs painted with phrases such as “abolish ICE,” “ICE murders” and “Democracy doesn’t fear protest dictators do.” One protester carried an upside-down flag — a sign of a nation in distress — marked with the words “failed state,” while others referenced the killing of Renee Good, another Minnesota resident, by ICE earlier this month, an event that spurred as many as 600 Missoulians to gather on Jan. 11, along with other rallies statewide.

A handful of Bozeman police officers monitored Bozeman’s protest, which was organized by Montana State University students and featured chants of “no justice, no peace, no ICE in our streets.” Bozeman Police Department Deputy Chief Joseph Swanson described Bozeman’s protest as a “very peaceful and orderly event” in an email to MTFP.

Protesters at the Bozeman event criticized Montana’s all-Republican federal delegation for supporting Trump’s immigration policies. 

Montana Free Press requested interviews with all four members of Montana’s Republican delegation about the federal government’s role in Pretti’s death. No interviews were provided. Specifically, MTFP asked whether Pretti’s Second Amendment rights were recognized by federal agents and what type of accountability federal agencies should anticipate in the wake of this month’s fatal shootings by federal officers. 

Though DHS has claimed Pretti approached agents holding a gun, video verified by news outlets shows he was carrying a phone in his hands and that agents yelled that he had a gun only after he was pinned down. Pretti had a valid firearms permit, and open carry is allowed under Minnesota law with that permit. 

The offices of U.S. Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy and U.S. Rep. Troy Downing submitted comments from the lawmakers in response to MTFP inquiries. Rep. Ryan Zinke was on a congressional trip out of the country, according to a spokesperson.

Downing, Daines and Sheehy expressed support for an investigation in their responses to MTFP and described Pretti’s death as a “tragedy.”

“Sadly, this tragedy was avoidable. Assaults against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers across the country are up 1,300% and are being fueled by caustic rhetoric designed to provoke altercations, not avoid them,” Downing said. “I stand with our men and women in uniform who work tirelessly to keep our communities safe and support ongoing efforts to facilitate a complete investigation of the incident in question.”

Like Montana’s other statewide elected officials, Downing has been a vocal advocate for the Second Amendment and concealed carry laws. Last year, Downing co-sponsored the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2025, which would allow someone who has been authorized to carry a concealed weapon in one state the clearance to do so in another state with a concealed carry law.

“It is heartbreaking to see another avoidable tragedy unfold in Minnesota,” Sheehy said in a statement. “We as Americans must bridge our differences without violence. As is standard with any fatal law enforcement encounter, there will be a full investigation. I strongly urge [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz and [Minneapolis] Mayor [Jacob] Frey to cooperate with ICE so we can avoid future tragedies and facilitate safe and orderly enforcement of our immigration laws. Brave law enforcement officers put themselves in harm’s way each day to keep our streets safe, and they deserve our respect and support.”

In a short statement, Daines described the event as a “tragedy that should be fully investigated” before transitioning to his continued support of Trump and his hope that it won’t stall ongoing federal budget negotiations. Some Democrats in D.C. have vowed not to support a federal funding bill that includes $64 billion for the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of this month’s events. If enough Senate Democrats continue to oppose the bill, much of the federal government could be forced into a shutdown by the end of the week. 

“I am glad President Trump is directly engaged in the situation and sent Border Czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis. We must continue to support law enforcement and fund the government in order to avoid a shutdown this week,” Daines said.

Zinke’s staff advised MTFP that he was out of the country and unable to respond Monday to questions about Pretti’s killing. However, in a conversation with MTFP on Jan. 20, Zinke emphasized his support for a House-passed spending bill that includes $20 million of funding for body cameras for immigration officials and $2 million for officer training on de-escalation as part of a larger package that cuts $1.3 billion from Customs and Border Patrol and maintains ICE’s budget at $10 billion. If enough lawmakers continue to protest funding for DHS and ICE, the House bill Zinke voted for could falter amid Senate Democrats’ resistance to funding federal agencies implementing Trump’s immigration agenda.

Montana Democratic Party Chair Shannon O’Brien issued an unsolicited statement Sunday describing Pretti’s killing as an event that has “outraged and horrified” Montana Democrats. “Our hearts go out to Pretti’s family, friends and all those mourning this tragic loss,” O’Brien said. “The repeated violence committed by this administration is unacceptable and needs to stop now. Get ICE and their inexperienced agents off the streets before more lives are needlessly lost.”

The Montana Republican Party made no public statement and didn’t mention the shooting on its digital platforms.

On Thursday, state Sen. Cora Neumann, D-Bozeman, will be joined by six other Democratic state lawmakers in a “day of solidarity” with Minnesota lawmakers tied to a hearing of the Minnesota Select Subcommittee on Federal Impacts. 

In a phone conversation with MTFP on Monday evening, Neumann said she organized the trip to Minnesota, which will also feature participation by other Montana lawmakers appearing virtually, to counter Trump’s “divide and conquer” strategy. 

“State legislators have not come together like this as a group of states to push back since Trump was elected, and I thought now’s the time to show up in person,” she said. “There is consensus at a national level — across Democrats and Republicans — that it’s not OK to have masked, unidentified agents in our cities and towns and rural areas terrorizing our population. Enough is enough. This was, for me, the final straw. It may not be happening here, but if it’s happening in Minnesota and other places as well, there’s no reason it can’t happen here.”

Helena residents are organizing events and calls for action this week. On Monday night, Indivisible Helena is organizing an event “to mourn another tragic death and take action.” The organization, which is part of a larger national effort to “protect our democracy” and “resist the fascist agenda,”is pushing the Helena City Commission to adopt a resolution that would prevent the city from working with ICE to arrest and remove unauthorized immigrants. The group is also pushing the city to adopt policies that would require ICE agents to de-mask and prohibit racial profiling — an issue that came to the forefront in the apparent mistaken identity arrest of Christopher Martinez Marvan by Helena police officers last year.

Additionally, a Helena High School student is planning an “anti-ICE, student-led peaceful walkout” on Jan. 29.

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