Steve Daines Three Part Interview

July 21, 2021

Part 1

The People’s Post:

By far this was the most popular question and we thought it was really an important one.

I think you had a statement back on Jan 2 about restoring Montanans confidence in elections so in light of that the biggest question was “Why did you withdraw from the challenge electoral college after first supporting it?”


Daines:

Well, here are the facts. I had reached out to the White House, the Presidents team, asking for the evidence that would suggest that one state, two states, three states or more should be challenged and actually rejected during the electoral vote tally which happened on Jan. 6th. They said, “Steve we will get it for you.” And I said, “Listen you provide me the evidence because I want to present that on the floor of the United States Senate and I will object. Ted Cruz and I and about 10 other US senators put together a statement and we, by the way, to be clear the intent of the 11 senators who were part of that went with Cruz were to object which I did. I signed the objection because you have at least one senator to object and you have to have at least one house member to object and if that happens in the joint session then you go to the separate bodies senate and house then you have a debate for two hours. So, I did sign the objection but our intent, and you can go back and look what Ted Cruz, he was kind of a spokesperson for our group, was not to overturn the election on Jan 6. Our intent was to create an audit group with bipartisan group of senators members of congress and court justices that would go through and do an audit of every state. We would then present the findings to their state legislatures and allow the state legislatures to reconsider their certification of the electoral votes because our founding fathers were wise in not putting a concentration of power in Washington, D.C. None of us, as conservatives ever want to see congress overturning an election. Our founding fathers were deeply skeptical of concentrations of power and that’s why we had separations of power. That is the role of the states, unless there is absolutely egregious evidence that is compelling and says you know Arizona you've certified the election but look at all this evidence here that says you were in error in doing so. Then would be a place where we would have a debate and possibly send it back to the states.


The People’s Post:

Sen Cruz and Sen Hawley seemed like the only two who said “No we’re sticking in here and keeping the challenge.


Daines:

It’s a two-step process so you have to object and I did that. The objection then created the two-hour debate. But then I think the actual question here is what about the actual vote that occurred? You read the Role Call of states in alphabetical order and the first state that was going to get an objection was Arizona and that’s an A and that was the state remember it was 10,457 votes separated Biden from Trump in Arizona in their certified results. Remember I pleaded with the White House for evidence. They never gave it to me just to be clear, never got it and had I had the evidence then I would have gone and made the argument and said ok Arizona’s evidence says I should overturn Arizona’s results. Our goal and my goal was not to overturn a state unless the evidence was compelling. Also, our goal was to get this audit committee put together and we didn’t have the votes to do it. as i walked down on the floor just to be clear on this, I had made the decision when I left my office that I wasn’t going to overturn any state. I’d object yes to have the debate but unless we had the evidence its chilling to me to think and I disagree with my colleagues who actually cast that vote overturning a state without the actual evidence in hand. Can you imagine in 2024 President Trump runs and he wins and it comes down to Montana lets say 3 electoral votes hypothetically and there’s talk about voter irregularities in Montana. Even though we have certified our election, can you imagine Kamala Harris stepping in and senators and congressman and saying we are going to overturn the state of Montana without having any evidence in hand That’s what we had on Jan 6. I know there’s more audits going on and investigations but I would humbly submit to you that they have yet to produce the evidence that would suggest Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin ,those are the three states that were really the biggest problems, and Pennsylvania to some degree and were still waiting to see it.


The People’s Post:

So, do you support the current Arizona Audit?


Daines:

Yes, absolutely.

Part 2

The People’s Post: What is your opinion on the January 6th shooting of an unarmed air force veteran named Ashley Babbitt who was shot by a capitol police officer still unnamed.


Senator Daines: Well, the DOJ is conducting an investigation on this right now and I have to be very careful on this because these are criminal investigations and they're going to get the information and I think frankly having politicians trying to exploit this is disappointing to me I will just tell you this, you aren't going to have me exploit this. This is an absolute horrible situation where, you know, she lost her life that day…and I want the members of law enforcement and the DOJ to do their investigation. I think this is the best way to approach this versus politicians getting in front of us here and trying to exploit this and stirring everybody up or raise money off it. I won’t go there. Let the investigation conclude.


The People’s Post: It would seem you tweeted about the capitol officer who died, which was tragic, but they never heard you talk about Ashley Babbitt. Why is that?


Senator Daines:

Oh, Ok I don't know if we sent something out. It was horrible what happened that day. I’m sorry if people assumed that it didn’t …it was a horrible moment for all of us to see someone lose their life that day. My apologies if that’s the case but its terrible, horrible. Everything I read about her, her life, her husband. It was just a really sad outcome. Let’s let the department of justice investigation continue here and get to the bottom of what was going on there. I literally went to see the place where she fell when she was mortally wounded just hours after that happened. I wanted to go see what happened, see it myself just off the floor of the house literally just 30 or 40 ft. to the doors of the house chambers.


Staff Member: I apologize to interrupt we are pushing upon time


People’s Post: Can we ask you one more question?

Part 3

People’s Post:

Do you support the current Arizona election audit?


Senator Daines:

They  have every right to continue to audit and get to the bottom of the  truth, absolutely!  Here’s what we need to do. We need to restore the  faith in elections. Were there voter irregularities in the last  election? Yes. Was there enough irregularity that we can have the  compelling evidence to suggest we overturn a state?  We have not yet  seen that.  Absolutely, always. It will always help us get better as it  relates to tightening up procedures or processes, whether it was some  cyber intrusion on an electronic system or, I think more likely. What I  have seen is just you have voters who do not have actual physical  addresses who got ballots to post office addresses and mailed them in.  They get all jumbled up and you should go back and do forensic audits.  Do these voters still live at these addresses? That takes a lot of time,  and that’s one of the problems we exposed. It was that there was not  enough time from Election Day to certification to actually do what  audits needed to ensure that there was not voter fraud.   

I’m  proud of what Montanans have done, by the way - requiring  identification photo ID now to vote.  And, by the way, the reason I hope  we, as conservatives, understand is that you don’t want Washington, DC  running elections. You don’t!  That’s what Pelosi and Schumer are trying  now. They have a bill that will take over and federalize the elections.  We've got to respect the states, and that’s why, unless I have the  evidence in hand, I would not vote against certified state results. And  the White House said they would give me some. And guess what, they never  did.  And I swore an oath to the Constitution, and that was to defend  and protect the rule of law.  And as much as I wanted a different  outcome in the election, let me tell you something, the evidence was  never there.  And I’m happy to have that discussion more, but I think it  is important that folks understand what was going on that day (Jan  6th). 


The People’s Post:   We’ll pass that on to the Gallatin Valley Republican Voters.

The sun is setting over a vineyard with a dirt road in the foreground.

From protests to politics: Montana is producing a lot of intoxicating whines

By Roger Koopman • April 21, 2025
In case you hadn’t noticed, Montana is a heavy whine-producing state. The vintners are many, from the Marxist professors and ranting radicals brought onto our campuses, to the farmers, corporate welfarists and chamber of commerce types, looking to government for special favors, subsidies and protections from competition. Montanans are intoxicating our politics with cases of expensive whine. Witness the “Republican” legislature’s latest budget bill (HB 2) that imposes on us an 18 percent increase in future spending. Another session where, thanks to the unholy alliance between Democrats and liberal Republicans, whining wins and freedom loses. We’ve made sots of our legislators.  When Bernie Sanders and “AOC” arrived in Missoula in their private jet recently, to lecture us on the evils of wealth-producing and environmental-polluting capitalism, these ultra-elitists decried the “oligarchy” of a democratically-elected president, who is actually trying to get a handle on profligate federal spending – including the billions of tax-funded largess going to their radical friends. Like all dedicated authoritarian leftists, Sanders and Cortez preach the gospel of envy and hatred, as true believers that everything good in society flows from government, and everything bad is the result of individual action by people who are entirely too free. As usual, they lied about the wealthy not paying their “fair share” of taxes. (Fact: the top 1 percent pays 46 percent of all federal income taxes.) Their sign-waving admirers believed every word of it. Ambling through the crowd of 2,500 at Bozeman’s 4/19 Hate Trump Protest, the whining signs and banners were so thick that it was hard for me to see their faces. Not a lot of love there – mostly profanity, swastikas and hatred. Spooky, really. Group-think to the extreme, while the frequent chant from the microphone was, “This is what democracy looks like!” A better chant might have been, “This is what Marxism looks like!” Unlimited government taxing and spending – while branding and slandering anyone who might try to bring spending under control. This didn’t look much like democracy to me – and certainly not like the free republic we once called America. Cynicism, skepticism, fear and distrust were all around me, aimed at anyone with a different point of view. That’s the message that rings out these days, and there is a chilling, spirit-killing aspect to it that is increasingly reflected in the politics of both parties, not just the Democrats. The whiners are winning, and the true heroes with their thumbs in the dike are few indeed, and deserving of our praise. Once there were legislators like Senator Casey Emerson -- creator of King Tool Company and the Montana Inventors Hall of Fame. Casey was the epitome of the American Spirit, who never quit believing in America. He always had a dream in his heart, an idea in his head, a bounce to his step and a sparkle in his eye. Most of his dreams in the world’s eyes did not succeed, but that only spurred him on all the more. He never whined, and I never once saw him carry a sign. All he desired – demanded – was freedom. Compare this to the floor comments you frequently hear from the GOP Government Solutions Caucus and their perennial leader, Republican Llew Jones of Conrad, explaining how much the teary-eyed recipients of their generosity need their help. Their latest “help” is a revamped House Bill 2 collection of slush fund accounts, designed to make it much easier to spend much more of our money. Their “generosity,” of course, isn’t based on personal giving, but on forcibly taking the earnings of others and bragging about it later. That’s what government does. We hear this kind of rhetoric all day long in Congress, our state legislature and from the governor’s office. I have some breaking news for these people. We don’t need paternalistic politicians telling us how much we require their help. Freedom is quite enough, thank you very much, along with a healthy measure of respect for our constitutional rights, our personal property and the liberty to be left alone. Let’s put our whine bottles down, and drink heartily from the fruit of freedom instead – nourishment for the soul that never runs dry. Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance. He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner. He operated a Bozeman small business for 37 years.
The word study is written on dice on a wooden table.

Gallatin County Study Commission 1st Public Hearing

By GCRCC • March 31, 2025
Gallatin County Study Commission to Hold First Public Hearing  Details of the Public Hearing: Date : Thursday, April 10 Time : 5:30 p.m. Location : Community Room on 3rd floor of Gallatin County Courthouse; 311 W Main St, Bozeman Virtual Access : Microsoft Teams link on www.gallatinmt.gov or www.gallatinlocalgovstudy.com , scroll down to calendar Public Participation : Open to all residents of Gallatin County For more details on the Study Commission, including meeting schedules, contact information, and virtual access to weekly meetings, visit www.gallatinlocalgovstudy.com . The Gallatin County Local Government Study Commission will hold its first public hearing on Thursday, April 10, at 5:30 p.m. in the Community Room on the third floor of the Gallatin County Courthouse, 311 W Main, Bozeman. The public has tasked the Local Government Study Commission with evaluating the existing form and powers of a local government, and how local government services are delivered, and comparing them with other forms available under Montana law. Members of the public are encouraged to attend in person or virtually. During this hearing, the commission will share an overview the study’s scope, introduce the current form and structure of the county government, and share examples of different county government models in Montana. The commission will also share a timeline for key milestones for the study process. Residents will have an opportunity to share feedback and ideas about Gallatin County’s government structure. All comments and feedback will be captured as part of the study. Residents will have many more opportunities to provide feedback at listening sessions that will be hosted around the county over the next year and a half. “We strongly encourage your participation in this discussion and invite you, a member of the public, to provide insights from your work and interaction with our county government. Your input will be invaluable in helping us form our understanding of how our local government structure supports or challenges your work.” says Vice Chair Study Commissioner Jackie Haines "The Montana Constitution is unique in that every ten years it allows the citizens of a county or municipality to review if the current form of county government could more efficiently, and effectively, deliver services to the county residents. The seven citizens elected to study our local government have begun the review process and invite the public to become involved with the process." says Study Commissioner Don Seifert About the Gallatin County Study Commission: In the June 2024 primary election, voters across Montana had an opportunity to decide on studying their local governments. This question is posed to voters every 10 years, as required in Montana’s constitution. Montana is the only state where voters regularly decide whether to evaluate their local government structure. In 2024, voters in 12 counties and 44 municipalities across the state voted to conduct a local government review. Voters in Gallatin County voted in favor of the independent study, as did residents of Bozeman and West Yellowstone. In the November 2024 general election, voters elected seven volunteer members to serve on the nonpartisan study commission for two years. The elected members of the Gallatin County Study Commission are (alphabetically): Janae Hagen, Jackie Haines, Jeff Krauss, EJ Porth, Don Seifert, Klaas Tuininga, and Steve White.

MT GOP Calls for Senator Ellsworth to Resign

By MTGOP • March 26, 2025
In light of the findings outlined in the recent Senate Ethics Committee report, the Montana Republican Party believes that Senator Jason Ellsworth is no longer fit to serve in the Montana State Senate. The Report has raised serious concerns regarding his conduct, and we firmly believe that for the good of the sate and the well-being of his constituents, Senator Ellsworth should step down from his position. We urge Senator Ellsworth to resign voluntarily in order to restore trust in the Senate and allow for a focus on the work that lies ahead for the people of Montana. Should Senator Ellsworth choose not to resign, the Montana Republican Party will fully support the Senate's decision to expel him, ensuring that the integrity of the Senate remains intact. This stance was reached following a unanimous vote by the Montana Republican Party's Executive Board. The Montana Republican Party remains committed to serving the interests of all Montanans and upholding the highest standards of conduct in our state government. -The Montana Republican Party Executive Board
A judge 's gavel is sitting on top of a black table.

Resolution for Rebuke & Censure of Senator Shelley Vance

By Gallatin County Republican Central Committee • March 15, 2025
GALLATIN COUNTY REPUBLICAN CENTRAL COMMITTEE RESOLUTION FOR REBUKE AND CENSURE OF MONTANA STATE SENATOR SHELLEY VANCE SD34
A group of wolves standing next to each other on rocks.

Wolves, Hyenas & Legislators Run in Packs

By Roger Koopman • March 3, 2025
At an early age, we taught our kids to learn from others and to think for themselves. I still remember telling one child, “Truth doesn’t fly in flocks. You need to seek and find it on your own. And never be afraid to test and re-examine what you believe is true. Belief has no value if you close your mind to the ideas and arguments of others. Living in truth involves not only faith, but also the courage to think for yourself.” Unthinking animals either herd up for security, or run in packs to pull other creatures down. Politicians do both. In the worst example I have seen in 48 years in Montana, the cowardly pack mentality has been on full display in the sixty-nineth session of the Montana State Legislature. Most of us are aware by now of the hostile takeover of the Montana State Senate by a coalition of every Democrat plus a wolf pack of liberal Republicans, who locked claws on vote after vote to deliver a functional majority for the Democratic Party. At one point, twenty separate pro-Democrat floor votes were recorded, all by 27-23 margins – an impressive show of Pack Power over their own Republican leadership. The nine GOP deserters are senators Vance, Gillespie, Kassmier, Lammers, Loge, McKamey, Tempel, Hunter and Ellsworth. First, the Pack held the Senate hostage for many days, eventually forcing leadership to change its own rules so that liberal Republicans could be inserted onto key committees to shift committee control. Then came the Jason Ellsworth affair. Sen. Ellsworth was caught arranging a sweetheart contract for a buddy of his by quietly diverting, at the last moment, over $170,000 from the unspent budget of the Judicial Reform Interim Committee, over the objections of its members. The project made no sense and would be performed from the friend’s home. When discovered, auditors were shocked, and the Senate Ethics Committee began an investigation, as was its constitutional duty. But the nine-member GOP wolf pack again locked arms with the Democrats and stopped the investigation in its tracks – thus assuring that the liberal Ellsworth would remain in the Senate for the entire session, doing the Democrats’ bidding. Other reports of Ellsworth throwing his political weight around started coming out. Clearly, he should have resigned, but the “the Pack” continued to give him protective cover, and he remains there still – larger than life – seemingly incapable of shame or contrition. Meanwhile, the pack of nine went about doing exactly what groups like Montana Conservative Alliance have been warning about for many years -- voting with the Democrat block and against limited government conservatives whenever key legislation comes up. I call them Mutant Elephants: elephant bodies, donkey heads. There they were for example, joining with the Democrats to pass massive Medicaid expansion welfare, and to defeat a bill providing work requirements. (More than 6 out of 10 current recipients are able to work, but don’t.) The state GOP publicly rebuked the nine Republican senators, but they missed the point. This undermining of the conservative Republican cause has been going on for over 50 years, with this just being the most obvious, leadership-smashing example. It’s really nothing new, but the media attention to the orchestrated aspect of this treachery is actually a good thing. Maybe GOP voters will finally take notice. In a larger sense, what we have in our state legislature is a great many legislators who don’t read the bills, don’t read the fiscal notes, and don’t show any natural curiosity for ideas or constitutional principles. They follow their leaders and their lobbyists and rarely do the work of a legislator or think for themselves. The Democrats are the most obvious example – almost never having a party member show independence of thought. It is, after all, easy to be a loyal Democrat. All you need to do is want to grow government in every direction, deny the biology of gender, and make it easier to kill human babies. But Republicans are supposed to be different. Some are – and I acknowledge those men and women as great legislators. Others are not. They run with the pack, and fail to do the deliberative, investigative work of independent-thinking legislators. They’ve put their own pride and positions above their constituents, and deserve to be sent packing. Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance. He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner. He operated a Bozeman small business for 37 years.

Testimony in Support of SB218

By Anonymous • February 10, 2025
Let's assume that the explanations of the following facts are correct: Dr. Money's patient, the first infant who was transitioned into a girl, and this person's twin brother killed themselves in their late 30th. But it was only the result of transphobia and bullying. A star in the I'm Jazz reality show has a hobby of dressing as a Mermaid, a sea creature with no genitalia. But it's only this individual's artistic expression. An unusually high percentage of autistic kids, victims of sexual assault, and teens with low self-esteem identify as trans. Still, it has nothing to do with their desire to fit in or their beliefs that their bodies were the reason they were raped. Three gender clinics in Montana are listed on the map of clinics that provide HRT with "no therapist required." The individual who pinned the map on his X profile is lying. Less than 10% of transwomen do "bottom surgery." But, it's not because these surgeries are more barbaric than castration but because, as one transwoman explained, "a woman without a penis is an angel without wings." So, let's say that biology is cis-supremacist, transing kids is not child abuse, and only a tiny percentage of children will regret their gender transition when they are adults. In this case, financially compensating these people for their struggles would be a simple act of kindness and compassion, and the opposition to the bill must reconsider their position and support the extension of statutes of limitations to cover these cases." I have more materials that prove why pediatric gender-affirming treatments are child abuse that must be banned. I support HB218 because TQ+ affirming doctors know that what they do to children is criminal, that most of their patients sooner or later will realize that they were mistreated, and that market analysis that predicts the global sex reassignment surgery market size to reach $1.41B in 2025 and $2.51B by 2030 is wrong.
More Posts