Three Republicans vie for open House seat

Three Republican candidates — Sandy Welch, Harm Toren and Jerry O’Neil — are competing in the primary election for House District 3 in the Columbia Falls/Canyon area.

The winner of the June 8 Republican primary (early voting starts Monday, May 10) will face Democrat Zac Perry, Constitution Party candidate Shawn Bailey and Independent Shawn Guymon in the November general election.

Incumbent Rep. Dee Brown, R-Hungry Horse, is not running for re-election.

Montana’s swing from a $200 million surplus to a projected $400 million shortfall by the time the Legislature meets in January means two cuts to Jerry O’Neil — spending and taxes.

“We need to reduce the amount of taxes taken in order to get the economy moving,” the Republican candidate for House District 3 said. “People and businesses have more incentive to work and more chance to work when the government isn’t taking their money away.”

A significant way to cut spending and unfunded retirement accounts, O’Neil said, is to change an underlying practice in state workers’ retirement benefits.

He would limit the government to contributing a negotiated amount into each worker’s retirement account, rather than obligating it to pay a specified amount after the worker retires. Payouts would be determined by the fund manager’s success.

O’Neil said Montana conservatives gave him the highest rating in 2007, his last year in the state Senate, and tied him with Dan McGee, R-Laurel, for the most freedom-loving senator.

He intends to introduce legislation for free-market health care, allowing a clinic, cooperative or hospital with sufficient insurance to prescribe any medication to whomever it wants and employ whomever they choose to provide services.

“I think [legislators] need to be careful in whatever they do” with the medical marijuana law, he said.

“They need to protect the public. But the U.S. Supreme Court is using the Commerce Clause to impose the federal government’s mandate about what pharmaceuticals and drugs we should use,” he continued. “And I’m scared they’re going to use the same Commerce Clause to take away our right to keep and bear arms.”

For O’Neil, it all boils down to freedom.

“The way our government is increasing spending and taking over individual markets, historically I don’t think any other country ever came out” of a similar pattern, O’Neil said.

“But we have two things going for us: We have the best constitution ever, and the Tea Party movement — people are waking up to what’s happening,” he said. “I don’t know how to say how important that is, participatory government. And it’s no good if you don’t participate in it.”

Harm Toren, a veteran candidate for the Legislature, considers himself a conservative whose “time on this earth has given me the experience to go to Helena” and make good decisions.

He pledged to vote no on raising taxes, work for a more efficient government and bring honesty, integrity and common sense to the Legislature.

His priorities would be to cut spending, beef up natural-resource revenue and restructure some aspects of taxation.

“We have to go back in and work on the reappraisals … so people are not forced out of their houses because they can’t pay their taxes,” he said. “Somebody who’s lived there all their lives should not be taxed out of their house.”

He’s also a property-rights advocate, he said, and opposes government moves to take private land and sell it to a higher-tax-revenue use.

He liked Gov. Schweitzer’s deal on the Otter Creek Mine, bringing in an $85.8 million up-front payment for a 10-year lease on 570 million tons of state-owned coal in Southeast Montana. He also agreed with the ban on North Fork Flathead mining because of the potential for ecological damage.

“I want to try to see if we can’t get some more use out of our resources, because they’re a way to bring good-paying jobs for our economy,” Toren said.

But he said the state needs to put a lid on government job growth.

“We need to live within our means. We’ve only got so many  dollars,” he said. “You can’t just keep hiring people and hiring people because you’re going to run out of money. We’re already doing that.”

Toren backs efforts to bring stronger regulations to Montana’s medical marijuana law. “I think the Legislature is going to have to look at it,” he said, “see how they’re going to have to legislate it so it doesn’t get out of hand.”

Sandy Welch has an expertise in finance, she said, that will help her “ask some good, hard questions [in legislative committee] and not get run-around answers.”

With a history in actuarial science, math, legal and insurance/contract law and business, she has paid attention to what has been happening with Montana’s budget.

“I’m concerned we need to lower state spending and taxes,” she said. “The last six years the Montana Policy Institute found that state spending grew faster than population growth and inflation, much faster. That shows me there are places to make much deeper cuts than are being looked at.”

Welch said scrutinizing state programs and services is essential.

“I want to see our state government do what they have to do well. I don’t want to see them do anything they don’t have to do. That’s how we get a small, effective budget,” she said.

“Government is basically a service industry, so a significant portion of that cost is personnel. When the cost goes up, look at what new services are being done.”

On the revenue side, she pointed to a need to adjust property taxes.

“We had reappraisal during the real estate boom, which is no longer happening,” she said. The Legislature needs “to make things reasonable again.”

Being reasonable, while keeping children safe, is her focus with medical marijuana, too. She would like to see protections for families and children by keeping drug-free zones around schools, and specifying the zone that includes marijuana grow operations and dispensaries.

At the Columbia Falls City Council, she heard pleas for reasonable regulations from both medical marijuana providers and law enforcement officials.

“The Legislature needs to set some guidelines,” she said. “Build the framework so it is reasonable, then respond.”

Her grant-writing experience highlights her potential legislative strengths, she said. She regularly works with widely diverse groups, mixing their viewpoints into a design that meets the grant’s goals and the group’s needs.

“The design part is my favorite,” Welch said. “That gives me a different perspective [so] when I’m reading the legislation and writing it I can give it a real-world application that works.”

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com