Republican hopefuls talk issues in Kalispell

Republican candidates for Montana Secretary of State made their case in front of a cordial audience during a forum at Kalispell’s Red Lion Inn Thursday evening.

The four candidates were Deputy Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen; Rep. Forrest Mandeville, R-Columbus; former Montana Speaker of the House and current Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman; and Bowen Greenwood, clerk of the Montana Supreme Court.

Current Secretary of State Corey Stapleton is running for Montana’s lone U.S. House seat.

The candidates agreed on most major issues in the campaign – such as ending same-day voter registration and reducing the size of the Secretary of State’s office – so the candidates focused on their differing qualifications in prepared remarks.

Greenwood touted his experience as clerk of the Supreme Court, making him the lone candidate who has won statewide office. He also pointed to the recent mishandled Iowa presidential caucuses as a reason “why we cannot allow the Democrats to get control of our elections.

“Election officials are a crucial office, and that’s why I decided to run, because we cannot afford to lose the Secretary of State’s office,” Greenwood said.

He called out the lone Democratic candidate, State Sen. Bryce Bennett of Missoula, as “one of the most partisan, experienced Democrat operatives whose specific job is manipulating voter registration to the advantage of Democrats.”

Like the other candidates, Greenwood said he would use the Secretary of State’s position on the Montana Land Board to vouch for using more state lands to extract natural resources and generate money for Montana’s public schools.

Jacobsen said she was endorsed by her boss, Stapleton, and said she knows “the ins and outs of how the office works.” She said when she took office with Stapleton in January 2017, there were “50,000 errors” per year between electronic and paper filings in the state’s Business Services System. But she said after three years of work “we are now error-free.”

Jacobsen added she helped reduce the Secretary of State’s staff by a third and “as a result of all these efficiencies … we’ve saved millions of dollars.

“So in our Business Services Division we’ve downsized government and offered better service,” she said.

Mandeville was the most spirited candidate of the evening. “You’ve heard the president refer to Washington, D.C. as a swamp. You know what? Helena is an absolute cesspool,” he said.

“We need new conservative Republican leadership in Helena. We need people that aren’t afraid to rock the boat, that aren’t afraid to stand up to the establishment,” he said.

Mandeville emphasized he would protect the integrity and security of Montana’s elections, and said Montana needs to eliminate same-day voter registration.

“There is no reason people can’t be asked to plan ahead,” he said. “We can do this. It’s not illegal, it’s not racist.”

He added while chairing the House State Administration Committee in the 2017 and 2019 sessions, he was “on the front line fighting against some of these terrible Democrat ideas that you’ve heard referenced.”

Mandeville said ideas such as automatic voter registration and online voter registration “were designed to weaken the confidence in our election system.”

Sales, the final candidate to speak, was the most willing to take jabs at his opponents.

“I have 20-plus years of business experience in the private sector. Nobody that’s currently on this stage can match my business experience in spades,” he said.

Sales called out Greenwood for never having held a private-sector job and Jacobsen for having “a career entirely composed of bureaucratic efforts inside the state government.” He said he is the only candidate with experience working in agriculture.

He said no one could match his leadership experience and that he was the only person in Montana history to be elected both Speaker of the House and Senate President. Sales served as Speaker from 2006-2008.

“Repeatedly my peers have selected me above everybody else to represent them and to preside over the functions of the state Legislature,” Sales said.

Sales explained he was “one of a handful” of legislators who voted against same-day voter registration when it was introduced in 2005.

“Had my colleagues voted with me that day … we wouldn’t have lost the Conrad Burns race in 2006 and we wouldn’t have lost the Rick Hill race in 2012,” he said, referring to the 2006 U.S. Senate race and the 2012 governor’s race.

Montana’s primary election takes place June 2.

Reporter Colin Gaiser may be reached at 758-4439 or cgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.