SD 3: Candidates zero in on state revenue, taxes

Senate District 3 incumbent Republican Keith Regier will be challenged by Democrat Guthrie Quist in the Nov. 3 general election.

Senate District 3 includes the Whitefish and Kalispell areas and the areas west of those cities.

Quist says he was raised with a passion and value of public service.

Having grown up in the Flathead Valley, Quist values the Montana lifestyle; but after living in a few different places over the years he is also able to learn from the way other states handle some issues.

“I feel like we have to have people in government that are doing it for the right reasons and working to help their constituents,” he said.

When beginning his campaign, Quist went on a listening tour and sought out the opinions of as many people as possible. He believes a strength of his, and also what makes him a good candidate for the job, is truly being able to listen to everybody while working to find compromise between differing opinions.

Through the listening process he learned many Montanans have a concern over affordable housing, and that many people who grew up here can no longer afford to live here. He’s made it a point in his campaign to work on addressing this issue.

Another issue he has a personal connection with is Montana’s DUI laws. After Quist’s good friend suffered the loss of his mother and sister from a head on collision with a drunk driver a couple of years ago, he started looking into the local DUI laws and was “shocked.”

“We actually have people still driving that have 10 or 12 DUIs,” Quist explained. “We have the highest drunk driving per capita fatality rate in the country. So that’s one thing I think we can work on to keep our residents more safe.”

He will look to revise these laws and work to create a harsher punishment on the first offense.

Quist said he also believes one of the top concerns facing the state is the meth crisis and opioid abuse. When the budgets were crunched a few years ago, many treatment programs for substance abusers were cut and Quist would like to see those be revamped.

He thinks a way to revise taxes and drive new revenue into the state could be a statewide resort tax, such as the model Whitefish utilizes. Quist says thousands of tourists flood Montana every summer and it would only make sense for them to have to bear some of the burden of keeping facilities and roads up to par.

Quist explained he has had personal experience with Medicaid in the past and therefore he supports the expansion whole-heartedly.

“Really in our modern culture, nobody should have to go without health care,” Quist said. “So I think that’s a way you could almost get eventually to everyone having health care.”

As far as the COVID-19 pandemic and the CARES Act money, Quist explained he was impressed with the way Gov. Bullock has handled the entire situation and how he acted fast. He thinks the federal funds have been spent appropriately and that Montana is much better off because of how quickly the governor responded.

Another priority Quist believes the state should look at is addressing infrastructure. One area that has been brought up to him, which he supports, is making the move to put power lines underground.

“I’ve been noticing in the last few years that we’ve really had a lot of strong wind storms, everytime we get one of those it knocks out power to a lot of people…” Quist said. “Some of the areas where there’s less people it’s less of a priority, and sometimes they can go for days without power.”

According to Quist, addressing Montanas infrastructure should be a budget priority and would benefit Montanans for years to come.

REGIER BRINGS 12 years of legislative experience to the table and says he is still “willing and able” to represent Montanans.

Regier is the Republican incumbent running to retain his Senate District 3 seat. His start in Montana politics came in 2008 when he was elected to serve House District 5, which represents the Kalispell area. He served in that capacity from 2009-2017, having time as the Majority Whip in the 2011-12 session and from 2015 to the end of his time in the House, he served as Majority Leader.

The retired school teacher turned small business owner has had a hand in several bills during his time in the Senate. According to Regier, his involvement in several passed pieces of legislation prove that he is capable of representing the people of Montana’s best interests.

Among the bills he is most proud of being involved in over the years are the Unborn Victims of Violence act, which stated someone could be charged with murder if they harmed a pregnant woman that caused the death of an unborn child, and also the revised DUI laws in the 2015 session.

Another act Regier prides himself on helping to get passed is the Senate Bill 94, which dealt with excessive land values and property taxes. Regier said this bill gave property tax relief to those who had property that had been in the family for at least 30 years — the land value went up because of what was going on around them, not because they built anything extravagant.

Regier said if re-elected his No. 1 priority would be revising taxes. He stated he would not be in favor of a state sales tax, but does want to look at making taxes fairer. He added Montana has relied heavily on coal taxes to pay for many infrastructure projects, and that might need to shift in the future.

“We do need to look at other sources that are being used instead of coal and make the taxes equitable that way,” Regier said.

But his priority when it comes to taxes is still the rising property taxes and a way to combat that locally is taking a closer look at bed taxes.

“Probably my top priority in the session will be a bill that will take the bed tax dollars that go into the state general fund, and have that come back to the cities and counties where it was generated — that would help Kalispell and Whitefish quite a bit,” Regier said.

He also said he does not support Medicaid expansion, explaining that Montanans rejected the idea when it was a citizens initiative.

“It’s taking away services to the truly needy in Medicaid, by expanding it, it waters down the services that medicaid was set up for, so it’s not a good thing and I think the people of Montana saw that it wouldn’t be.”

Regier believes the COVID-19 pandemic is the main concern Montana currently faces. More specifically, Regier is concerned with the decline in revenue the virus has caused and the hardships it's put on businesses.

As far as the CARES money the state received from the federal government, Regier believes the governor's office sat on it too long and did not distribute it in a fashion to help the people of Montana when they truly needed it.

“A lot of it has been designated, but it hasn’t been distributed — there’s a big difference there,” he said. “So no, it hasn’t been dispersed right because it’s taken too long.”

According to Regier the state’s budget priorities should also be focused around saving money in all the state departments during a time when state revenue is down.

“I think we could have an austerity program throughout all of the state departments and that money then used to cut the tax burden to people,” Regier said.

Name: Guthrie Quist

Age: 38

Family: Wife, Summer Quist; son, Caspian Quist

Occupation: Real estate agent and co-founder of Quist Montana Properties

Education: Pepperdine University, University of Montana

Background: Consulted on congressional campaigns across the country and founded Blue Wave Rising consulting firm; played an integral role in father Rob Quist’s congressional campaign during the Montana Special Election of 2017; volunteered for the Obama 2008 campaign; fundraised for the Montana Food Bank Network.

Contact: quistformontana@gmail.com, quistformt.com

Name: Keith Reiger

Age: 70

Family: Jolene Reiger, wife; three children.

Occupation: Retired teacher, small business owner

Background: Bachelor of Science in Education, University of Nebraska; Montana House 2009-2012, currently Montana Senate 2017-present

Contact: keithregier@gmail.com