Big Sky Chat House

14/06/2024

"But that's how the Solutions Caucus wins. They twist and deceive. If voters could actually just hear the truth and vote for what they believe in, we win, hands down, every time." Barry Usher for Montana, Montana Freedom Caucus Treasurer.

The Laurel Republican also sounds off on Montana's abortion access constitutional initiative.

30/05/2024

"Franken-theocracy to me, it means that [some of the Montana Republican Party] have taken some American values—not all of them—and some Christian values, and they've thrown them in a blender into something that doesn't look like either of those things." - Montana GOP House candidate Kathy Hoiland for Eastern Montana

The Glendive Republican unpacks her criticisms of her own party as her primary election nears.

08/03/2024

"The problem with Tim Sheehy is, nobody knows who he is except from TV commercials. Nobody knows what he's gonna do. He doesn't have a voting record. And I don't even think he has a whole lot of depth to the issues he's talking about, nor does he have a long knowledge of Montana issues like water rights and public lands." - Montana GOP State Senator Jeremy Trebas

The Great Falls Republican also discusses the affair rumors surrounding US Rep. Rosendale, and his pipe dream to eliminate the property tax system.

12/10/2023

I LOVED chatting all things Great Falls with the incomparable Reggie Watts!

The comedian, musician and Great Falls native talks about his brand-new memoir.

28/09/2023

"For the genetic privacy bill, your data now has whole new guidelines—your DNA, basically—has new guidelines in Montana. So the companies have to follow it. If you find that a company did not follow the laws—say you request something be deleted like the destruction of your biological sample, or you request a deletion of your consumer genetic data or things along those lines—and it doesn't happen, then the Attorney General can initiate a civil enforcement action against the entity." - Sen. Daniel Zolnikov Montana Republican Party

Plus: The Pulp takes off, and I write an album review!

22/09/2023

"Missoulians, probably like [people in] a lot of other places, get upset about change. Some of that involves people who come here with no frame of reference for this place and no context. And so providing that context is definitely one of the things that we talk about doing. We’re not saying things have to stay the same or that we know best how it should be." - Erika Fredrickson in Montana Free Press

Co-founders Erika Fredrickson and Matt Frank explain their business model and talk target audience.

18/08/2023

"The desire to define an in-group and an out-group in Montana politics has always existed...I think this rhetoric is increasingly being embraced by white liberals in Montana, particularly the Montana Democratic Party, as a way of making themselves competitive in elections again." - Paul Kim

Plus: Announcing "The Sit-Down" column in Montana Free Press!!

03/08/2023

"It seems that when [Jon Tester] is running for re-election the farm pictures start coming out and he starts talking about how he is just a good old boy dirt farmer from Big Sandy, but the way he’s voted is the opposite of what most farmers and ranchers I know would want to see out there...I do not believe that he's accurately representing what his values are, basically."

- Montana State Sen. Forrest Mandeville

Plus: Powerstrip Fest comes to the American Legion!

29/07/2023

"The bill that meant the most to me was the adoption tax credit. I’m strongly pro-family, and have mentored probably a hundred kids over the years. You see families come in who are willing to expand and open their homes and to grow through adoption; it is an incredibly arduous process, whether you're going through private or through foster care.

For all of us to step up and say these children's lives matter, and [to tell] the families who are supporting them that we're behind you, that bill meant the most to me."

- Representative Courtenay Sprunger

Plus: Free outdoor cinema in Missoula, and Julia Louis-Dreyfest returns to Billings.

21/07/2023

Plus: Wilco's Jeff Tw**dy heads to Sandpoint, and the Indigenous Made Summer Market comes to Missoula.

17/07/2023

Huge thanks to Lila Byock for the wonderful chat about picketing for the WGA strike, her work as a TV writer (Watchmen Castle Rock, The Leftovers, etc) and how growing up in Missoula shaped her career!

(S/o Montgomery Distillery for the lovely venue for an interview...and the Porch Swing!)

Plus: A dream team of Missoula singer-songwriters play a backyard show

07/07/2023

"There's people who go to the legislature with the intent of fixing stuff and doing good. There's people who I think just go to the legislature to torture other people." - MT GOP Senator Jason Small

The Busby Republican, now termed-out, hopes to soon run the state AFL-CIO. PLUS: Missoula's Cosmic Sans channel the Rolling Stones on "Late Summer."

06/07/2023

"California's 2020 wildfire season erased 16 years of emissions cuts...If we are investing [in the climate], we need to make sure that one catastrophic event or one catastrophic wildfire season can't wipe that out." -- Hannah Downey of Property & Environment Research Center (PERC)

Plus: Don't miss Margarita Fest!!

29/06/2023

"We believe that the property taxes that all of us as homeowners pay should be based on the price of the property when we purchase it, not ten or twenty years later when it's tripled or quadrupled in value, because of all the out-of-state money that's been pouring in. That's unfair to homeowners, and especially to elderly homeowners who aren't able to keep up with those kind of gigantic increases in their property taxes other than to sell their homes. That's their only option."

- Matthew Monforton, on his proposed property tax cap initiative

The lawyer and former Republican lawmaker has lots to say about the state of the GOP, Rep. Matt Rosendale, his plan to cap property taxes and more.

22/06/2023

⭐️ Huge thanks to Sam and Dave of for talking all things MICROFEST with me for !!

The (free!) festival takes place this Saturday at Mobash skatepark, with an after party at .

💥 Link in bio!







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Plus s/o to

16/06/2023

I spoke to Representative Ed Stafman about his cancelled invocation at the Montana State Capitol, and larger questions of religious exclusion within the legislature.

Plus: Mary Kate Teske's sweet bluegrass ode to getting stoned by the river.

07/06/2023

"There's people who go to the legislature with the intent of fixing stuff and doing good. There's people who I think just go to the legislature to torture other people." — Montana GOP state Senator Jason Small

⭐️ Read the whole interview at the link in bio!

12/05/2023

Big thanks to Pepper Petersen of Montana Cannabis Guild -- MT Cannabis Guild -- for the wide-reaching chat about all things Montana w**d policy in this week's newsletter!

We dig into the moratorium extension, the bizarre new policies in HB 903 and his assertion that re**er madness is alive and well within the state GOP.

https://www.bigskychathouse.com/p/did-the-mt-w**d-industry-win-in-23

Plus: Bluest brings the synth-driven joy on "Practical Magic"