From Polio Vaccine Denial to Dodging Nearly $2,000 in Vendor Bills: Meet MTGOP’s Best & Brightest Legislative Candidates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 6, 2022

CONTACT
hadley@montanademocrats.org

Helena, MT – With absentee ballots dropping next week, we thought it high time to remind voters the types of Republican Legislative Candidates they’ll be seeing on their ballots this year.

Alden Tonkay (HD 82) - According to a Commissioner of Political Practices (COPP) complaint filed by a local Helena Business, Tonkay wrote a bad $1,565 check to pay for printed materials in May. The check bounced for
"Not Sufficient Funds". When the business pursued payment, Tonkay repeatedly responded that “the check was in the mail.” Tonkay dodged the bills for four months before the business filed a complaint. When the COPP requested a comment from Tonkay on the complaint, he emailed back saying “my response was mailed yesterday.” (Sound familiar?). A week later, the COPP sent a follow up request for a response. Tonkay emailed back, and again says his response is in the mail.

Tonkay’s behavior reflects a startling immaturity, a failure of responsibility and a propensity to lie.

Brad Tschida (SD 49) - Brad Tschida’s reputation may precede him. One of the GOP’s most far-right caucus members, Tschida gained national attention earlier this year for his deeply creepy comments about how a woman’s womb has “no specific purpose” to her life or wellbeing, and shouldn’t be considered hers to control. Tschida is also one of the state’s loudest and most persistent election conspiracy theorists, having spent taxpayer dollars to reimburse his fanboy trip to hear Mike Lindell– of MyPillow fame– at his election security conspiracy conference. Tschida also begged the state’s Attorney General to sign a lawsuit challenging the 2020 US election results.

Tschida’s radical, out-of-step conspiracy theories and misogynistic beliefs are disqualifying and a disgrace to Montana.

Jeremy Trebas (SD 13) - Trebas doesn’t mind taking polarizing positions – including, it turns out, taking the unusual position of being anti-polio vaccine. A lack of understanding how vaccines work hasn’t stopped him from weighing in on health care policy in the session! Trebas has also made the controversial decision to defend a hunter in the Flathead who killed a domesticated husky dog.

Kaitlyn Ruch (HD 84) - An incendiary 18-year-old, who’s running her first race, is the author of the radical anti-choice language in the 2022 GOP Party Platform. If the future of the MT GOP looks like Ruch, the party is sending a clear messaging that they're moving away from common sense values to appease the radical fringes of their party.

Jane Gillette (HD 64) - With no sense of irony or shame, Gillette showed up to a Medicaid committee meeting to vote to kick Montana families off of their health care, carrying a $4,000 purse. Incidentally, she receives government health care herself. She also, according to state emails, explicitly requested that exceptions for rape and incest be removed from her bill banning insurance coverage for reproductive care.

“The Montana GOP legislative candidate bench is radical, out-of-step, and running on deeply unpopular legislation,” says Scott McNeil, director of the Montana Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “This band of radicals is coming after the Montana Constitution this November. It is no exaggeration to say that your constitutional rights are on the ballot.”

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