Since it was redistricted in 2013, Montana’s House District 75 — which encompasses most of Jefferson County — has been reliably red.
Republican Marta Bertoglio won comfortably in each of the last three elections, taking more than two-thirds of votes cast in 2020 and 2024 and running unopposed in 2022. The closest a GOP candidate has come to losing was in 2018, when Greg DeVries garnered just 57.4% of the vote to Democrat Bryher Herak’s 42.6%.
So it’s reasonable to expect Mark Reinschmidt, the Republican appointed last year to fill Bertoglio’s seat after she was named the state’s Commerce director, to coast to victory this year.
But it may not be so straightforward: Reinschmidt faces not one challenger, but two. Patrick Sullivan, an academic, consultant, and former U.S. Navy officer, has filed as a Democratic candidate. And DeVries has returned to the political fray, this time as a Libertarian.
As the de facto incumbent, Reinschmidt enjoys multiple advantages. He has the backing of the county’s GOP Central Committee and has built relationships with the County Commission and other local officials. In the nine months since his appointment, he has met Governor Greg Gianforte, state agency directors and House leaders.
And he has served on the interim State Administration and Veterans Affairs Committee, giving him a window into the legislative process and connections to other legislators. “I have come to realize how important the relationships with party members are to effectively represent my district,” he wrote in one of a series of emailed responses to The Monitor’s questions.
Reinschmidt grew up in Whitehall and, after two years of college and five years of working out of state, returned to the area and has lived there since. Though trained as a chip designer, he has made his living as an entrepreneur, for 22 years as owner of Big Sky Decorative Concrete and currently with Maverick Custom Design, which produces custom lighting, furniture and metal art. “Like many others, I’ve been blessed to be able to start and grow a business here,” he says.
Reinschmidt says he’s focused on the cost of living, especially housing, and on rising property taxes. He plans to advocate for lower spending by counties and cities, but understands that “they have constraints such as union wage requirements, road deterioration, and the need for public safety.” He supports Gianforte’s plan to lower state income taxes to a flat rate of 4.7%.
Like Bertoglio before him, he is concerned with the need to build Jefferson County’s economy, expanding and diversifying its tax base. He hopes the long-troubled Montana Tunnels Mine in Jefferson City will reopen, and wants to access area forests to supply the local wood product industry. And he wants to promote bills that reduce administrative red tape and increase the exemption threshold on business equipment taxes.
Sullivan is absorbed by many of the same issues, yet comes at them from a different perspective. His political views have been shaped, he says, by his experience examining organizational dysfunction. “I’ve always asked,” he says, “why in heck are they doing that?” (He expects to complete the manuscript of his book, “Dysfunctional Organizations,” to be published by a division of Random House, by next month.)
He observed administrative practices as a staff officer in the Navy, then pursued a master’s degree and doctorate in public administration. He directed the Masters in Public Administration program at Southern Arkansas University, and until 2015 ran the Montana State Professional Development Center, an in-house training institute for state employees.
But Sullivan’s politics also are inspired by his deep Catholic faith. He once studied to be a priest, spending six years at the Franciscan School of Theology in San Diego. Ultimately, he realized, that “wasn’t the path for me,” but the Franciscan discipline, anchored in humility and service to the marginalized, “informed my work in ways I didn’t expect.”
“The Franciscan philosophy teaches that our first responsibility is to each other,” he says. Government is obliged to “serve those who are disadvantaged and are placed in untenable positions.”
In terms of policy, that means ensuring security and stability for low-income families. Sullivan says the state’s property tax system should be modified to disincentivize the proliferation of corporate-owned vacation rental properties. “We can say, no, we need those homes for people to live in. I’m not going to say they shouldn’t earn money, but not at the expense of the community and depriving people of their basic needs.”
Sullivan is focused on public education: He wants to ensure adequate funding of public schools and stop what he calls the dilution of that funding pool by charter schools. He favors more instruction on civics and history, with less emphasis on standardized tests.
But his greatest concern, he says, is the quality of democracy and civic life. “Democracy is under threat, and I would do everything I can to defend it.” He opposes efforts to suppress voting, and says the nation and state should be broadening the vote rather than shrinking it. He wants to find ways to encourage greater participation in civic activities that can help restore community vitality.
Sullivan is well aware that the odds are against a Democrat taking Jefferson County. But he’s committed to running a strong grass roots campaign and building “as big tent a coalition as I can.”
The key to his chances, ironically, could well be DeVries, whose candidacy is anchored mostly on the opposite end of the political spectrum. In the 2019 legislative session, DeVries was a divisive figure, introducing bills to end compulsory school attendance and amend the state constitution to define personhood as beginning at conception. (Neither passed.)
Like Sullivan, DeVries is guided forcefully by Christian ideals. “I don’t follow and agree with the idea that church and state, the way people think of it today, need to be separate,” he told The Monitor last month. His view is that Christianity offers the best path. “A society will have either Christ or chaos,” he said.
But DeVries’s policy focus diverges sharply from there. He is committed to a tax-cutting plan in which citizens would decide how their voluntary donations would finance government activities. And he believes that citizens without kids in public schools should be able to opt out of property taxes allocated to state education.
How much support might these views attract? The 2020 primary results provide a hint: In that vote, DeVries faced Bertoglio, then running for the first time. Bertoglio, a more traditional mainstream Republican, won decisively, but DeVries still secured 38.6% of the GOP vote.
If he retains a significant portion of that support, DeVries could peel away votes that otherwise might go to Reinschmidt, potentially creating an opening for Sullivan. An outright victory for the Democrat seems unlikely — but since the three candidates are running for separate parties, there will be no primary to test their appeal or winnow the field.
It could be a messy fight.
Patrick Sullivan’s campaign website is https://patsullivanforhd75.org. Greg DeVries’ Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588382856715.
