[Note: This story has been amended to correct the party affiliation of Jeffrey Benson. He is a Democrat.]
As deadlines for candidate declarations approach for a variety of state and local offices, two Jefferson County residents have announced their intent to seek office in Montana’s state legislature.
Nancy Jane Lien, a Montana native living in Whitehall with a breadth of experience in governance and energy, filed her candidacy on Feb. 28 for state representative for House District (HD) 75. Jeffrey Benson, a rancher raising Welsh Cob horses in Boulder after more than 30 years in corporate management, filed to run for state senator in Senate District (SD) 38.
Both face challenges. Lien, running as a Democrat, will take on two-term Republican incumbent Marta Bertoglio in the general election this fall, provided no additional candidates announce by the Mar. 11 filing deadline. Bertoglio did not face a Democratic opponent in the 2022 election.
Benson will take on the winner of the June 4 Republican primary between State Senator Becky Beard of Elliston, formerly of SD 40, and Clancy resident Jeremy Mygland, who campaigned for Jon Tester’s U.S. Senate seat before dropping out of the race last fall and announcing his bid for State Senate.
Benson, Beard and Mygland are competing to represent a freshly redistricted, and greatly expanded, legislative territory, as SD 38 was redrawn for the upcoming cycle to include Jefferson, Powell, and Granite counties.
Though opposed to each other in party affiliation, and each facing significant hurdles between themselves and the legislature, both candidates are focused, they say, on addressing the state’s core issues.
“I believe people relate differently to what it means to be conservative,” said Lien, who currently works as a contracts administrator with TC Energy, an oil & gas firm. “I believe in the rights of private business, and the protections afforded in our state constitution to private citizens. Our personal choices are the business of exactly no one, and, yes, I’m proud to be a Democrat, but ultimately I believe there is more in Jefferson County that unites us than divides us.”
As an honors student at Montana State University in 1972, Lien worked as an intern during the 1972 Montana State Constitutional Convention and personally contributed to the document’s drafting and final language. She has a litany of issues she hopes to address should she succeed in the general election this fall: reevaluating the valuation schema for property tax obligations, establishing more rigorous environmental protections for Montana’s public natural spaces, and supporting the state’s agriculture sectors.
Benson likewise comes into the race with an agenda. For one thing, “we lost 10% of our senior care facilities last year,” he said. “With how suddenly property taxes have risen, seniors on fixed incomes are being forced out of properties they’ve spent their entire lives in. These people are not only losing their homes, but they then have fewer and fewer affordable places to move to. Our officials are sitting idly on the sidelines, and I’m running because it became obvious to me that something is grossly wrong.”
Both candidates are concerned with women’s issues and gender specific healthcare protections that each feel are guaranteed by state law. Lien and Benson both cited the case Armstrong v. State (1999), which established certain privacy guarantees for women seeking abortions, as the basis for their support of abortion rights. While Benson criticized House Bills 140, 171, and 136 — all of which make abortion more difficult to obtain, and which have been challenged in state courts — as furtive and overruled attempts to limit abortion rights, Lien’s concerns about privacy are broader than just healthcare and women’s issues.
“Personal privacy protections extend beyond medicine,” said Lien. “Technology has created such an atmosphere that personal information is vulnerable in places it’s never been vulnerable before. We can strengthen protections for everyday consumers and tech users, more broadly.”
As the candidates prepare their campaigns for the arduous election season ahead, both, Democrat and Republican alike, say they are committed to their neighbors, and to the communities in which they live and hope to serve. “The election of reasonable people can help dilute some of the noise we now deal with in politics, both in Montana and nationally,” said Lien. “I wouldn’t go to Helena to fight anyone, but to fight for the people of Jefferson County.”
In addition to statewide and federal races, Mar. 11 is the deadline for candidates to file for elections for Jefferson County Commissioner and District Court Clerk. Neither of those races will feature an incumbent, as Commissioner Bob Mullen and Court Clerk Dorianne Woods have announced their intention to retire.
Candidates for local school boards have until Mar. 28 to file. The deadline for special districts was Feb. 12.
