This week brought a full slate of civic life, ballot news, and community events worth your attention. Here's where things stand.

Thursday evening, the Council on Aging hosted a public meeting on data centers — their potential in Montana, and what that might mean for communities like ours. With 180 seats capacity and word that the room could fill fast, the message was simple: show up early. I was glad this conversation is happening. Montanans deserve a full, honest look at what data center development offers and what it costs. I hope we got that 360-degree view.

On the community calendar: Saturday, March 21, the Lewistown Bowhunters Banquet takes place at the Trade Center starting at 5:00 p.m. I'll be there — first time attending — and I'm looking forward to it. I'm a bowhunter myself, so this is very much my kind of room.

Mark Sunday, March 29 on your calendar as well. The Lincoln–Reagan Dinner at the Yogo Inn runs from 5:00pm to completion. Tickets are $40 at the door, and you can sponsor a table of eight for $320. Call me at 406-217-6107 if you'd like to arrange a table. This year's dinner matters more than usual. Local races are contested — sheriff, county attorney, and a county commissioner seat — and at the national level, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme will attend as the Republican Party's pick for U.S. Senate following Senator Daines' late departure from the race. I don't love that the party made that call rather than voters, but that's the situation we're in. Come learn who he is. Come talk to him. Talk to the local candidates too. That's what this dinner is for.

On ballot initiatives: two are circulating right now, and both deserve your careful attention.

I-194, backed by a group called the Transparency in Elections Initiative, aims to get big dark money out of Montana politics. Think of it as the anti–Citizens United measure for our state. It would require that corporate political money be traceable — not banned outright, but no longer hidden. The original version was deemed legally insufficient by Attorney General Austin Knudsen, and the Supreme Court agreed. The language is being rewritten. In the meantime, signatures are being gathered on the revised initiative. Pay attention to who's asking for your signature, and know your rights: under a law Governor Gianforte signed last session, the person collecting your signature must identify themselves by name, disclose who they work for, and tell you whether they're being paid. You also have the right to see the actual petition language. We learned hard lessons from CI-28, the abortion initiative that passed despite some questionable signature-gathering practices. That's why we passed these protections.

CI-132 would enshrine in the Montana Constitution that judges must be nonpartisan. On the surface that sounds reasonable — judges should be impartial. And once elected, yes, they absolutely should be. But let's be honest: everybody has a bias. Everybody leans somewhere. Right now, judicial races are technically nonpartisan, but the money flowing into them tells a different story. The last Supreme Court race saw the bulk of campaign dollars come from out of state. Corey Swanson won as Chief Supreme Court Justice despite huge money campaigning against him, but it was outside money that drove that conversation, not Montanans. I supported giving judges the option to affiliate with a party if they choose — that's freedom of association, which both our U.S. and Montana Constitutions protect. CI-132 would take that option off the table permanently. I think the initiative should match the reality of how these races actually work, not paper over it.

Finally, Governor Gianforte is pushing the Montana Supreme Court to expedite its review of the lawsuit against Senate Bill 542 — part of last session's “property tax reform" package. I did not vote for that bill, and I'll tell you why: it violated Montana's single-issue requirement. For a bill to become law it is limited to a single topic as spelled out in our 1972 Montana Constitution. SB 542 had three, including a $92 million appropriation buried inside a tax bill. That's not how we're supposed to do things. The governor wants the court to move quickly on this. We'll see how the Supreme Court responds.

My job is to keep you informed. You can find more at ShaneKlakken.com, on Facebook and X at "Shane Klakken for Montana," on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. If you want to be on the newsletter list, sign up on my website. And if I haven't called you yet about the Lincoln–Reagan Dinner — I'm working through the list. Call me: 406-217-6107.