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Jeannette Rankin’s successor
……One hundred years ago, Montana gained a second Congressional district. In 1918 MT CD 01 elected Jeannette Rankin, the first female Member of the United States Congress, to a second term. Montana lost its second Congressional district some time ago. Kathleen Williams https://kathleenformontana.com/, if elected to MT CD AL, would be Montana’s second female Member of Congress.
……In this round of elections, the Democrats have many extraordinary candidates. Williams is one of them. She is a distinctive character who could only come out of the American West.
……When Jeannette Rankin was elected to Congress in Montana, she had a single passion — women’s suffrage. Kathleen Williams is working to avoid being seen as having a single passion — water policy.
……Kathleen Williams describes her decision to run for office as a product of a budget dispute. In 2007, Montana had a budget surplus of $1.6 Billion. The legislature could not pass a budget. Members could not agree about what to do with the surplus. Disgusted. With an idea or two about how that money could be used, Kathleen Williams decided to run for the Montana House of Representatives.
……In her campaign, Kathleen Williams had to defend herself from charges that she was a single issue candidate. She won the primary and the general election handily. The charge was not surprising. Kathleen Williamswas, and still is, an expert on water issues — not unimportant for Montana.
……IN 2016, Kathleen Williams declined to run for a fourth term and returned to the private sector. She could not escape politics.
……In the legislature, she had been instrumental in negotiating a water rights compact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The agreement required Congressional ratification. Distressed that Montana’s Republican Senator and first term Congressman, Greg Gianforte refused to move the agreement forward, Kathleen Williams returned to electoral politics for 2018. She announced a run for Congress.
……Kathleen Williams was one of several Democrats eager to take on first term Congressman Gianforte. He had become notorious for body-slamming a reporter interviewing him the day before the 2016 election.
……Kathleen Williams was not the favorite. She entered late. She raised a fraction of the money her opponents raised — money needed for the primary and for the general election against a millionaire incumbent. She preempted accusations that she was interested only in water issues by announcing a campaign focus on healthcare and tax reform.
……Kathleen Williams stood out. Like the ex-military women Democratic candidates who are impervious to national defense criticisms, Williams could not be criticized for being insufficiently western. Associate Director of the Western Land Owners Alliance, she had a job title that evoked a 1950s movie. She is a sport shooter. She hunts and fishes. She hikes and canoes. For fun, not for show.
……Kathleen Williams spent her career defending Montana’s and the west’s natural resources. Her website calls it “science-based stewardship.” A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, she rejected her father’s advice to major in business. She majored in natural resources economics. Her Master’s degree thesis at the University of Colorado analyzed the amount of water needed to support recreation on a wild river.
……Kathleen Williamsstarted out working for the US Forest Service. She worked in the private sector on both recreation and conservation. She moved to Montana fifteen years before her election to the state legislature to work for the Environmental Quality Council –– a committee of the Montana legislature. Her brief was water policy.
..……Her focus on water continued as she became Water Program Manager for the state’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and then Executive Director of the Instream Flow Council, a US and Canadian non-profit. Her interests combined conservation with concern for sport fishermen.
……In a Republican dominated and deeply divided legislature,Kathleen Williams minimized conflict. She fended off proposals to exempt wells and septic systems from environmental regulations with a legislative approved study. She negotiated the tribal water compact to avoid a lawsuit. She advocated and obtained passage of a law to make tax exempt certain home cooked foods sold from home or farmers’ markets. She successfully opposed Republican tax cut plans, arguing for more comprehensive tax reforms. She earned a reputation for effectively negotiating practical, non-partisan solutions in a partisan atmosphere.
……Kathleen Williams‘ reputation for effective non-partisan work, her promise that Montana would finally have a successor to Jeannette Rankin’s, her travels across the state in her pick-up truck towing a camper behind, her post-Parkland proposals for banning bump stocks, universal background checks, and limiting semi-automatic weapons to controlled shooting ranges, and, most important, her promise to return civility to Congress won her the primary. She won despite her startling lack of financial resources.
……Kathleen Williams is one of several non-California western candidates who are crucial to Democrats winning a majority in Congress. More than most of these candidates, she needs outside financial help as she runs against a billionaire, high tech, religious fundamentalist who moved to Montana from New Jersey and is dogged by his early efforts to keep fisherman away from his Montana property. Help Kathleen Williams https://kathleenformontana.com/ persuade Montanans to vote for her election to Congress and for Jon Tester’s reelection to the Senate. More than most candidates, she needs resources now.
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