Montana’s 66th Legislature starts January 7 Every two years, Montana’s 100-member House of Representatives and 50-member Senate gather in Helena for 90 days of budget negotiations, lawmaking and shenanigans. During the Legislative Session, Prairie Populist will share updates on the...

As another year wraps up, Prairie Populist takes a look back at 2018. We covered stories from all four corners of the state and everything in between. We featured writers from the Musselshell Valley to Northwest Montana, from Fort Peck...

They have our backs. It’s time we had theirs. The cancer that seeps through Jason Baker’s skin is the result of a toxic soup that’s created when modern homes burn. Like all of Montana’s firefighters, Baker has the best protective...

Budget cuts leave a stink in rural Cascade County As the old adage goes: What goes up, must come down.  What goes in, must come out.  And what comes out, must be disposed of properly so it doesn’t contaminate my...

Small Towns Left Paying the Tab for Local School Funding Shift Last November, some lawmakers emerged from Montana’s Special Legislative Session crowing that they had solved the state’s budget crisis without raising taxes. But Montanans across the state will see...

125 Montana Statehouse Seats at Stake In the Montana Legislature, all 100 House seats and 25 of the 50 Senate seats are on the ballot in November. Folks who want to run, or want to convince their friends or neighbors...

 Rosendale guns for state Senate In some ways, Montana voters have it good. Whether we’re Democrats, Republicans or something else, we’re generally not too far from our citizen legislators, regular folks we see at the store and at the kids’...

In 1996, Nancy Winstead was living a full life in Dillon, Montana — a ski and swimming instructor, avid hunter and mother of four, operating a day care and active in her local church. One morning, she woke up with...

On Monday, more than 100 people showed up at the Capitol in Helena to protest and to testify against proposed cuts to the Department of Public Health and Human Services. These cuts could directly impact the lives of developmentally disabled...

Senator gets it done quietly When Jeff Welborn was in his second term in the Montana Legislature, he carried a piece of legislation that inspired fiery opposition: It became known as the “Dirty Ditch Bill” and it would have had...