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  • Montana US Sen. Jon Tester to face GOP newcomer Tim Sheehy in election key to Senate control

    Montana US Sen. Jon Tester to face GOP newcomer Tim Sheehy in election key to Senate control

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    HELENA, Mont. – Three-term incumbent Democrat Sen. Jon Tester and Republican newcomer Tim Sheehy cruised to victory in Montana’s primary election Tuesday, setting up a contentious November election that could tip the balance of power in the closely divided U.S. Senate.

    Sheehy is a former Navy SEAL backed by former President Donald Trump, Gov. Greg Gianforte and the Republican establishment.

    Beyond the race’s national implications, it offers Republicans a chance to complete their lock on higher offices in Montana after years of picking off Democratic elected officials in what was once a more politically diverse state.

    A loss by Tester, who has survived three close elections even as the national political landscape shifted, would oust the final Democrat still holding high office in Montana.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

    HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana voters in Tuesday’s primary election will select a Republican challenger to three-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and candidates for an open U.S. House seat being vacated by far-right conservative Rep. Matt Rosendale.

    Republicans have dominated recent Montana elections, leaving Tester increasingly vulnerable. They need to pick up just a couple seats in November to take control of the U.S. Senate.

    Donald Trump’s name appeared on the ballot Tuesday for the first time since his conviction on felony crimes, as a handful of states held the last Republican presidential primary contests of 2024.

    In the Senate race in Montana, first-time candidate and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy has the support of the Republican Party establishment, including former President Trump and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte.

    The Belgrade businessman has sunk more than $2 million of his money into the race and is backed by major GOP donors. He faces two lesser known opponents.

    On the Democratic side, Tester cruised to victory against a sole primary opponent who had not reported raising or spending any campaign money.

    Voter Chris Munson said after casting his ballot in Billings that he’s an independent but voted in the Republican primary because, “It’s the only one that seems to matter in this state.”

    Munson, 38, listed inflation and the border as his top policy issues. He expressed reservations about Sheehy, who came to the state a decade ago and is still considered an outsider in Montana, but said he had not yet decided about Tester.

    Republican Stephen Reisinger, 54, picked former Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson over Sheehy in Tuesday’s primary.

    Reisinger — an Army veteran from Billings who works as a diesel mechanic in the oil fields — cited Sheehy’s acknowledgment that he lied about a bullet wound. Sheehy told a park ranger in 2015 that he was wounded when his personal handgun discharged accidentally in Glacier National Park, but has since said he was wounded in Afghanistan in 2012 and lied to the ranger.

    Reisinger said he would push past his concerns about Sheehy lying and support the Republican if he advances to challenge Tester.

    “I’d have to go with Sheehy,” he said.

    The Tester and Sheehy campaigns already have been pounding each other on the airwaves in an advertising blitz that’s expected to intensify as November approaches.

    Tester — a former state Senate president who’s considered a moderate in Washington — has emphasized his work for veterans and his roots as a third-generation farmer in central Montana. He’s also played up concerns that wealthy outsiders such as Sheehy are buying up property and driving housing prices and taxes higher.

    Sheehy has sought to saddle Tester with public dissatisfaction over President Joe Biden’s struggles to stem illegal immigration on the southern border. And he’s appealing to supporters of Trump, who won Montana by 16 percentage points in 2020, by claiming in a social media post Monday without providing specifics that Tester supported the former president’s conviction last week in a New York hush money case.

    Tester won his three previous Senate races by slim margins.

    The open U.S. House seat in solidly Republican, largely rural eastern Montana features a seven-way GOP contest.

    Contenders include former six-term former U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, state Auditor Troy Downing and state education Superintendent Elsie Arntzen.

    Rehberg emerged from retirement and joined the race late after Rosendale launched a short-lived U.S. Senate campaign.

    Downing was endorsed by Trump on Monday. He outraised the other primary candidates and touted his experience as auditor and running businesses in the private sector.

    Arntzen, among the most conservative of the candidates, has leaned heavily into cultural issues such as her opposition to transgender girls participating in girls’ athletics.

    Four candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination in the district. The winner will face long odds in November.

    The state’s western House district, which includes the cities of Bozeman, Missoula and Butte, is expected to be more competitive in the general election.

    Incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as Trump’s interior secretary, is being challenged by Mary Todd from the party’s right flank. Zinke narrowly won his 2022 primary.

    Democrat and environmental attorney Monica Tranel, who lost to Zinke by 3 percentage points in 2022, is running unopposed in the western House district primary.

    Gianforte is seeking a second term alongside Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras, while facing criticism for large property tax increases as property values increased. With a historic budget surplus following federal stimulus spending due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the state paid off its debt, reduced the top income tax rate and authorized up to $1,250 in one-time rebates to individual income tax payers.

    Gianforte faces a challenge from the right by state Rep. Tanner Smith, who represents part of Flathead County.

    In the Democratic primary for governor, former firearms executive Ryan Busse of Kalispell is running against Helena attorney Jim Hunt.

    Polls close at 8 p.m. Many voters already have cast their ballots by mail.

    ___

    Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    Amy Beth Hanson And Matthew Brown, Associated Press

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  • Montana has become the first state to ban TikTok. Here’s what happens next.

    Montana has become the first state to ban TikTok. Here’s what happens next.

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    Montana has officially become the first state in the country to ban TikTok after Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law on Wednesday, May 17. The law is set to take effect in January 2024 and is already facing legal challenges.

    “To protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana,” wrote Gianforte on Twitter.

    The ban was quickly criticized by the ACLU amid concerns that the bill infringes on First Amendment rights.

    “With this ban, Governor Gianforte and the Montana legislature have trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information, and run their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment,” said Keegan Medrano, policy director at the ACLU of Montana. “We will never trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points.”

    The governor’s office claimed in a news release about the ban that “penalties will be enforced by the Montana Department of Justice,” and that anyone in violation of the law is liable to pay $10,000 per violation, and also liable for an additional $10,000 each day the violation continues, according to the text of S.B. 419.

    “Governor Gianforte has signed a bill that infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok, a platform that empowers hundreds of thousands of people across the state,” said TikTok in a statement provided to CBS News. “We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue using TikTok to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana.”

    Last month, Montana became the first state to pass a bill banning the app — which raised concerns from technology experts about how realistic expectations were around enforcement. 

    At a hearing about the bill in March, a representative from TechNet said that app stores “do not have the ability to geofence” apps on a state-by-state basis, making it impossible for the restriction to be enforceable in popular app marketplaces, such as the Apple App Store or the Google Play App Store.

    Some have also argued that banning the app may infringe users’ First Amendment rights. “Montanans are indisputably exercising their First Amendment rights when they post and consume content on TikTok,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a statement. “Because Montana can’t establish that the ban is necessary or tailored to any legitimate interest, the law is almost certain to be struck down as unconstitutional.”

    In March, Gianforte banned TikTok from government devices in Montana, joining the Biden administration, which also banned the platform from all federal employee devices.

    Why is TikTok being banned? 

    TikTok has been an ongoing subject of debate in both local and federal government, as concerns mount in several areas, such as the potential for TikTok to be addicting to younger users and the ability for people to use the app to spread misinformation or incite violence. While these are concerns for other major social media platforms as well, what makes TikTok particularly alarming to government officials are privacy issues related to the app’s ownership by China-based ByteDance. 

    Like all Chinese companies, ByteDance has ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and as tensions continue to mount between the U.S. and China, access to user data has become a point of uneasiness for Congress, the Biden administration, and state and local governments. Many now see banning the platform as a simple solution.


    Why TikTok faces bans in the U.S.

    06:51

    TikTok has repeatedly denied that it shares any data with the Chinese government.

    Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, has told CBS News that lawmakers’ concerns over TikTok sharing user data with the Chinese government are overstated and “makes for good politics.” He also said that TikTok collects less data than other social media apps and is working to move user data to servers in the U.S., out of reach of China.  

    Some experts agree that national security concerns over TikTok are unfounded.

    Milton Mueller, a professor of cybersecurity and public policy at Georgia Tech, previously told CBS News, “There have been three technical studies done of this. They basically all say it is exactly what they tell you it is in their privacy statement.”

    What comes next?

    A group of TikTok users in Montana on Wednesday, May 17, filed the first challenge to the law in U.S. District Court in Montana. They alleged that the state’s ban on the app infringes on their constitutional right to freedom of speech.

    “The Act attempts to exercise powers over national security that Montana does not have and to ban speech Montana may not suppress,” read the complaint, which was filed by five content creators.

    “Montana can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes,” the lawsuit continued.

    TikTok has declined to comment on the suit and has not yet announced its own challenge to the law.

    C Mandler


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    C Mandler is a social media producer and trending topics writer for CBS News, focusing on American politics and LGBTQ+ issues.

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  • Montana governor signs slate of bills restricting abortion rights | CNN Politics

    Montana governor signs slate of bills restricting abortion rights | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed on Wednesday a collection of bills restricting access to abortion, triggering legal action and challenging a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling on the procedure.

    While abortion remains legal in Montana, the legislation specifies that access to the procedure until viability is no longer protected under the right of privacy in the state’s constitution – contradicting the court’s two decades old ruling.

    “For years in Montana, abortion activists have used the cloak of a shaky legal interpretation to advance their pro-abortion agenda. That stops today,” Gianforte said in a statement Wednesday, describing the new laws as “giving a voice to the voiceless.”

    The restrictions come as states navigate a new abortion landscape in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade last year, which removed federal abortion protections. Several Republican-led states have enacted restrictions, while some Democratic-led states have passed legislation expanding access to their residents and those seeking care from other states.

    One of the new laws Gianforte signed Wednesday establishes a “right of conscience” that allows health care providers or institutions to refuse to perform abortions if it violates their “ethical, moral, or religious beliefs or principles.”

    Another bill, HB625, signed by Gianforte Wednesday, requires health care providers, in the rare case a baby is born alive after an attempted abortion, to give care to the infant or face fines and imprisonment. However, it is already considered homicide in the US to intentionally kill an infant that is born alive.

    While Gianforte said that the slate of “pro-family, pro-child, pro-life bills will make a lasting difference in Montana,” Democrats and abortion rights advocates argue that the new laws add “unnecessary” provisions to restrict access.

    Abortion rights advocates secured a preliminary victory Thursday, with a Montana judge temporarily blocking one measure, HB575, that would require a patient to have an ultrasound and get a written determination of viability from a provider in order to get an abortion.

    The state’s Planned Parenthood chapter had filed an emergency relief request Wednesday after the provision took effect, arguing that requiring an ultrasound before a procedure effectively bans telehealth medication abortion. Such procedures have surged since the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion last summer.

    “Instead of trusting us to make our own decisions about our bodies and lives, Montana lawmakers are once again forcing their way into our exam rooms and blocking our access to essential health care,” said Martha Fuller, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Montana.

    “By adding unnecessary and burdensome red tape to a safe and legal medical procedure, these politicians have made clear that it was never about our health and safety,” Fuller said in a statement Wednesday. “It was always about undermining our personal freedom and shaming people who seek abortions.”

    This move is one of several legal battles related to reproductive rights playing out in state and federal courts. Near-total abortion bans in Indiana and Ohio remain in limbo after judges issued orders halting the restrictions.

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  • Montana governor bans TikTok | CNN Business

    Montana governor bans TikTok | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill Wednesday banning TikTok in the state.

    Gianforte tweeted that he has banned TikTok in Montana “to protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party,” officially making it the first state to ban the social media application.

    The controversial law marks the furthest step yet by a state government to restrict TikTok over perceived security concerns and comes as some federal lawmakers have called for a national ban of TikTok. But it is expected to be challenged in court.

    The bill, which will take effect in January, specifically names TikTok as its target, prohibiting the app from operating within state lines. The law also outlines potential fines of $10,000 per day for violators, including app stores found to host the social media application.

    Last month, lawmakers in Montana’s House of Representatives voted 54-43 to pass the bill, known as SB419, sending it to Gianforte’s desk.

    In a statement to CNN, TikTok said it would push to defend the rights of users in Montana.

    “Governor Gianforte has signed a bill that infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of Montana by unlawfully banning TikTok, a platform that empowers hundreds of thousands of people across the state. We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue using TikTok to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana.”

    The law comes as TikTok faces growing criticism for its ties to China. TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance. Many US officials have expressed fears that the Chinese government could potentially access US data via TikTok for spying purposes, though there is so far no evidence that the Chinese government has ever accessed personal information of US-based TikTok users.

    NetChoice, a technology trade group that includes TikTok as a member, called the Montana bill unconstitutional.

    “The government may not block our ability to access constitutionally protected speech – whether it is in a newspaper, on a website or via an app. In implementing this law, Montana ignores the U.S. Constitution, due process and free speech by denying access to a website and apps their citizens want to use,” said Carl Szabo, NetChoice’s general counsel.

    The ACLU also pushed back on the bill, releasing a statement saying that “with this ban, Governor Gianforte and the Montana legislature have trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information, and run their small business in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment.”

    On Wednesday, Gianforte signed an additional bill that prohibits the use of any social media application “tied to foreign adversaries” on government devices, including ByteDance-owned CapCut and Lemon8, and Telegram Messenger, which was founded in Russia.

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