by Helena Lovick | Mar 22, 2025 | Elections
Great Falls, Mont.
Recently a couple friends sent me this screenshot of an emailed response from State Senator Jeremy Trebas (R-Great Falls) (see below).
Jeremy’s response to a voter requesting he vote no on HB 258 during the 2025 Montana legislative session.
As slimy and rude as that response was….it sure seemed like something Jeremy would say! But I wanted to make sure What the Funk wasn’t sharing any fake news, so I sent in a public information request to the Legislative Services Division of the Montana Legislature. I asked for a copy of emails Jeremy sent from his legislative email account ([email protected]) with the term “pronouns” in the email body, sent in 2025 (from January 1, 2025 to present 3/20/2025).
And, um, oh it’s real. And it gets worse.
Here is the email that started it all:
Huh, in response to a citizen’s thoughtful and well-laid out reasons to vote against a bill….Jeremy zeroed in on “she/her” in the signature line!
(Makes total sense to an insane bigot I guess.)
In his typical bizarre manner, Jeremy Trebas sent back the reply of “I don’t put much credence in the “science” of people who have to put pronouns in their bio.” Welp, Montanans, if you have pronouns (like 100% of people do), Jeremy does not want to hear from you!
How Jeremy responded to concerns of the public
The screenshot of the pronoun email must have reached several other Montanans around the time I saw it, because a half a dozen people emailed Jeremy Trebas about that exchange. Of course, Jeremy then chose the path of being increasingly rude and dickish. Reciting stupid troll language at people with legitimate concerns about his behavior such as “K bro,” “Move out of your parent’s basement,” “no one I’ve heard from so far is a constituent, only radical leftists who believe boys can be girls,” and on and on.
In response to Jeremy’s disrespectful answer to their email, one person sent back the flabbergasted question, “This is how you communicate with the public?” and Jeremy (obviously lying) replied “No, only you.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. I can’t breathe. Yeah, no, it is not only you my friend. Jeremy is an internet troll who loves to be an asshole to anyone who isn’t in his weird cult of MAGA mixed with Libertarianism. For some representative examples, we’ve previously discussed Jeremy Trebas’s rude internet commentary style here and here.
Based on his own biases, Jeremy also likes to claim that no one criticizing him is a constituent. Jeremy doesn’t understand that people’s email addresses aren’t labeled with a person’s specific legislative district. And even if they aren’t his constituents, Jeremy must not know that his work in the legislature affects ALL Montanans. Sure would be nice if Jeremy would stop being a dick and be respectful when Montanans reach out to him with their concerns.
Below are screenshots of Jeremy doubling down on his bigotry again and again. Wow. Is this a person Montanans want representing them…for ANYTHING?
(In the screenshots, I blocked the identifiers for the citizens who emailed Jeremy, but they are technically public information.)
by Helena Lovick | Feb 27, 2025 | Elections
This month, several Republican Montana Legislators voted in favor of House Joint Resolution 7 (HJ 7), a resolution congratulating Donald Trump on his 2024 victory. In a disturbing, but not surprising twist, HJ 7 contains numerous clauses emphasizing how in sync and how sycophantic the Montana Republican Party is with Trump fascism. HJ 7 is still winding its way through the Montana legislature after it passed the House. You can read the full resolution here. Yay votes from Great Falls legislators included Ed Buttrey (R, HD-21), Eric Tilleman (R, HD-23), Steve Fitzpatrick (R, HD-24), and Steve Gist (R, HD-25). It’s noteworthy that no Montana Democrats voted for it, and there sure is a reason for that.
Here’s a sampling of the clauses in the resolution that highlight the Montana GOP’s embrace of fascism
“[D]uring his campaign, President Trump faced and triumphed over baseless, politically motivated charges and relentless attacks orchestrated by partisan adversaries.”
Oh you mean the part where he was found guilty of 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in his hush money efforts during his 2016 campaign?
“…the Montana Legislature overwhelmingly acknowledges and wholeheartedly supports President Trump’s unwavering commitment to strengthening the United States of America through sound governance, a robust economy, and the promotion of unity among its citizens.”
Sound governance? Where he fired thousands of Forest Service employees based solely on if they were in a probationary period? Promotion of unity????????? The man that insults private citizens like Taylor Swift, because she endorsed his opponent. That promotion of unity?
“…Montana vigorously supports and encourages President Trump in his relentless efforts to combat the insidious ‘woke’ agenda.”
Oh more unity? Give me a fucking break.
“…the people of Montana and the Montana Legislature urge President Trump to continue his valiant fight against the radical left, specifically targeting individuals and groups such as “The Squad” and Senator Bernie Sanders”.
Don’t speak for me or the people of Montana, you fascists.
“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Secretary of State transmit a copy of this resolute resolution to the President of the United States Donald J. Trump, to the Vice President of the United States J.D. Vance, and to each esteemed member of the Montana Congressional Delegation. THE DISTRIBUTED COPY MUST INCLUDE A LIST OF FULL FIRST AND LAST NAMES AND TITLES OF ALL OF THE LEGISLATORS WHO COSPONSORED AND VOTED YES ON THIS RESOLUTION.”
Of course, they need to highlight how much they are sucking up to their corrupt leader. These legislators are a joke, and they make a mockery of their role as public servants.
by Helena Lovick | Feb 23, 2025 | E-City Beat Watch
Great Falls, Mont.
In our occasional E-City Beat Watch, recently Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon put up a post about a Facebook page called “The Montana Resistance”. In his blog post, Rick tried to conflate the page with the “Hate has no home here” movement, because some local activists liked the FB page’s dark humor memes. According to Rick, that FB page “is inciting violence and hate against folks in our community.”
Below are a few images from the Montana Resistance page that Rick’s blog post highlighted.
Oh, you don’t like “the armed left” Rick? How interesting…
Back in 2019, I organized a rally for some common-sense measures to reduce gun violence. I reserved the band shell at Gibson Park to speak up after a horrific August weekend of gun violence including 20 people murdered at a Walmart in Texas, and nine people killed in Dayton, Ohio. The rally’s focus was calling for strengthening of red flag laws and universal background checks on gun sales.
Well, Mr. “I don’t incite violence” Rick, who was running for the Great Falls City Commission at the time, saw an opportunity to strengthen his gun-humping brand. Rick organized a pro 2nd Amendment protest adjacent to our rally and posted whiny remarks all over his public Facebook wall trying to rally people to join him. How dare people try to reduce deaths and injuries from gun violence!?? The audacity to want less murder! Thanks to Rick’s efforts, dozens of people made intimidating comments about wanting to bring their ARs, and I even saw a comment that said, “We need executions” on one of Rick’s posts. Nice. Really peaceful. Rick, don’t you know that you can delete inappropriate comments like that on your posts? Or were you cool with it? Oh, and sure Rick made some weak ass comments on his posts to not bring firearms to the rally. Seems too little too fucking late. Only in good old Great Falls was the risk of violence enough to have plain clothes security at the event. Thanks Rick!
At the time, someone told me not to worry about Rick, because he is just a bully and a coward. And, yes, that’s accurate. Rick is just a bully and a coward. But he has a platform that he uses to stir people up. I wasn’t worried that Rick would shoot me. I was worried that someone he incited to chant about the 2nd Amendment would try to harm us.
As a public official, Rick should know better.
When you have a platform like that, you have a responsibility to consider the weight of your words. And I haven’t seen any tempering of Rick’s dumbfuckery. Rick is either too stupid to know the effects of his actions OR he doesn’t care and does it any way. So miss me with Rick’s whining about a FB page with some edgy anti-Nazi memes and his laughable efforts to connect it to the “Hate has no home here” crowd. These groups obviously aren’t related, but maybe Rick needs to introduce himself to the Paradox of Tolerance. Why are you so eager to protect Nazis, Rick?
by Helena Lovick | Jan 29, 2025 | Legislature
Cascade County, Montana
Can we fuck around with elections more? Asked no voter ever. But our joke of a state senator Jeremy Trebas can’t help but keep picking the wrong side of every issue.
Trebas’s latest dumbassery is Senate Bill 128, which has now been voted out of committee. SB 128 would prevent county government from removing “the election administration responsibilities from the county clerk and recorder during the county clerk and recorder’s current term in office. The governing body may remove the election administration responsibilities of the county clerk and recorder for future terms of office”.
Why is Trebas sponsoring this bill?
SB 128 is a response to the chaos Republican Sandra Merchant unleashed in the Cascade County Elections Office. As a reminder, when election denier Sandra Merchant was elected as the Cascade County Clerk and Recorder, she fumbled election after election costing taxpayers thousands in legal fees. The all-Republican Cascade County Commission realized Merchant was not able to adequately perform her election job duties, and the County Commission voted to place the election administration duties under their purview instead. Trebas whined about it before, because he hates local government, so his moronic bill attacking local government control is no surprise.
*Jeremy Trebas, basically
What are the effects of this bill?
The majority of Montana counties have election administration duties performed by the County Clerk and Recorder. A handful, for example, Missoula County, and now Cascade County, have a hired professional rather than the Clerk and Recorder handle the election duties.
SB 128 would be effective immediately if passed, which would be relevant to OTHER Montana counties where election administration is currently being performed by the County Clerk and Recorder. But since it’s not retroactive, it appears to have no effect on the change in election administration in Cascade County.
Why should we care?
All of us should be concerned about this bill, because yet again the legislature is mucking around in a local issue and trying to decide what is best for a county over duly elected, LOCAL officials. Trebas likes this bill, because he doesn’t like local government being run by local people. Jeremy said during the committee hearing on SB 128 that the bill is about “giving voters what they wanted.” Yeah, fucking right. Unless the voters don’t vote how he wants or if the people that are elected like county commissioners don’t do what he wants.
by Helena Lovick | Dec 3, 2024 | Elections
The majority of the American electorate voted for Donald Trump for President, a conman with 34 felonies, a rapist, and a Hitler admirer. Wow. I will admit that I was surprised that he won the popular vote. This is some scary but also fucking embarrassing shit. Embarrassing on an international scale. Here is our leader! He can’t string a sentence together unless it’s talking about how big his rallies are.
But How Bad Is It?
Really fucking bad.
The sickening truth is, it’s going to be as bad or worse than we saw in the first Trump administration. Many people are going to suffer under the upcoming regressive policies.
Republicans hold all three branches of the federal government in America. From the stacked right-wing judges in the Supreme Court, both chambers of Congress and the Presidency, they hold them all. In Montana, our State Supreme Court is in slightly better shape with a majority of moderate judges, but our State Legislature still has a Republican majority, and our Republican Governor Gianforte is an ultra rich religious extremist who thinks the earth is only 6,000 years old. As a treat, Gianforte gave people record high property tax hikes while cutting his own taxes.
WHAT CAN WE DO??
Before I get into a closer look at the election results for Montana, I want to speak briefly about my hope and determination for the future.
If you are scared and worried about our country, the solution is civic engagement. We need to be building local community, talking to our elected officials, holding our politicians accountable and continuing to bend the path of this country towards justice. It took them 40 years to dismantle Roe v. Wade. and it’s going to take time for us to change the right-wing capture of our government. And unless you want to live under a dictatorship, it’s going to take some work to dig us out of this hole. FIND YOUR PEOPLE. Go to community meetings. Show up. Volunteer. Talk to your friends and family and get them involved, too. Register voters that understand the danger we are in. You can make things better.
So What Happened in Montana?
Sadly, the red trend continued. Not surprisingly, we saw a growing right-wing slant in Montana over the past decade, because from October 2008 through May 2024, for every two Democrats moving to Montana, slightly more than three Republicans did the same.
All Statewide Seats are now held by Republicans
As we saw in 2020 and 2022, all statewide Democratic candidates lost in 2024. With the ouster of Montana’s last statewide Democratic official, U.S. Senator Jon Tester, Republicans hold every statewide seat. Dismantling of our public services such as Medicaid, access to public lands, tax cuts for the rich, and rising property taxes are all on the table.
How did the vote breakdown?
Jon Tester lost his senate seat to newcomer Tim Sheehy (45% to 53%). Montanans voted against a Senator who has continually proven his support of rural hospitals, abortion rights, infrastructure funding that directly helped Montana, and elected a man who is adamantly anti-abortion and will likely align with an effort to pass a national abortion ban. At the same time, voters passed the abortion rights measure of CI-128 to enshrine abortion rights in our state constitution, 58% Yes to 42% No. That is completely wild. I’m not sure if people know that federal law supersedes state law. If there is an abortion ban on the federal level, then there is an abortion ban in Montana no matter what our state constitution says.
But the happy outcome for CI-128 is a promising sign that Montanans still support women’s rights to their own healthcare decisions. There is space to have a discussion on the disconnect of who is being elected and what the voters and Montanans actually want.
Things are not all bad.
As mentioned above, CI-128 won handily. Democrats broke the supermajority in the Montana State Legislature, and Democrat Jane Weber won her election bid for a Montana House seat in Great Falls. Jane Weber’s win marks the first Democratic legislator elected in Cascade County since 2018.
Map of Montana’s 2024 Legislative Seats. Blue for Democratic seats, Red for Republican seats.
Even in the flood of other bad election news, we did have promising wins for Democratic policies in Montana. Things are not hopeless. Let’s build on that and do the local organizing work to fight for a better future.
