Democrat John Driscoll opened a recent Billings forum between himself and Troy Downing, his Republican opponent in the eastern congressional district race, with an unconventional move.
“I’m glad I finally had a chance to meet Commissioner Downing and to congratulate him. I think he’s going to do very well in this election,” Driscoll told a room full of Rotarians gathered for lunch at the Northern Hotel here. “Eastern Montana is for Republicans what Butte has always been for Democrats, so I kind of know what to expect.”
Downing, the state auditor, emerged from a nine-way GOP primary this June with 36% of the vote, a decisive victory that essentially secured him a seat in the U.S. House. That premise carried the exchange between the two candidates, as Downing spoke to the Rotarians more about what he wants to accomplish in Congress than spending time contrasting himself with Driscoll. The Democrat shared the ideas that are important to him, while acknowledging he very likely won’t be governing to implement them.
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Driscoll holds no false aspirations about his chances in this district — it’s as red as the region’s clinker-capped hills. The Cook Partisan Voting Index ranks it a R+16. Last cycle, the first for the newly drawn region carved out of the state’s previous at-large seat, an independent candidate pulled in 3,715 more votes than the Democrat and even their support combined came up 14.5 percentage points shy of the Republican who won.
That man, U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, bowed out of seeking re-election after a tumultuous spring. He’s long wanted to be a U.S. senator, losing to Democrat Jon Tester in 2018 and launching a bid seeking a re-match this March. But under immense pressure, including from Montana’s junior Sen. Steve Daines and former President Donald Trump endorsing his primary opponent, Rosendale gave up on his Senate dreams after just six days. He later switched his candidacy to a re-election bid, but persistent rumors and an eventual death threat led him to drop out.
Like Rosendale before him, Downing will likely launch himself to Congress from his job as the state auditor. He told the Rotarians in Billings that if they want to know what he plans to do if elected, they should look at his track record in that position and the biography that led him there.
“You hear a lot of politicians talk, but what’s more important is not what they say, but look and see what they’ve done, because that’s usually a clear indication of what to expect of them moving forward,” Downing said. He then thanked Driscoll for participating in the “friendly conversation” and said in Congress he’d like to engage in more aisle-crossing productive exchanges.
“Most of us have the same idea of where we want to get, we just have different ideas on how to get there,” Downing said. “That doesn’t mean that somebody on the other side is a demon or an enemy. I think that it’s important to talk, and that’s how I run my office. My office has had an open door. Everybody can come in, I don’t care, a stakeholder on any issue, and state their case. … I’m in my office not to represent the party. I’m in that office to make sure I’m doing right by the people of Montana.”
Downing told Rotarians he was raised by his mom, who was a checker in a grocery store, and that his family did not come from money.
Congressional candidates Troy Downing, left, and John Driscoll meet at a candidate forum at the Downtown Billings Rotary Club.
LARRY MAYER Billings Gazette
“Nothing was easy, nothing was handed (out to us). We didn’t have family connections or family money or anything,” Downing said. “One of the things that became clear to me in my formative years is that if I wanted something, I had to work for it. You had to show up and do the work. And you know, God bless America, I mean there’s more opportunity in this country than anywhere else in the world. … If you show up and do the work you can move mountains in this country.”
Downing went to college and then got a research and teaching position at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He quit to found a startup company that later merged with Yahoo, something Downing called a “life-changer.” He used money from that to do what he described as angel financing and mentoring to “help other people find a path to do what I did.”
Then Sept. 11 came, creating what Downing called a “moment of introspection for me.” He went to a military recruitment office shortly before he was too old to join up and then spent eight years in the Air Force in a combat search and rescue squadron that included two stints in Afghanistan.
After leaving the military, Downing built nationwide insurance and real estate companies and lived in Gallatin Gateway and Big Sky.
“You put your heart to something and put your nose to the grindstone, you can do incredible things here,” Downing said.
His reason for seeking the U.S. House seat is that he feels the framework that allowed for his success is crumbling.
“There’s a lot that I care about. I think we need fiscal constraint in D.C. I think that American dream that was so good to me is farther and farther out of touch for our kids. I think we need to fight back. National security is big for me, making sure we’re dealing with our southern border, energy security, international security, national security,” Downing said.
Driscoll acknowledged his campaign is one of ideas, the list of priorities he sees as paramount for the district though he knows they won’t gain the traction he feels they deserve.
He’s not raising money on his race, something that drew the ire of a fellow Democrat who has launched a write-in campaign in the race.
“I’ve got $5,000 to spend to stay under the Federal Election Commission threshold for having to file (a campaign finance report),” Driscoll told Rotarians. “It’s a real good discipline, and as of today, I had $1,866 (left).”
His four-part Labor Day pledge begins with prioritizing ways to transition the skills of Montanans who work in industries threatened by changing times and climate, like logging, mining, energy and the railroad.
“The people that are out there bending metal and welding and driving trucks and running oil rigs and cutting trees, running locomotives, they’re the important people, and if they feel stranded by all this razzamazoo they’re seeing in the newspapers about climate change, that’s really on us to figure out a way to transition them,” Driscoll said. ” … Their skills are always going to be important. We just got to figure out the right place for them to be working and not lose them and expand and build on the base that we have now.”
Congressional candidates Troy Downing, left, and John Driscoll meet at a candidate forum at the Downtown Billings Rotary Club.
LARRY MAYER Billings Gazette
Driscoll’s pledge then moves to a proposal that the U.S Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency develop a site in the Boulder Batholith, a mineral deposit swath between Butte and Helena, for a nuclear waste repository.
Thirdly, he told the Rotary members he’ll monitor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of small modular reactors. His concern is the that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order No. 120, which requires transmission providers to participate in a regional transmission planning process and right-size transmission lines, could be hamstrung by the U.S Supreme Court’s recent Chevron decision.
Finally, he said he’d ask Burlington Northern Santa Fe to consider electrification.
“If I don’t get elected, I wanted you to know the kinds of things I think are important,” Driscoll said.
He grew up in Miles City and Hamilton and studied international affairs at Columbia University. He served in the Army National Guard for 28 years, doing strategic intelligence.
He later was in the state House of Representatives from 1972-78 and was on the Public Service Commission from 1981-1992.
Driscoll not raising any money to support his campaign has drawn the ire of former state lawmaker and past newspaper publisher Reilly Neill, who in August launched a write-in candidacy for the district.
“When a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in Montana feels funding a campaign in our state is meaningless, it disenfranchises voters and undermines the democratic process,” Neill wrote in a letter sent to newspapers in the eastern district.
In her letter, Neill also called out Downing for hunting violations he pleaded guilty to in 2018. He was accused of buying resident licenses when he was not a resident with the state and ordered to pay $2,100 in fines.
“Voters deserve someone fighting for them. They deserve a Democrat on the ballot elevating important issues and supporting a robust democracy,” Neill wrote.
Congressional candidates Troy Downing and John Driscoll meet at a candidate forum at the Downtown Billings Rotary Club.
LARRY MAYER Billings Gazette
In addition to a platform she said focuses on the agriculture economy, as well as rural infrastructure and pubic schools, Neill said her candidacy is also about trying to boost other Democrats running in the extremely Republican district and to raise awareness about the ballot initiative that will appear before voters this fall to clarify the explicit right to access an abortion to the state Constitution.
On the issues
Downing told Rotarians he thinks the national debt is one of the biggest things threatening the American dream, especially the risk he sees if China’s yuan takes over as the global trading currency. He called for looking at discretionary spending and gathering “good ideas” for curtailing mandatory spending.
“My point is we need to have smart people in the room talking about these out-of-the-box solutions,” Downing said. “ … You talk about Social Security, they talk about raising the age that you can apply. … That’s probably something reasonable for somebody that works at a desk, but somebody that works with their hands, you get to an age where you can’t actually can’t do it anymore.”
Driscoll said while he was focused on a balanced budget in the state Legislature, as required by Montana law, he’s “not a balanced budget person federally.”
He said he supported a model similar to the Montana Legislature’s of getting good ideas into a room and in front of a committee and picking the ones that have merit and support.
“That’s hard to do, because you got to pay for the roof on the prison and stuff like that. That’s not at all politically elegant,” Driscoll said. “Balancing budgets is something that I’ve done, and then that’s what I’m doing now with this campaign,” he added, referencing his $5,000 budget.
As national messaging has dominated campaigns up and down the ballot in Montana, the southern border was also on the minds of Rotarians who asked the candidates how they’d tackle the issue.
Congressional candidates Troy Downing and John Driscoll meet at a candidate forum at the Downtown Billings Rotary Club.
LARRY MAYER Billings Gazette
Driscoll said he wants the government to look at who is entering the country and their bona fides and then decide what to do with them. He equated that to having people come in the front door and providing a bigger front door to enter through.
Downing started his answer by acknowledging that the United States is a nation of immigrants, but said the Biden administration has “completely abandoned” the southern border.
“We have no idea who they are, what they want,” Downing said of people seeking to enter the U.S. “Some of them, I understand, are economic refugees. I was down at the border three months ago, and just walking around the wall onto the U.S. side were West Africans, Middle Eastern, Chinese, in their 20s to mid-30s, and they just get let go. … In terms of national security, it’s important that we know who was crossing our border and why.”
Downing said the U.S. should also make sure it knows what it wants out of immigration policy and ensure there are enough workers to fill jobs through things like H-1A and H-1B visas for temporary employees.
“There’s industry that needs workers, and so we need to find that balance of making sure that business is surviving because they can hire employees,” Downing said.
As for finishing the wall along the southern border, the answer was a quick “yes” for Downing and “no” for Driscoll. Downing saw a late endorsement in his primary race from former President Donald Trump, who wants to finish building a border wall if re-elected. During his 2018 run in the Senate primary, Downing faced attacks over his past criticism of Trump. Though his primary opponents this cycle raised that again, Downing has been a vocal backer of the former president in this race.
On the matter of trust in the election process, Downing said he felt Montana clerks and recorders and other election officials do a good job, though he said people need to be diligent and pointed to an issue caught in Butte-Silver Bow County in August where some ballots were initially miscounted.
“My fear is that people are going to start saying it doesn’t matter who votes, it matters who counts, and they’re going to stop voting,” Downing said. “ … Everything falls apart if we don’t participate.”
Driscoll said he wants to make sure people feel safe working in election jobs, and that not having those positions fully staffed makes running elections a challenge.
On energy policy, Driscoll raised concerns about power transmission adequacy, saying he’s worried that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Chevron ruling will open the door for an entity to sue to challenge the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order No. 1920, which directs regional transmission owners to “right-size” existing transmission lines and plan electricity transmission on a 20-year timeline.
“Then they’re going to ask people like Troy here or me maybe to fix it from Congress,” Driscoll said.
Downing said the U.S. needs to “innovate all of the above and really see what works” when it comes to energy, but that right now it’s traditional oil and gas that meets base load needs.
“What concerns me about the ideas of just flipping that switch and turning that off is nobody talks about the transitional costs,” Downing said.
He called for continuing “what we have done for reliable, cheap base load while we still explore alternatives.”
When it comes to Ukraine, Downing said while nobody wants Putin to gain ground, he sees the biggest threat as China. He called for having NATO allies “step up” and “pay what they’ve agreed to in their treaties in terms of their national defense budget as a percentage of their GDP.”
“I think (what) we need to do is really push on our allies and be clear, not waffle … be clear that we’re expecting them to be the tip of the spear,” Downing said.
As their hour-long exchange wound to its end, Driscoll finished his remarks by pointing to the looming Labor Day holiday and saying he wanted to make sure workers in industries transformed by climate change aren’t forgotten.
Congressional candidates Troy Downing and John Driscoll meet at a candidate forum at the Downtown Billings Rotary Club.
LARRY MAYER Billings Gazette
“When I see all the cars and trucks lined up in front of the bars in some small town, I know what they’re talking about. And if they’re worried, I can understand that,” Driscoll said.
Downing again called for unity across party lines and said he wanted to make sure future generations were given the opportunities he was. He’s worked to carve a path separate from Rosendale, who filled the role of a far-right firebrand in the House.
“This country has been really good to me. I want to make sure that it’s good to my kids and my grandkids and your kids and your grandkids, because it’s worth it. It’s worth fighting for,” Downing said.
The general election is Nov. 5.
Holly Michels is the head of the Montana State News Bureau. You can reach her at [email protected]
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Publish date : 2024-09-01 01:03:00
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