Mark Winters for Senate District 11

Who am I?

I was born and raised in Great Falls. I am a 4th generation Montanan on both sides. My dad’s family immigrated to Colstrip from Germany, while my mom’s family immigrated to Rapelje from Ireland and the Netherlands. I am a product of the Great Falls Public School System. I graduated CMR in 1981 and from MSU with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1986. After graduation, I had to leave the State to find a good paying job, like many people in that time. I spent 35 years working for Arco/BP. 18 years in Bellingham, Washington and 17 years in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. In 2022, I returned with my wife of 34 years to my hometown of Great Falls. I am very happy to be back to enjoy the mountains, rivers, lakes and other treasures of the Treasure State.

My father was a history teacher at East Junior High and then moved to CMR when it opened in 1965, retiring in 1985. My mother was a stay-at-home mom until 1975, when she went to work as the Service Manager for Dick Grieb Buick, the first woman service manager for GM in the United States. She later went to work for Johnson Distributing when Dick Grieb Buick shutdown.

What is important to me?

Job Growth and Opportunity

Because I had to leave my beloved hometown and state to find a job when I completed college, creating opportunities for good paying jobs in Cascade County is very personal to me. When I was in high school, with a graduating class of over 700 students, the debate was whether Great Falls or Billings was going to be bigger. Growth is, of course, a double-edged sword and needs to be well managed, but without the growth of good paying jobs and the growth of the tax base, the County will decay.

Conservation

It is up to us to protect the natural environment that we have been given. My wife has her Bachelor of Science in Biology, and we enjoy nurturing the plants and trees on our property, so the wildlife can enjoy the sanctuary we have tried to create. I do not support commercial wind farms, because they destroy the viewscape, kill thousands of birds and bats and create a microclimate that is different than the natural environment. They are also incredibly inefficient. I also don’t support commercial solar farms because they alter the ecosystem below the array and are also very inefficient. I strongly support better control of point sources, which should all have best available control technology (BACT). I also strongly support residential renewable energy, which has hugely untapped potential.

Hunting and fishing are critical to maintaining the ecosystem in our State, and I fully support hunting and fishing rights.

Affordability

Efforts in Helena in recent years to address the affordability crisis in our State and County have hardly skimmed the surface. The challenges for low-income individuals, families and seniors and are very real and are on a trajectory to become even worse without significant legislative intervention. Legislation in Helena should be focused on these economically vulnerable groups. Any legislation should consider the impacts on these groups, whether intended or unintended.

Criminal Justice Reform

Our criminal justice system is fundamentally broken. It is not serving anyone well and has not significantly improved over that past few decades. A serious effort is needed to look at the root causes of the problems within the criminal justice system and address these root causes in a sustainable way. No one should be disadvantaged due to lack of financial resources. Incarceration needs to be balanced with other modern methods of punishment, and it should be viewed from the lens of whether incarceration will, on balance, benefit society in the long run.

Getting rid of career politicians and getting back to the intent of term limits

In 1992, the Montana voters passed CI-64 to implement term limits in Montana with 66.9% of voters voting in favor of instituting term limits. The intent of the voters was clear - to limit Montana State House and Senate service to a maximum of eight years in a 16-year period. The voters wanted to get rid of career politicians in Helena and give other people a chance to participate in government. Unfortunately, the language allowed some opportunities for loopholes to be exploited, which is exactly what career politicians in Helena have done.

If you feel my views will represent your interests, I would appreciate your vote on June 2nd.

Find out more about the legislation I plan to introduce in the 2027 Legislation and 2029 Legislation pages.

Also check out my perspective on what it means to be a Kennedy Democrat on the “A Kennedy Democrat?” page.

Paid for by Mark Winters, PO Box 19, Black Eagle, MT, 59414