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Wildlands need policy advocacy from Browning

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We enthusiastically support Gerry Browning’s candidacy for Montana House District 12. Some past local representatives were polarizing and seemed to use their elective offices as mere stepping stones to other offices. We are confident that Gerry will reach across party lines in the Legislature and will represent her constituents and assist them. Her longtime residence and proactive role in our community has served to make her an outstanding candidate for this office.

Gerry is a seasoned healthcare advocate and well-versed on people’s current healthcare frustrations.  She is aware of the benefits of Medicare expansion that helped 90,000 Montanans obtain good quality healthcare and assisted our small rural community hospitals in staying open. She will work toward legislation to lower prescription drug costs, an economic hardship for many, especially the elderly.

Gerry is a strong advocate for Montana’s amazing public lands that are an extremely valuable economic benefit to all Montanans. Past efforts by some Montana legislators attempted to sell off our public lands to corporate and wealthy private buyers with records of closing access. Gerry will be a “public lands in public hands” advocate that we have not had in this area for a long time.

Montana’s economy has both benefitted and suffered from natural resources development and management. Benefits have been achieved with reasonable and well-planned utilization of forest, rangeland and water resources; however, our landscape is littered with abandoned mining and energy development sites and wells. Corporate exploiters made their profits and then walked away, leaving Montanans to cover the cleanup costs. Many of these sites have resulted in pollution of our waters, degradation of local wildlife populations and their habitats and ongoing health problems and deaths for our fellow Montanans. These abuses must stop and corporate responsibility must be required. Gerry will be a strong advocate for fighting against these abuses and holding these industry polluters accountable for their damages. She will also be a strong advocate for the development and enhancement of clean energy resources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric energy and the new jobs that these sources will generate.

Our children and our grandchildren are our personal and collective treasures. They are our investments in our own futures, but many young people need assistance by well–trained and qualified teachers, which requires adequate funding. We know of many teachers whose workdays extend well into the evening while they work on lesson plans, special learning projects and ongoing education for themselves for the betterment of the education of their students. Many pay for basic school supplies for their students because there is no money in school budgets for those items. We put our children’s and grandchildren’s lives and futures in teachers’ hands for a third or more of their time for their 14 years of K-12 education, and these teachers do an incredible job, but they need support from legislators.  Gerry will be a strong and enthusiastic advocate for our public schools, students and their parents. She will also work to find ways to invest in college and university programs, trade school programs and lower interest student funding opportunities.

Economic issues are always in the forefront of any election season. Gerry has been the owner and operator of two local main street businesses. She clearly understands the challenges that small business owners and small towns face, especially in these difficult days. She realizes the many benefits of encouraging new small business entrepreneurs, as well as larger employers to move to Montana and create good-paying jobs with good benefits for employees. 

In closing, we strongly encourage you to vote to elect Gerry Browning to the Montana House of Representatives in House District 12. She will represent you well and work hard during and between legislative sessions for all of her constituents.

 

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