Gov. Greg Gianforte didn’t inherit a clean slate in January 2021.
As he took his oath of workplace, Montana was rising from its first devastating surge of coronavirus. The state’s loss of life toll was ticking up day by day. Mask mandates have been in impact on the state and native stage. Vaccines weren’t but extensively out there. Businesses, public well being officers and hospital staff struggled to navigate a consistently altering panorama. Political fissures in an already polarized nation have been deepening.
At a press convention throughout his first week in workplace, Gianforte signaled that addressing the pandemic was a high precedence — and that his method could be uniquely his personal.
“There will be changes,” he mentioned. “Some guidance and directives will be revised. Others will be removed entirely.”
Since then, the pandemic has proven the first-term Republican governor to be pragmatic, politically strategic and bullish on his philosophy of restricted authorities. His playbook is constant: Champion financial restoration and the out there vaccines, tread calmly round Montanans’ steely sense of private liberty and cut back using authorities energy.
It will not be cheap to count on that any governor’s method to the pandemic may have shut the door on COVID totally. But emergencies supply a singular alternative to look at political management in motion. A yr of dealing with the continued, ever-shifting pandemic has put Montana’s governor within the highlight.
ENDING ‘THE ECONOMIC PANDEMIC’
Gianforte’s response to the pandemic, according to his Montana Comeback Plan, has targeted closely on mitigating the financial fallout on enterprise and business, a method that has typically given quick shrift to the suggestions of pissed off public well being advocates.
“The pandemic continues,” Gianforte mentioned in a latest interview. “It’s still affecting families, but in the process, we’ve gotten our economy going again and we’ve ended the economic pandemic that was created by the prior administration.”
In his second week in workplace, Gianforte eradicated statewide restrictions on enterprise operations and social gatherings that former Gov. Steve Bullock applied close to the onset of the pandemic. In their place, Gianforte issued sparse instructions: Social gatherings ought to comply with steering from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whereas companies and colleges have been to make “reasonable efforts” to comply with “industry best practices” and public well being steering.
“We can reduce the burden on our small-business owners while simultaneously protecting the health of Montana workers and customers,” Gianforte mentioned on the time. “These are not mutually exclusive.”
About a month later, Gianforte eradicated the Bullock-era indoor masks mandate for many counties quickly after signing laws to restrict pandemic-related lawsuits towards companies. The mandate reversal got here as federal well being specialists have been doubling down on masking suggestions for indoor public areas. Gianforte’s choice sparked blowback from native public well being officers who have been making an attempt to offer constant steering to companies and shoppers however struggled to make sense of the contradictory messaging coming from above.
Whatever criticism the governor may need confronted, his prioritization of bettering the state’s financial system aligned with a precedence of Republican voters nationally. During his first month in workplace, 56% of Republicans mentioned they have been extra involved about the financial results of the pandemic than the general public well being penalties. Just 20% of Democrats agreed.
That partisan schism has persevered over the previous yr. Polling from the identical research final month discovered that 59% of Republicans and 24% of Democrats weighted the financial system over public well being. Even because the omicron variant started to take root throughout the nation, occasion affiliation mirrored one other deep divide in how folks deliberate to reply: 65% of Republicans mentioned they’d proceed regular exercise as a lot as doable, whereas the identical portion of Democrats mentioned they’d change their regular routines to prioritize private security and public well being.
“Republicans have wanted schools to be open. They have wanted businesses to be open. They think that that is part of our health as a society,” mentioned Jessi Bennion, a political science professor at Montana State University. For Democrats, she mentioned, “it’s more about COVID numbers, how hospitals are doing, how many people are vaccinated … As far as his leadership, [Gianforte] is leading in the way that Republicans want him to lead. And they would consider that a success.”
Lifting restrictions and rolling again public well being necessities have been insurance policies many Republican lawmakers championed through the 2021 session.
“The COVID virus had the people of Montana shut-in. The administration at that time had passed rules or implemented rules that made it so people couldn’t move about,” Sen. Cary Smith, R-Billings, mentioned in a speech on the Senate ground final April. “When we came to the election, the people of Montana made it clear that they did not like the tyranny that was taking place.”
“Republicans have wanted schools to be open. They have wanted businesses to be open. They think that that is part of our health as a society.”
Jessi Bennion, political science professor at Montana State University.
The insurance policies handed by the Legislature and applied by the governor, he mentioned, helped companies to remain standing.
“We’re not afraid, we’re not scared, we’re not locked in our houses,” Smith mentioned. “We’re out here.”
While Gianforte’s actions corresponded with a resurgence in Montana’s financial system, it’s troublesome to pinpoint how a lot credit score ought to go to the governor’s insurance policies.
Economist Patrick Barkey, Director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research on the University of Montana, mentioned persevering with enterprise restrictions may need put a damper on the rebound of shopper spending. But typically, he pointed to the federal emergency reduction spending of 2021 as a key purpose for why the nation’s financial system got here booming again.
“I give credit to Congress and the president for pushing that through. I think it was timely and it had an impact,” Barkey mentioned. “Obviously, the governor of Montana doesn’t have that kind of money to throw around.”
From Gianforte’s perspective, the choice to roll again mandates and restrictions was according to his total plan to unfetter the state financial system. If he needed to do it over once more, he mentioned, he would have moved quicker.
“In hindsight, mandates don’t work,” Gianforte mentioned. “And I should have gotten rid of them sooner.”
VACCINATIONS: ‘THE BEST PROTECTION’
Since his first press convention, Gianforte unequivocally affirmed the efficacy, security and logic of vaccination as a private and public well being technique, in stark distinction to the ambivalence or outright dismissal communicated by Republican officers elsewhere.
In the early months of 2021, he pushed the federal authorities to ship extra vaccines to Montana and made them out there to teams at heightened medical danger. A number of months later, he opened the door for any grownup to obtain a vaccine beginning in April, a quicker timeline than in lots of different states.
These steps helped earn him assist from the Montana Hospital Association, probably the most distinguished well being organizations within the state.
“In hindsight, mandates don’t work and I should have gotten rid of them sooner.”
gov. Greg Gianforte
“We struck the right tone on how to ensure that vaccines were made available to those that were most vulnerable, to those that were first responders, health care workers and teachers,” mentioned MHA CEO and president Rich Rasmussen, including that the governor’s vaccine coverage was one purpose why MHA supported his choice to reverse the state masks mandate. “He and his team have stood in the gaff to support hospitals … the things that hospitals have needed or they have requested, they have been supportive and have delivered on this.”
Gianforte has additionally been frank about his personal choice to get vaccinated as quickly as he was eligible and, extra just lately, to get a booster shot. His pro-vaccine message hasn’t wavered at the same time as vaccine opposition persists throughout swaths of Montana, bolstered by state lawmakers, grassroots organizations resembling Montanans for Vaccine Choice and influential conservative figures together with Montana Daily Gazette writer Jordan Hall, who in an April put up on the far-right web site criticized Gianforte for publicly selling the truth that he was vaccinated.
“Ultimately, what we do know is that vaccination is the best protection from the virus,” Gianforte instructed MTFP. “Although we won’t mandate vaccines, we are encouraging Montanans to talk with their health care adviser and get vaccinated.”
But Gianforte’s overt assist for vaccines comes with a level of political danger. Polling from late December reported that 36% of Republicans nationally are unsure or unwilling about getting the vaccine, in comparison with 15% of Democrats.
In Montana, 55% of the eligible inhabitants is vaccinated, a price that sits close to the center of charges in neighboring Mountain West states. When requested, Gianforte didn’t say whether or not he thought his vaccine messaging has been resonating with Republican constituents.
“I represent all Montanans, not just people of one party,” Gianforte mentioned. “We’re going to continue to encourage all Montanans to talk to their health care adviser and get vaccinated.”
The message has been practically an identical throughout Gianforte’s public media appearances, together with an October interview with conservative radio present Montana Talks.
“The statistics are pretty clear. Of all the people that went into the hospital here since April, with COVID, about 90%, nine out of 10, had not been vaccinated,” Gianforte instructed broadcaster Aaron Flint. “My analysis is, these vaccines are safe and effective.”
Other Republican officers have mentioned they assist Gianforte’s efforts to remind Montanans vaccines can be found, accessible, and voluntary.
“They’re ruggedly individualistic and independent-minded individuals,” mentioned Senate President Mark Blasdel, talking about the constituents of his Flathead Valley district throughout a May press convention. Blasdel mentioned he appreciated the “not a top-down mandate approach on this. To let each individual decide on their individual health care decisions and how they wanted to view the vaccination at this time.”
THE BOUNDARIES OF PRO-VACCINE MESSAGING
In interviews for this story, public well being advocates in Montana and nationally counseled the consistency of Gianforte’s pro-vaccine stance.
“It’s a good tactic. Keeping it alive in the discourse is important,” mentioned Eleanor Bergquist, an adviser with the U.S. department of Resolve to Save Lives, a worldwide well being initiative working to fight the pandemic. “Reminding people that the leader, the governor, is vaccinated and promotes and encourages it. I think that that has value.”
But some public well being specialists in Montana, who declined to talk on the document to be able to preserve their working relationship with state officers, mentioned they need the governor’s vaccine messaging would convey extra urgency and conviction, as another Republican elected officers have tried to do.
But the Gianforte administration has tread fastidiously round vaccine messaging that might spark political blowback. In November, Kaiser Health News and Montana Public Radio reported that the administration had eliminated specific references to youngsters from the state’s drafts of vaccine messaging within the spring of 2021, in keeping with a former official on the Department of Public Health and Human Services.
Gianforte instructed MTFP his administration “never ended any kind of campaign to kids” and reiterated that he believes mother and father are the very best decision-makers for his or her youngsters.
The state’s public service bulletins nonetheless don’t embody any references to childhood vaccinations, regardless of Montana’s low price of vaccine uptake in youngsters between 5 and 11. But a DPHHS spokesman confirmed to MTFP that the state signed a contract in November with the Montana Medical Association to supply $200,000 in federal reduction funds to MMA’s Your Best Shot marketing campaign, which promotes childhood vaccination on-line and in tv adverts.
Despite being the most important single supply of funding for the initiative, the DPHHS emblem will not be on any of the advertising supplies. Asked why that was the case, MMA spokesperson Lauren Lewis mentioned analysis has proven vaccine messages to be only “when coming straight from trusted local physicians and health care providers.”
In January, the state company additionally supplied $50,000 to a present card incentive program, collectively funded with non-public insurance coverage firms, to encourage folks to get their first or second vaccine shot. The program was initially applied with well being care suppliers in Montana’s 15 counties with the bottom vaccination charges and provided $25-$50 reward certificates. DPHHS spokesman Jon Ebelt mentioned the inducement program is now out there to any well being jurisdiction that desires to take part.
The Gianforte administration and DPHHS had not beforehand introduced the state’s participation in this system.
The distance between Gianforte’s pro-vaccine stance and these hot-button subtopics — monetary incentives and inoculations for younger youngsters — has contributed to the frustration expressed by some public well being advocates. They say the governor’s cautious messaging on vaccines and his near-silence about indoor masking, which is strongly beneficial by the CDC, feels altogether inadequate because the state tries to climate surging case numbers, hospitalizations and a loss of life depend that ticks up every day.
“This effort to get people vaccinated is probably the most important thing we’re doing,” mentioned one public well being knowledgeable who works for a corporation that does enterprise with the state and requested anonymity to talk candidly. “It’s not going to be solved by three sentences at the end of the press conference. It’s going to be solved by persistent, consistent efforts.”
“We are in a global pandemic,” mentioned Vicky Byrd, head of the Montana Nurses Association. “Why are you not having weekly press calls and getting those public health nurses, doctors, epidemiologists — that’s their job — out in the forefront to talk about it?”
Gianforte holds closed-door weekly COVID briefings with DPHHS Director Adam Meier, the state’s appearing lead medical officer Maggie Cook-Shimanek and the governor’s well being care coverage adviser Charlie Brereton, in addition to different workers members from DPHHS and the state’s Disaster and Emergency Services company.
Gianforte press secretary Brooke Stroyke has declined MTFP’s repeated requests to attend considered one of these conferences, citing the deliberative nature of the conversations, or to supply recordings or transcripts of the briefings. The governor’s workplace does launch weekly briefing summaries to members of the press.
‘THEY’RE NOT THE KINGS AND QUEENS’
Pressed on why his administration hasn’t taken extra steps to encourage and implement public well being precautions or present agency route on the way to restrict viral transmission in public settings, Gianforte affords a chorus as dependable as Montana’s sky is huge: private accountability.
“I’m a big believer in limited government. And I think that’s really the juxtaposition you see here. My position is I trust Montanans with their health and that of their families. The other side wants a limited set of very smart elites, off in some distant place, to run their lives for them. And that’s the contrast.”
gov. Greg Gianforte
The phrase encapsulates Gianforte’s model of libertarian-leaning conservatism, one which observers say resonates with the let-me-be political philosophy of many Montanans.
“He sounds like he has Republican ideals and ideas about how government should be run, about how much power a government should have,” Bennion mentioned. “[T]hat messaging is very powerful and it works in a state like Montana.”
Putting the ball in Montanans’ court docket to guard their very own well being, or not, is a pointy strategic distinction between Gianforte’s administration and that of former governor Bullock, a distinction the present governor embraces.
“I’m a big believer in limited government. And I think that’s really the juxtaposition you see here,” Gianforte mentioned. “My position is I trust Montanans with their health and that of their families. The other side wants a limited set of very smart elites, off in some distant place, to run their lives for them. And that’s the contrast.”
For some public well being officers, Gianforte’s emphasis on private accountability accommodates a pitfall. It undercuts the collective motion they are saying is important to guard public — not simply particular person — well being.
“When it comes right down to it, your right to swing your fist doesn’t extend to my nose,” mentioned Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who’s now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives. As with legal guidelines that deter drunk driving and regulate meals security in eating places, Frieden prompt the federal government has a job in defending the general public.
“There are ways in which our fates really do depend on one another. And I know we’ve gotten into very kind of unpleasant political discussions on these things,” he mentioned. “But we do really have very important reliance on others. And that’s just the reality.”
At the native, state and federal stage, Gianforte has vocally opposed pandemic mandates at each flip. In addition to rolling again the state masks mandate, he broadly restricted the authority of native public well being boards and officers by signing House Bill 257. Among different issues, the invoice successfully prohibits native officers from implementing masks mandates in public areas or companies.
The governor additionally signed House Bill 702, probably the most sweeping restrictions on vaccine mandates anyplace within the nation. While that laws is tied up in court docket, Gianforte has additionally championed Montana’s authorized challenges to the Biden administration’s vaccine necessities.
Last yr, Gianforte and DPHHS Director Meier additionally issued an emergency rule, citing sources that ranged from scientific papers to opinion items, instructing native faculty boards to take parental enter under consideration when drafting faculty masking guidelines. The memo mentioned science about the efficacy of masking in colleges was “not conclusive.”
“When it comes right down to it, your right to swing your fist doesn’t extend to my nose.”
Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives.
Soon after, the Montana Nurses Association blasted the rule’s suggestions as primarily based on “junk science.” A letter signed by 18 state epidemiologists criticized the division’s involvement in issuing the directive, saying a few of its claims have been “misleading and false.”
Gianforte stands by his perception in vesting energy and authority in non-public residents over public well being professionals, even whereas he mentioned these native officers have completed “yeoman’s work.”
Asked if he agrees that skilled specializations and experience are helpful for setting requirements and informing choices, Gianforte mentioned his philosophy will be understood by means of the lens of a tech firm and its prospects.
“If you were my customer, absolutely, you should tell me how to run the tech company,” Gianforte mentioned. “And the citizens of Montana are the customers of these public health officials. They’re not the kings and queens,” he added, referring to well being officers. “And so the job of government is to educate and communicate and help and provide the tools necessary. But in the end, it comes down to individual freedoms and the decisions that people make for themselves and their families.”
As Montana turned the nook from 2021 into 2022, the state’s COVID-19 loss of life toll continued to rise. 2,000 Montana deaths have been attributed to the virus in September. By Jan. 31, that quantity had grown to three,000, with greater than 18,000 lively circumstances statewide. The omicron variant, whereas diminishing in different states, was persevering with to flow into extensively in Montana.
Gianforte acknowledges that the pandemic has impacted “every single Montanan.” Going ahead, with out a capability to forecast how the virus may change and proceed to ripple throughout the state, he continues to reiterate that the vaccine is the very best useful resource for safeguarding Montanans from the virus.
“Talk to your medical professional. Get vaccinated,” he mentioned.
Asked what extra he discovered from his first yr as a pandemic-era governor, Gianforte mirrored on Montanans’ character.
“Montanans are resilient,” he mentioned. “I’m hopeful that this surge is going to diminish over the next months and we’re going to get to a place where we can get back to more normal.”
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