Montana has more reasons than most to celebrate America’s 250th
Jul 14, 2026 | 6:11 am ET
Description
The Preamble of the Montana Constitution (Courtesy of Windy Mill Press).
Montanans, more than most states this year, have a reason to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.
The Treasure State’s state constitution, brought to life in 1971-72 by Montana’s current grandparents, reminds you and the rest of our country that “in the 406,” “We the People” have a legal and moral high ground to stand on while searching for answers to the crises of our today and tomorrows – like income disparity, education and health for all, freedom to believe what you want, rights to guns. Things like how to fight global climate change that is triggering droughts, bizarre summer blizzards and Western wildfires that have increased almost 247% in two decades, creating smoke that fills the Big Sky with warnings of what has now come to pass.
Montana’s 54-year old Constitution was born from Montanans celebrating America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution and the fights of regular citizens to free the state and their lives from Big Money’s corruption – free from control by the Copper Kings who gleefully wrote the state’s 1889 Constitution to keep themselves in power. Those Copper Kings rolled billions of dollars out of the state and into their pocketbooks while saying to hell with open democratic government “by and for the people.”
Big Money shenanigans are an historic battle we are all again facing when already in 2026, at least $3.1 billion – often in “dark money” – is targeting all of America’s elections and government operations.
All that comes amidst terrifying times with plagues like COVID-19, ever changing wars in the Middle East, “heat domes” killing thousands of people from France to Texas and Ohio, “public servants” in government raking in billions of dollars in questionable “family” investments. While China is absorbing power once held by the United States, evil communism’s successor autocracy in Russia is bombing schools in nearby countries to clone the U.S.S.R. that American Presidents from Truman to Reagan defeated. And the frightening rise of artificial intelligence as in the “Terminator” movies, all while one-in-four children in New York City go to bed hungry and malnourished each and every night.
Lucinda Williams, the songstress who captivated the 406 with her like-where-you-are song “Car Wheels On A Gravel Road,” now fills Montanans’ streaming services and car radios singing “everybody knows the world’s gone wrong.”
The world is what it is. And what we can make it.
Lucky Montanans have their wondrous state Constitution to help them stand tall and fight back.
That Constitutional Convention in 1972 was a major mid-century effort to fight back against Big Money by doing logical, democracy-enhancing things like regulating lobbyists.
The Montana Constitution now means legislative votes/actions are recorded and virtually all governmental meetings are announced and open to the public. There is no longer a shroud of secrecy as Montanans have a constitutional right-to-know and participate. Your bipartisan reapportionment commission ensures legislative political power reflects our electorate. All Montanans regardless of wealth, race, creed, gender or religion now are equally empowered.
This Shelby and UM soul was lucky to be the Research Analyst for the General Government committee of the Constitutional Convention. One dark Watergate evening two years later, as my first novel was being made into a Robert Redford movie, while I was on the staff of the great Montana Sen. Lee Metcalf, and after a grueling Senate meeting in which he defended the state, I mentioned “Con-Con.” I told him I thought that my work there might be the most important thing I’d ever do.
Lee looked at his staffer – me – and said: “You’re right.”
He was right then. He is right now.
So, Montanans, celebrate your great place to stand. And stand tall with solid footing on your Constitution.
James Grady’s first written-in-Montana novel became the movie “Three Days Of The Condor.” His 2026 novel “Shadows On Sidewalks” is set in Montana. He’s published nearly 20 other novels, been an American muckraker, a Hollywood screenwriter, has received literary awards in France, Italy, Japan, Britain and America. A Shelby, Montana product, he now lives inside D.C.’s Beltway.
Helena, MT
