Bullock calls for election protections in wake of Trump threats at Helena 'No Kings' rally

More than 1,500 people spent about an hour and a half at Flag Plaza at the Montana State Capitol around midday Saturday again protesting the Trump administration in the first “No Kings” rally held since October.

The rally was held at Flag Plaza after the state Department of Administration suspended its new rule prohibiting the granting of permits for use of the plaza on weekends for at least this particular event, according to Indivisible Helena organizers Jane Smilie and Claudia Clifford.

“When we organized this rally, we were relegated to a flatbed trailer on Sixth Avenue. Because of you, 57 legislators and the media, the governor heard your outrage and suspended the new rules so that we can be here at Flag Plaza,” Clifford told the crowd to open the rally.

Montana Book Company co-owner Chelsia Rice emceed the event, whose program ran for just under an hour, featuring former Democratic Gov. and Attorney General Steve Bullock, author and former state poet laureate Chris La Tray, students from Helena and Capital High representing the Democratic Alliance of Students of Helena (DASH), a DJ and songs from the “No Kings Choir.”

La Tray, who has Little Shell and Métis heritage, compared everyone organized for Saturday’s No Kings events in Montana to tribes coming together for a powwow. Everyone comes from different backgrounds and experiences to join one another in thoughtful intertribal song, dance and prayer as one, and works to make the current world better for future generations, he said.

“That is how we make a future, is the recognition of our intertribal relationship, not just with each other, but with all our other older-than-human relatives who were here first. And call to our Creator in an act of longing for us to be created to join them in the first place,” he said. “… That relationship is what we must return to.”

Bullock was the main event, filling in for attorney and former Democratic state attorney general candidate Raph Graybill, who had to miss the rally due to family circumstances. The politician-turned-bar-owner roused those spread across the Meagher statue plaza and surrounding Capitol lawn with a speech highlighting what he said was the current tenuousness of the Republic and rule of law under President Donald Trump and his administration.

Helena’s rally was one of 28 planned across Montana on Saturday and one of thousands nationwide.

“We join in recognizing that, well, this is a challenging time in this 250-year experiment called representative democracy. The power of our actions, our words and our deeds is what will preserve this nation for the next 250 years,” Bullock told the crowd. “Look, democracy is not an outcome, and it’s not something handed down by the Founders and guaranteed forever. It’s a process; and it’s a process worth protecting.”

Bullock told the crowd his confidence in the rule of law was “shaken” by Trump and his administration’s actions in court cases, on the streets of American cities, and with his pardons. He said he was particularly bothered by the U.S. Department of Justice's raids of state and local elections offices in recent months and the administration's consistent rhetoric threatening upcoming elections.

Bullock said the administration’s and some Republican’s push to pass the SAVE America Act, supported by Montana’s Republican U.S. Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy and GOP Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, would disenfranchise some legal voters with new stringent ID requirements if it were adopted.

Bullock also slammed Jacobsen for using nearly $200,000 in federal Help America Vote Act grant money to send out 466,000 mailers to Montanans earlier this year with a photo of her Photoshopped next to Trump that pushed the message that “only citizens should be allowed to vote,” which is already the law in Montana. Her spending of that money will be scrutinized by the Legislative Audit Division, the Montana State News Bureau reported Friday.

The office of Jacobsen, who is also running for the GOP nomination for Montana’s First Congressional District, has worked with the Trump administration’s SAVE tool to identify potential non-citizen voters. Trump’s attempts to force senators to pass the SAVE America Act has also been crucial in stymying bipartisan efforts to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown over the past several weeks.

“Here at home, we don’t know what Christi Jacobsen has given to Trump’s DOJ. She has time to send us taxpayer-funded mailers, time to campaign for her next job. But she hasn’t made the time to tell us whether she’s given the federal government our personal and private information,” he said.

“If we don’t fight for our elections, we’ll have nothing else to fight for,” Bullock later added. “I believe this is the time for us to ask, ‘Enough. Where is my red line?’”

Bullock said it was time to stop booing and start organizing further in the lead-up to the June primaries and November general election if Montanans are fed-up with what he said was the ongoing corruption of Trump and his administration. It’s also time to be sure people register to vote and help campaigns they support, he said.

“You know, politicians always say this is the more important election in our lifetime. Is it? Maybe,” Bullock said. “Only history can judge whether this is the most important election of our lives. But I’ll be damned if it’s the last.”