and instead go join the president s cabinet. ryan zinke, montana s only member of congress, he s also the new nominee to be secretary of the interior. now he hasn t been confirmed yet, democrats have managed to slow down most of the cabinet confirmation process, although we re going to report later on tonight that one of the cabinet nominees republicans were able to rush through they may be having second thoughts about him, some buyers remorse on one they were able to get done but ryan zinke is still on ice. there s been some concern over him getting disciplined during his navy career for falsifying travel records so he d get reimbursed for travel he shouldn t have been reimbursed for, some controversy around that, aside from that though it is still broadly expected that he s going to get confirmed. he is going to get the job. maybe it will happen sometime in march they ll confirm him? whenever they confirm him, at that point that will start the process of montana holding a special ele
would be administered in their state. they shouldn t be lobbying to purposely waste hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to try to tilt the playing field against democrats and make it harder to vote. even the initial republican sponsor of the vote-by-mail bill she s a republican. she says she doesn t get it. personally i d rather get beat in an election with a good turnout than win in an election with low turnout. but apparently her party is not with her on that, even in red state montana her party appears to be scared about holding onto ryan zinke s congressional seat, scared to the point they re trying to make it harder to vote on purpose when it comes time for that next election. no one knows your ford better than ford. and ford service. right now, get the works! a synthetic blend oil change, tire rotation, brake inspection and more for $29.95 or less. [dramatic ic begins] ready! charge! charge! (in chinese) charge! let your reign begin.
the state were begging to do it that way and republicans put forward a bill to do the election that way, everybody vote by mail. now today, rrr, u-turn. the chair of the montana republican party has put out an emergency report saying that bill must be blocked. the election can t be by mail because if the election is run by mail-in ballot, too many people will vote, and then republicans will lose that seat, and now that bill, even though it s sponsored by republicans now it is in jeopardy. what s going to happen here? d what does this mean about montana and what doe this mean about the country? joining us nows montana s democratic governor steve bullock. governor, thank you very much for being here. it s really nice to have you here. it s great to be with you tonight, rachel, for sure. have i summarized what s going on right with this bill? am i right that this was a republican sponsored bill in the house and the senate but right now we don t know what s going to happen? well that
died, led to a lot of kind tributes to him in montana from people across the state, people across the ideological spectrum. but one of the practical nuts and bolts and indeed financial consequences of mike fellows dying right before that election, after he had qualified for the libertarian line on the ballot in that congressional election is that it cost counties across montana a lot of money for that election. there s a law in montana that s very strict about ballots for every election having to be absolutely correct so when mike fellows died just a few weeks before the election every single county in the state had to shred all of their ballots that they had printed already and they had to reprint all new ballots for the november election, and that, among other things, made the 2016 november election in montana the most expensive election that state has ever had. added to that factor about that guy passing away, it was also a very high turnout election. it was an unusually long ballot
gets confirmed to the cabinet, it s likely that the race to replace him in congress will be, i don t know, may? june? early june? i don t know. here s the thing though. across that state, the county clerks and elections administrators, the people who actually run elections county by county across that state, those clerks have started squawking. they have started raising the alarm about the cost of that election, because remember, montana just had the most expensive statewide election they have ever had this past november. counties hadn t budgeted extra money for it. it was 50% me expensive than they thought it would be, 50% more than any election.