Could a candidate whose name doesn't even appear on the ballot end up winning next week's special election for the 197th district statehouse seat? Cheri Honkala, a longtime activist in the city, sure thinks she can. "I am absolutely convinced we'll win," she said Thursday morning in her modest second-floor campaign office near North Sixth and Venango streets. "For people around here, this isn't a normal election. It won't be zombies going to the polls. People have a vested interest, and they know I've been around for 30 years." Continue reading

  KIRA VERCRUYSSEN, Missoulian: Leticia Romero, left, asks Montana's Green Party representative, Thomas Breck, to explain more about the political branch between the line-up of events for the 2017 Montana Green Party Convention. "I'm a single mother and wanted to learn more about what the Green Party has to offer," Romero said. The Montana Green Party held its first statewide convention in 10 years Saturday at the University of Montana's Payne Family Native American Center, where party supporters appointed committee members, elected a candidate for the upcoming special election and heard from Green Party 2016 presidential nominee Jill Stein via Skype. Continue reading

More than 10 years after the Montana Green Party last held a convention, the party meets in Missoula this month with renewed enthusiasm. Party organizer Danielle Breck, who will graduate from the University of Montana this May with a degree in philosophy, says that in light of last year's election, she and other Greens feel they have more to offer progressives than Democrats do. "We think it's super-important that we have the progressive voice be heard," Breck says. "Even Democrats that have made it into the state Legislature, they're moderate, and we don't really feel like they represent us and our ideals." Continue reading