Opponents see dysfunction in Cascade County Commission office

A self-described constitutional conservative, Cascade County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski found it frustrating to have a primary challenger from her own party.

“I’m pretty confused about why there’s another Republican running against me,” Grulkowski said. “It just shows how screwed up this Republican party is.”

That challenger, Eric Hinebauch, is not only a fellow party member but the chair of the Cascade County Republican Central Committee. Close watchers may have seen this contest coming after a tumultuous year for the Cascade County government that saw Grulkowski at the center of prominent conflicts.

Grulkowski has been a staunch supporter of Sandra Merchant, the Cascade County clerk and recorder. Merchant’s handling of local elections led to lawsuits, accusations of mismanagement and, ultimately, the decision to strip Merchant of elections oversight altogether and appoint another administrator to take over.

Hinebauch said that the climate in county government motivated him to run for the District 3 seat.

“It’s no surprise to anyone, I think, that the county right now is pretty dysfunctional,” Hinebauch said. “Everybody across the state of Montana has seen the news about the Cascade County Elections Office. I just think there’s a lack of trust right now with county leadership, and that office has really highlighted that.”

This primary race may shed light on how local Republicans feel about Grulkowski’s actions in office and her clashes with the two other Republican commissioners. It’s also a local example of a larger Republican fault line. Hinebauch is a more traditional Republican who preaches small government but has said he isn’t afraid to gather bipartisan support. Grulkowski runs to the right of that position with a more Trumpian strain of GOP politics that is often adversarial to government.

Both candidates hope to win their first full term on the Board of Commissioners.

COMMISSIONERS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Normally held for six-year terms, the District 3 commissioner seat has been occupied by three people since 2021 when Democrat Commissioner Jan Weber resigned. Commissioners appointed Don Ryan to hold the position until the 2022 election, which Grulkowski won over Ryan. But the law requires another election for the seat in 2024, which marks the end of Weber’s original term and restores order to the staggered elections of commissioners.

Grulkowski described her first year in office as “pretty awful.” She felt targeted last November when the two other commissioners, Jim Larson and Joe Briggs, voted to change the ordinance that established a schedule for rotating board chairpersons. Having assumed Weber’s term, Grulkowski was the designated chair at the time. At a public meeting, Briggs noted Grulkowski’s lack of experience before presenting the new ordinance that would remove Grulkowski’s chair title. Briggs and Larson voted against Grulkowski to make the change. Larson is the board chair today.

Soon after, grievances against Grulkowski’s ally, the county clerk and recorder, reached their peak. Merchant faced complaints of election mismanagement all year, which included lawsuits and a formal request from Great Falls Public Schools to remove Merchant from election administration.

Grulkowski remained Merchant’s steadfast ally.

“I was staying in tune with the elections office,” she told Montana Free Press. “I know that she was doing a good job.”

On Dec. 12, the commission voted to strip Merchant of her election duties during a public meeting that had to be held at the Montana ExpoPark to accommodate the crowd. More than 100 public commenters spoke for and against Merchant. Grulkowski was the lone vote against the motion, which also led to the appointment of Terry Thompson as a staff elections administrator.

That episode isn’t water under the bridge for Grulkowski, though she explained her position as a reflection of those who elected her in the first place.

“If the people continue to let me know what they’re telling me, which is that was a dirty deal, then I will absolutely be all in for rescinding that resolution,” she said.

If she wins the primary and retains her seat in the general election, Grulkowski noted that she wants to strengthen county criminal justice services such as drug counseling, mental health services and detention.

Growth in the county is anticipated with coming projects like a new Montana State University nursing school building and the Air Force’s Sentinel missile update that could bring thousands of workers to the area. Grulkowski said that she would work to ensure that county infrastructure gets attention to handle the added strain. On the topic of growth, she also spoke about being careful about who ends up joining the Cascade County community.

“One of the focuses is safety. We don’t know who our neighbors are so much these days,” she said. “With that, just safety in general. Who are the people who are coming into our communities?”

AN ESTABLISHMENT CHALLENGER

Hinebauch runs an insurance agency but has some public service experience. After a third-place finish for the Great Falls City Commission in 2021, he was appointed to a city commission seat following the resignation of Terry Houck.

Hinebauch also ran unsuccessfully for the Great Falls Public Schools Board of Trustees in 2020 and to retain his city commission spot in 2023.

He said that the drama over elections administration was a bad look for county government, especially with the interruption of duties for someone in the middle of an elected term. But he’s not interested in revisiting the issue.

“What’s happened has happened, and now we have a hired elections administrator,” he said. “And we need to get behind her and get her the resources and support that she needs to make sure that office gets back to a level of stability.”

Like Grulkowski, Hinebauch has his eye on the impact of population growth in Cascade County.

He said he wants to improve the city-county relationship so that Great Falls’ growth doesn’t negatively impact the county. He also hopes to make compensation packages more attractive to recruit key staff, starting with insurance offerings. Hinebauch also said that key infrastructure needs to be looked after.

“While we’re talking about the impact of the Sentinel Project, make sure that we’re planning accordingly,” he said. “We’re going to need some housing production around here. I know a lot of that needs to be done in the city of Great Falls, but there are also opportunities to do this in the county.”

CONTRAST AMONG REPUBLICANS

Grulkowski said that her style of conservatism promotes a bottom-up, participatory approach.

“I would be more conservative than a lot of other Republicans that I know in values, money, finances, recreational pot issues,” she said. “I’m not for recreational pot.”

She added property rights and federal land management to her areas of interest. Grulkowski was a key figure against the national heritage area proposals of 2020, a saga that was featured in The New York Times.

Among Grulkowski’s primary contributors are Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras, the Great Falls attorney who has also endorsed Grulkowski.

Hinebauch said that he’s fiscally conservative and in favor of small government, but he has “relationships across the spectrum” of political ideology. This infighting between traditional Republicans and newer, more partisan GOP opponents is not uncommon in national, state, and local politics.

“They want to call us RINOs or whatever. I think that’s hogwash,” he said. “If you think there’s a problem in government, the answer isn’t to burn it down. The answer is to make things more efficient, more cost-effective.”

Among Hinebauch’s contributors is current County Commissioner Joe Briggs.

The winner of June’s Republican primary will see Ryan return to the Democratic ticket for the general election in November. Grulkowski won by a 10-point margin over Ryan in 2022.

District 3 covers the central southern areas of Cascade County, generally south of the Missouri River. The county mailed ballots to voters on May 10, and they must be returned by the close of polls on Election Day, June 4.

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