Helena, Montana — A Place for People Who Like Power

By Michael Kelman Portney

Helena is small by capital city standards. Barely 30,000 people. A downtown you can walk in twenty minutes. A single strip of marble that holds the entire Legislature. And yet, if you know Montana politics, you know that Helena has never needed size to command power.

Power here is personal. It moves through handshakes in the marble hallways, lunches at the same café you’ve been eating at since law school, and phone calls you never hear about. The deals aren’t made on the floor under the dome — they’re made in the back hall, or two blocks away over coffee, long before a bill or a judge’s name hits the record.

From Copper Collar to Open Doors

For decades, Montana’s government was famously closed. Under the old 1889 Constitution, legislative sessions could — and often did — go behind closed doors. Lobbyists kept offices across from the Capitol and walked in as if they owned the place. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company didn’t just have influence; it had a grip on Helena that Montanans called the “Copper Collar.”

The 1972 Constitutional Convention cracked that collar. Delegates threw open the doors, banned closed legislative sessions, and wrote the public’s “right to know” into the state’s highest law. The marble halls became more transparent — at least in theory.

The Circle That Never Left

Transparency didn’t dissolve the circle; it just made it smaller and quieter. Helena’s legal and political worlds are still tight. Judges, prosecutors, lobbyists, legislators — most came through the same few professional channels. Many know each other from the University of Montana’s single law school, or from clerkships, or from the same political campaigns decades ago.

It’s not that every decision is corrupt. It’s that in Helena, there’s an understanding: you don’t blindside people in your own circle. And if you’re in the circle, you might get the benefit of the doubt.

Judges in the Governor’s Office

When the Legislature gave Governor Greg Gianforte sole authority to fill judicial vacancies in 2021, the official line was efficiency. The unofficial effect was access. If you’re the right name with the right backing, you can land on the shortlist — and maybe at the top of it — no matter how the advisory council ranked you.

In one recent appointment, the council’s top pick had nine first-place votes out of eleven members. The appointee the governor chose had one. Nobody needed to say why. In Helena, reasons travel faster by word of mouth than by press release.

The Meeting That’s Not a Meeting

The 1972 Constitution says the public has a right to watch lawmakers work. But in 2021, a House committee chairman recessed a hearing, gathered just under a quorum of his party in a side room, and talked through bills out of sight. Not enough people in the room to legally be a meeting, he said — but enough to decide how the vote would go when the “real” meeting resumed.

It’s a perfect example of Helena logic: if the rules get in the way, step around them without leaving footprints.

Above the Law, or Just Above the Rest?

In 2021, legislative leaders tried to seize thousands of internal judicial branch emails, accusing judges of lobbying against their bills. The Supreme Court ordered the records returned. To the justices, it was about separation of powers. To their critics, it was the judiciary protecting its own. In Helena, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.

A Place for People Who Like Power

Helena isn’t built for spectacle. It’s built for people who like to know things first, decide things early, and have the conversations that matter before anyone else even sees the agenda. It’s for people who understand that in Montana, the public face of power is polite — but the real thing moves in a quieter room, just out of sight.

If you’re in that room, Helena is yours. If you’re not, you might not even know it exists.