Alani Bankhead on the Issues — U.S. Senate, Montana
Alani Bankhead is a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in Montana. Her positions on the issues are below. Enable JavaScript for the full interactive, searchable version.
Government Accountability
Show up, and answer for the work. For twenty-one years I was accountable for life-and-death decisions, and I never got to hide from the outcome. Washington shouldn’t get to either.
Housing
A Montana paycheck should buy a Montana home. A Montana paycheck should be able to buy a Montana home. Right now it can’t, and longtime owners get taxed just for trying to move.
Healthcare
Keep rural hospitals open. When the nearest hospital is a hundred miles away, people don’t drive farther for care; they go without it.
Protecting the Vulnerable
A record of putting child predators in prison. I’ve spent more than two decades on the front lines of child protection, building the cases that put child sex abusers in jail. I’ll bring that same fight to the Senate.
Relief for Our Seniors
A lifetime of work shouldn’t end in poverty. Montanans who spent a lifetime working shouldn’t be taxed out of the homes where they raised their families.
Reproductive Freedom
Reproductive freedom: trust people, not the government. Let me be direct: protecting a woman’s right to choose helps all Montanans. In 2022 the Supreme Court took away a constitutional right for the first time in our history, and Montanans answered by voting to enshrine the right to make our own pregnancy decisions in our state constitution.
Public Lands
Public lands stay public: period. No selling of public lands ever. No opening up public lands for exploitation ever. I support corner crossing. Period.
Education
Schools worth the next generation. Montana has the lowest starting teacher pay in the nation, about $36,682, dead last. That’s how you lose the next generation of teachers, and the next generation of kids right behind them.
Agriculture
Stand with the people who feed the country. Montana agriculture feeds the nation, and family operations are getting squeezed out by rising costs and consolidation. I’ll have their back.
Bringing Down Everyday Costs
Lower the price of a normal life. The price of groceries and gas is a national security issue. What’s the point of protecting our borders if families can’t afford to live behind them?
Tribal Nations & Native Priorities
Sovereignty, safety, and keeping our word. Our nation’s history with Indigenous people is one I’m passionate about helping to heal. On this campaign we don’t ask anything of the tribes; we support, and keep supporting, until our Native American neighbors decide we’re worthy of their trust: by listening, keeping promises, and matching our…
Data Centers
On public lands? No. Anywhere else? Prove it first.. AI and large-scale data centers on public lands are a “no” for me: period. Everywhere else, they’re built by some of the richest companies on earth, chasing the biggest tax breaks they can find, and no one has required honest environmental studies or full disclosure of what they’ll cost us in…
Guns & Community Safety
A gun owner who takes safety seriously. I own guns, I use guns, and for twenty-one years I carried one for a living. I respect what firearms mean in Montana, for hunting, for sport, and for protecting your own family. That is not up for debate with me.
Environment & Conservation
Conservation isn’t partisan; it’s a responsibility. I’m a third-generation protector of life, and I can’t stand a bully, and right now, Montana’s environment is being bullied. My husband spent his career as a federal agent, including with the EPA, and refused to be part of rolling those protections back. I bring that same conviction.
Immigration & Border Security
Secure the border, fix a broken system, treat people like people. I double-majored in Latin American Studies and Criminal Justice because I wanted to take down drug lords for a living. My family was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá during the Escobar years, and I saw up close how America’s own drug demand, and our government’s meddling in the region,…
Accessibility & Disability Rights
Nothing about us without us. I don’t come to this from a briefing binder; I come to it from showing up, even when it’s inconvenient, and listening directly to disabled Montanans and their families about what their lives actually require.
Courts & Judicial Reform
Restore trust in the courts. A Court that accepts undisclosed gifts and overturns long-settled rights has lost the confidence of many Americans. I support real reform to restore that trust.
National Security & War Powers
Congress must reclaim its war powers. The founders made going to war hard on purpose; it was meant to take Congress, and the whole country, deciding together. Over the decades we’ve drifted away from that, into a country that can stay at war for twenty years on a single vote most people never debated.
LGBTQ+ Montanans
Live and let live, and that applies to everyone. Every human being deserves basic dignity and respect. This is about human rights, and I will never tolerate hate of any kind, projected at any group of people.
Veterans
I know what veterans have sacrificed, and we have a duty to keep our word. I gave twenty-one years to the Air Force. I know what this country asks of the people who wear the uniform, and I’ve seen how often it comes up short when they take it off. I won’t stay quiet about that.
Israel & Palestine
Not our wars: stop underwriting the suffering in Gaza. I’ve spent my career protecting the vulnerable and holding the powerful to account, and I can’t look away from what the Israeli government is doing to civilians in Gaza. Tens of thousands are dead, a majority of them women and children, and Gaza now holds the largest number of child amputees in…
Energy
Affordable, reliable, Montana-made, with real choices. Montana’s electric cooperatives were built on a simple idea: neighbors banding together to power the places the big utilities wouldn’t. That same spirit should guide our energy future, and my first priority is keeping power affordable and reliable. Rural families and farmers already stretch every…
Special Education
Keep the promise Washington made to our kids. Every parent of a child with an IEP knows the drill: fight to get the services, then fight again to keep them. Washington promised to pay 40% of the cost and pays about 13%, so that fight lands on Montana classrooms and Montana families.
Jobs & Wages
A day’s work should cover a day’s life. Nobody working full-time in Montana should live in poverty, and right now too many do. Work should pay enough to keep a roof overhead and food on the table. That is not radical; it is the deal this country used to keep.
