Last month we told you about the former state director for Convention of States Iowa who decided to run for state office. Today we have more good news!
Tracy Schuster, a Convention of States volunteer in Montana, is also running for her state legislature, and she's doing it (in part) to champion the Article V movement.
Check out this coverage from The Courier:
For Tracy Schuster, running for House District 34 is about getting involved as a citizen and doing her part towards better governance. She says that she feels called to serve, citing the direction of the country and her view that what is happening in America is not what is best for this country.
"I think a lot of the political scene has become so vitriolic that people kind of pull away from it, they tune it out," said Schuster discussing the political environment in the country. "That just allows them [politicians] to run amok even more and I think D.C. is too corrupt."
Schuster filed in January as a Republican running in HD 34, which covers northeast Glasgow up to Opheim, over to Plentywood and down to Culbertson, cutting out a large portion of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. She will be challenging incumbent Republican Rhonda Knudsen, of Culbertson, for the party's nomination. The race for the nomination is likely to establish the actual representative as well since Knudsen ran completely unopposed in the primary and general election in 2018.
The would-be noaminee says that she decided to get involved in politics after joining "Convention of States," a non-partisan political outreach organization that Schuster says exists, "to reign in the federal government, kind of hold them accountable, to address the national debt. The federal government is getting out of their jurisdiction and stomping on states' rights and term limits. That's their platform."
Schuster says her involvement in the organization helped her to overcome a feeling of helplessness as one individual, encouraged her to get involved in the political process and do something about it to make a difference. She says she lobbied the legislature about the platform and found that a lot of them were not "championing" the platform, so she decided to run herself.[...]
In response to a question about [incumbent] Rhonda Knudsen, Schuster said that she was not so much running against Knudsen as much as she was running for Convention States, something she says she could not convince Knudsen to champion during her time in the House. As a result, Schuster decided to champion the issue herself and run for office.
"[Convention States] is one area that I am 100 percent committed to," explains Schuster. "I think the state legislatures need to step up and be the guardians of states' rights-federalism, whatever you want to call it. That's their primary role as a body and they are neglecting that." She went on to say that Montana should stay Montana and Montanans should decide for Montana.
Way to go, Tracy!
If you'd like to learn about getting involved in the Article V movement in your state, sign the petition below or visit the Take Action page.
Photo: Glasgow Courier
