While the federal policy debate can look stultified, some states are making huge changes. Over the past few years, Montana lowered taxes, conducted a Red Tape Relief Initiative, redid its housing regulations and more. I speak with Frontier Institute CEO Kendall Cotton about it for the Overton Window podcast.

“Montanans are more free than they were in 2021. We have a lot of wins to celebrate here in Montana,” Cotton says.

“It is standing in stark contrast to what you see in Washington, D.C., where there’s partisan gridlock and no one can agree on anything,” Cotton says. “In Montana, we’ve done almost the exact opposite.”

The state has grown a lot over the past few decades, and Cotton attributes much of this to the state’s natural advantages. “We really have something special here in Montana. You can be working at your office job, get off work at five, and then 20 minutes later, be on the mountain bike path or be fishing a blue ribbon trout stream,” he says.

“The biggest issues that Montana is dealing with can be traced back to a supply problem. There aren’t enough homes. There’s not enough education, health care; you name it, we don’t have enough,” Cotton says. “It is a good opportunity to focus on reducing the barriers to creating more of whatever it is.”

State lawmakers authorized direct primary care, where people pay a subscription and receive concierge services from doctors. They expanded scope of practice for medical practitioners, letting qualified nurses, pharmacists and others provide services other states reserve exclusively for medical doctors.

“We have 12 counties that don’t even have local primary care doctors. So when people there need a prescription, they have to drive an hour into town or more,” Cotton says.

They’ve also looked at the requirement to get state approval to open up medical businesses, also known as Certificate of Need laws. “I know a lot of other states are dealing with Certificate of Need laws and Montana was able to come together and eliminate just about all of them.”

This has been a challenging task for lawmakers in many other states, including Montana. Existing hospitals and other medical businesses tend to prefer the restrictions and are often potent political players.

Bills to eliminate these laws had been approved by the Legislature in 2019 but were vetoed by the state’s Democratic governor. A new governor and Republican supermajorities revisited the issue.

Cotton also says it was popular to try to expand medical businesses. “Legislators were looking for any ideas they could grab onto that would help expand the amount of health care businesses in the state and increase access for patients,” he says.

They also made it legal to build more types of housing in Montana. Zoning rules had eliminated the ability to build all but detached, single-family homes in most of the cities of the state.

“We broadly expanded the freedom of property owners statewide to build affordable types of starter homes, like duplexes and accessory dwelling units on their property, in addition to single family homes, if they choose,” Cotton says. “Montana was dealing with a severe housing crisis, and we addressed it directly with free market reforms.”

Cotton and his colleagues at the Frontier Institute informed the debate on the issue with the Montana Zoning Atlas. It compiled all of the zoning ordinances in the state to demonstrate that people could not build multifamily housing on 70% of city land.

Cotton summarized Gov. Greg Gianforte’s approach: “We don’t need to try for a Hail Mary every single time. Let’s just focus on the five yard wins, and incrementally over time, we’re going to completely transform the state into a much better place to live,” he says.

“A lot of people are frustrated with politics at the national level right now and they feel like it’s hopeless. But there’s so much opportunity to do good work here at the local and state levels,” Cotton says.

Check out our conversation at the Overton Window podcast.

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