Senator Jon Tester is a third-generation Montana farmer, a proud grandfather, and a former school teacher who has deep roots in hard work, responsibility and accountability.
Jon holds himself, Washington, and corporations accountable to the people of Montana. He is a staunch believer that sunlight ensures accountability, and he has fought for transparency at all levels of government.
Jon is a founding member of the Senate Transparency Caucus and has introduced legislation to increase transparency across the federal government, including a bill to make all government contracts over $150,000 public, and crack down on fraud and abuse of government travel cards.
Jon is also leading the fight to bring more transparency to our campaigns, and he is pushing to end the flow of dark money flooding our elections. He is also working to close the revolving door between Congress and special interest with legislation to ban Members of Congress from lobbying for five years after leaving office.
For his efforts, Jon was awarded the prestigious James Madison Award for fighting for greater transparency in government and public access to government information.
As the U.S. Senate’s only working farmer, Jon knows that agriculture is the backbone of Montana’s economy.
Jon farms the same land in north central Montana that his grandparents homesteaded over a century ago, and he understands firsthand the challenges facing family farmers and ranchers.
That’s why Jon is taking on consolidation in agriculture, where he’s seen unfair practices from multi-national corporations squeeze Montana’s family farmers and ranchers out of business while making record profits at their expense.
Jon understands that capitalism only works with competition, so he’s working across the aisle to get more market transparency and competition in the industry with bills to put some real teeth in the Packers and Stockyards Act, to ensure only American beef is labeled “Product of USA,” and to get fair prices for farmers and ranchers.
Jon is also fighting to open Montana producers up to new markets, and to protect their bottom lines by saving them time and money with the right to repair their own farm equipment.
Above all, Jon is fighting to ensure Montana producers have access to the resources they need to grow their bottom lines, strengthen their communities, and pass down their operations to the next generation—just like Jon hopes to pass his farm down to his grandkids..
Jon has spent his career working to maintain local control over Montana’s elections to keep them safe and secure, fight outside special interests that try to buy our democracy, and shine a light on dark money in politics.
Since the days of the Copper Kings, Montana has rejected the notion that our democracy is for sale. Nearly 75 percent of Montanans voted to say that corporations should not be able to spend unlimited amounts of money trying to influence our elections.
Calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision one of the most irresponsible in history, Jon has introduced multiple bills to shine a light on the dark money and special interest groups that tries to influence our elections—including a Constitutional Amendment that overturns the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision and declares once and for all that corporations aren’t people.
Jon introduced his Freedom to Vote Act to clean up and secure our elections, and protect Montanans’ right to have their voice heard at the ballot box. This bill includes many of Jon’s longtime priorities like reinstating same-day voter registration in Montana, allowing college students to use their IDs to vote, and ensuring that Montanans continue to have access to early and mail voting. Jon’s bill would also help states secure their election systems, keep foreign nationals from influencing our elections, and increase disclosure so folks know who is paying for online political ads. Jon worked with his colleagues to include provisions from his Spotlight Act that would require certain political non-profit organizations to disclose their donors to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), reversing a rule that eliminated the requirement and allowed tax-exempt organizations to keep their donors secret.
Jon is following in the footsteps of the Montanans who over a century ago told corporations that our elections aren’t for sale, and he will work with anyone who is willing to clean up the nation’s broken campaign finance system and return our democracy to the people.
Jon believes strongly in protecting Montanans’ constitutional rights, including the right to bear arms and right to privacy. He has voted to protect Americans against all forms of federal government overreach that violate these precious Constitutional freedoms.
As a gun owner, Jon is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. He has supported bipartisan legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorist, and those found by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others. He believes that we can keep our kids and communities safe without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners. That is why he has also consistently voted against any type of database or registry of gun owners, opposed legislation that would prevent an individual from purchasing or possessing firearms without meaningful due process, and broken with his own party to oppose banning assault weapons.
Jon is also a strong protector of the right to privacy and has voted to prevent the government from intruding into the lives of Americans. He has fought hard oppose mass government surveillance programs and efforts to allow law enforcement to access American’s personal information in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Jon has also fought to protect a woman’s right to make her own private health care decisions, and to keep politicians from telling Montanans how to live their lives.
Lastly, Jon has worked hard to ensure that no American is discriminated against because of who they are or where they live. He is a cosponsor of the Equality Act, which would defend any Montanan from discrimination in core areas of everyday life including education, housing, and the use of taxpayer dollars.
Jon is a fierce advocate for Montana’s working families and businesses in Washington, and has worked to expand jobs and opportunities across the state.
When crafting his bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Jon worked hand-in-hand with Montana’s business leaders to secure targeted investments in the Treasure State’s infrastructure that’ll make it cheaper and easier to do business across the state.
By bringing urgently-needed investments to Montana’s airports, roads, bridges, water projects, and high-speed internet infrastructure, Jon is working to lower costs for businesses, grow our local economies, and create hundreds of thousands of American jobs.
Jon also championed the American Rescue Plan Act, which was a critical lifeline to countless Montana businesses and working families as we rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jon understands that when Main Street thrives, Montana thrives. That’s why he continues fighting to get the Small Business Administration and the Economic Development Administration the tools to get Montana’s entrepreneurs the support they need.
Jon believes public education is the great equalizer in this country. As a former public school student, teacher, and school board member, Jon knows how important access to a quality public education is to Montana’s rural way of life—and that begins as early as pre-kindergarten. From Glendive to Ravalli County, Jon has secured millions of dollars to support Montana’s Head Start programs, ensuring that Montana kids have the tools they need to thrive right out of the gate.
Jon is committed to ensuring schools in Montana and across rural America can recruit and retain top-notch teachers. In order to boost teacher recruitment in rural Montana, Jon introduced the Rural Educator Support and Training (REST) Act and the Native Educator Support and Training (NEST) Act. These bills work to address the shortages of educators in Montana, both in Indian Country and at large. The REST and NEST Acts strengthen teacher workforce by providing scholarships, loan forgiveness, and professional development opportunities to educators who commit to work in rural schools. Montana’s future leaders deserve the best of the best when it comes to their education, and getting America’s brightest teachers in rural classrooms is the first step.
He is also working with teachers, parents, school board members, and administrators to ensure that policies coming out of Washington D.C. don’t stifle creativity in the classroom. He helped roll back provisions of No Child Left Behind, has passed legislation to strengthen local control over our state’s schools, and has pushed back against efforts to privatize public education and divert critical resources away from schools with limited resources.
Jon believes education doesn’t stop at high school, and he is working to make it easier for Montanans to continue learning. He knows to achieve this, we’ve got to make college more affordable and ensure job training and apprenticeship programs stay up and running. By restoring year-round Pell Grants, supporting the Perkins Loan and Public Service Loan Forgiveness Programs, leading the successful fight to keep Montana’s Job Corps centers open, and continuing investments in to programs like TRIO, Jon is fighting to ensure that a price tag does not determine anyone’s opportunity to learn.
Montana is home to vast energy resources, and Jon believes in a robust energy portfolio that taps into all of them—natural gas, coal, geothermal, wind, solar, hydro—to create good-paying jobs, lower energy prices, and generate critical tax revenue for schools and infrastructure projects, while powering homes and businesses across the country.
Jon also knows the climate is changing. He sees it firsthand on his farm, where planting and harvesting seasons are beginning earlier each year. The increased uncertainty from changing weather patterns and more frequent natural disasters like droughts and fires threaten the bottom lines of family farms and ranches and jeopardize America’s food security.
Jon believes we need to act to build an energy economy that supports high-paying jobs and addresses the threat of climate change—an energy economy powered by Montana commonsense. That’s why Jon has worked across the aisle to introduce legislation that will help burn coal cleaner and capture the carbon emissions from coal-powered plants.
Through his bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Jon secured significant investments to improve and modernize our electrical grid so we can support the next generation of energy. His bipartisan infrastructure law also bolsters clean energy research and development in the Montana University System.
But Jon knows that Montana commonsense means taking an all of-the-above approach to securing our energy future and lowering gas and fuel prices for consumers and businesses. That’s why he broke with his party and fought for more than a decade to support the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which will bring jobs and critical tax revenue to folks that live and work in rural Montana. He has sponsored bipartisan legislation that would reverse President Joe Biden’s decision to cancel they pipeline permit, and continues to work closely with Republicans, Democrats, Tribes, and all stakeholders to move the project forward.
Montana’s energy future is bright. Jon will work to keep these good-paying jobs, lower gas prices for Montanans, and protect clean air and clean water for future generations.
Jon is working to increase access to quality and affordable health care in urban, rural, and Tribal communities across Montana and he is a leading advocate in Congress to lower the costs of prescription drugs.
Jon successfully led the push to close a loophole that will lower out-of-pocket costs for consumers and save Medicare beneficiaries an estimated $21.3 billion over the next ten years by preventing corporate middlemen from retroactively charging rural pharmacies excessive fees for prescription drugs.
As a third generation Montanan who grew up in a frontier community, Jon knows that access to health care in rural America can be the difference between life and death. That’s why he wants to make sure that regardless of whether folks get hurt in the oil fields of the Bakken, skiing near Yellowstone, or farming in Fort Benton, they have affordable health care options nearby.
Jon fought tooth and nail for more than $68 million for 322 Montana health care providers in the American Rescue Plan Act, to help rural providers across the Treasure State keep the lights on and provide critical care to families and communities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jon has led the charge to permanently expand telehealth services for rural communities and veterans, and he also successfully led the push to create and fund 1,000 medical residency slots that will bring young doctors to train and work in rural communities.
Protecting Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for working families is critical to Montana’s future. Folks have paid into Medicare their whole lives, and they shouldn’t have the rug pulled out from under them by Washington politicians. That’s why Jon will protect Medicare from being privatized or turned into a voucher system.
Jon grew up just down the road from Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation in North Central Montana, and he believes that the U.S. Government must uphold its treaty and trust responsibilities to Indian Country.
As a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Jon has worked closely with Tribal nations to expand resources at the Indian Health Service, increase investments in Tribal schools, and secure resources and expand jurisdiction for Tribal Law Enforcement agencies.
Jon has led the charge in the fight against the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis by working hand in hand with Tribal advocates to pass his two bipartisan bills—Savanna’s Act and Not Invisible Act—into law. These laws will bolster data collection and information sharing between Tribes and law enforcement agencies and strengthening violent crime prevention efforts in Indian Country, and Jon continues to aggressively hold agencies like the Department of Interior and the Department of Justice accountable on public safety issues in Tribal communities.
Jon has a long history of advocating for strengthening Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, and he is making sure that Tribal leaders have the tools they need to increase opportunity and boost local economies.
Jon regularly visits each Montana Indian Reservation, sits down with Tribal leaders and families, and brings their concerns straight back to the Senate.
Working hand-in-hand with Tribes across Montana, Jon secured record investments to improve aging infrastructure on Tribal lands—including upgrades to reservation’s high-speed internet, water systems, health facilities, and public transportation. Jon’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act also completed all authorized Indian water rights settlements.
Whether the debate is about health care, education, or infrastructure, Jon is always pushing to empower Native voices and make sure they have a seat at the table.
Connecting the Last Best Place to the rest of the country and the world requires strong, reliable, and up-to-date infrastructure and technology. Investments in roads, bridges, and airports ensure that Montana’s communities remain safely linked. And access to reliable internet and television broadcasts ensures Montana businesses can succeed in a modern economy, and gives folks the opportunity to connect across the state and beyond.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, Jon is leading the charge in providing rural America with access to the same technology and resources given to urban areas.
Jon worked across the aisle for months to negotiate his bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which made significant and urgently-needed investments in Montana’s roads, bridges, airports, high-speed internet, water systems, public transportation, and more. Jon worked with five Republicans, four Democrats, and the White House to craft a law that will create hundreds of thousands of American jobs while making targeted investments to strengthen our nation—without raising taxes on working families.
Jon is also backing the Broadband DATA Act, which expands rural broadband coverage by directing the Federal Communications Commission to build more accurate broadband coverage maps. And he served as part of a bipartisan working group tasked with passing the Chips and Science Act—legislation to maintain America’s competitive technological edge over China by boosting manufacturing capacity and keeping jobs in America.
Jon is a tireless advocate for Montana’s law enforcement and first responders, and he’ll always fight to get them the funding and resources they need to keep our families and communities safe.
As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Jon has consistently secured funding to beef up border security and to support law enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal level. During the pandemic, Jon secured $1.25 billion in direct relief through the American Rescue Plan Act to keep critical services like cops and firefighters on the beat.
Jon is also pushing bipartisan legislation to ensure our first responders get the pay and benefits they deserve. His First Responder Fair RETIRE Act would allow federal first responders with dangerous jobs—including federal law enforcement officers, CBP officers, and firefighters—to keep their retirement benefits if they are injured on the job and return to work in an administrative position. Jon also supports legislation to give Border Patrol agents the pay raise they deserve, to create a streamlined grant program for smaller law enforcement agencies, and to provide law enforcement officers with more tools so they can better respond to individuals in a mental health crisis.
To help protect our kids and communities from dangerous drugs, Jon introduced his bipartisan ANTI Drug Act to increase funding for anti-drug trafficking taskforces and support local efforts to combat drug trafficking across Montana.
Jon will always fiercely defend the folks who work their tails off to keep us safe.
As Chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Jon’s top priority is keeping Montanans safe. That’s why he works hard to ensure our country’s military service members and their families have the resources they need to keep our families secure.
The Subcommittee on Defense is responsible for providing nearly $800 billion annually to the Department of Defense and related agencies to support America’s national security. This is more than 95 percent of the military’s yearly budget, and includes matters ranging from pay and benefits for millions of service members and civilians to the development of advanced technologies and next-generation weapons. The Subcommittee also oversees funding for nearly all major U.S. intelligence agencies.
That’s why, as Chairman, Jon has secured pay raises for America’s troops, protected the flying mission at the Montana Air National Guard, and passed legislation to better secure Montana’s 540-mile northern border with Canada.
Jon also believes the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) fleet at Malmstrom Air Force Base is the most cost-effective deterrent to ensure the nation’s safety. In fact, the very first Minutemen ICBMs—deployed in October of 1962 during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis—were assigned to Malmstrom Air Force Base, not far from Jon’s family farm, and President John F. Kennedy referred to them as his “ace in the hole” in dealing with the Soviets.
Today, our ICBM fleet remains a critical cornerstone of our nation’s nuclear triad, and that’s why Jon has worked so hard to help modernize Malmstrom’s ICBM fleet, ensuring that the base remains safe and active for many years to come and that America stays steps ahead of our adversaries like China and Russia.
Through his leadership role on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Jon crafts the budget for the Defense Department, Intelligence Community, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs—the two largest shares of the federal budget. This makes him acutely aware that while we must keep America safe, the cost of war is profound and will be felt by returning service members and American taxpayers for decades to come.
Jon knows that in Montana outdoor recreation is more than a hobby—it’s a way of life. Because Montana boasts some of the most beautiful views of National Parks, rivers, streams, and wildlife the country has to offer, Montanans know how important it is to protect public lands.
Outdoor recreation is one of Montana’s biggest and fastest growing industries. In fact, hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping generate more than $7 billion and sustain 71,000 jobs across the state each year. They sustain us beyond economics by giving Montanans a place to recharge and connect with the place we call home.
Jon is fighting to keep public lands in public hands. In January 2019, Jon’s bill to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was signed into law. Funded through offshore oil and gas development revenue, LWCF has invested more than $540 million to support Montana’s outdoor economy since 1965—all without costing the taxpayers a dime. Jon continues pushing to ensure that LWCF is fully, permanently funded for generations to come.
In a collaborative effort between Montana ranchers, loggers, mountain bikers, snowmobilers, and business owners, Jon also crafted and introduced the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act. This made-in-Montana bill protects thousands of acres of public land, ensures future generations can access outdoor recreational opportunities, and strengthens Montana’s outdoor economy. The bill received a hearing last Congress and continues to pick up momentum.
Jon passed the first collaborative wilderness bill in three decades, working with conservation, ranchers, and recreationists in the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act. He also protected the North Fork of the Flathead from oil and gas development, preserving two important parts of Montana.
Jon is working hard to protect Montana’s iconic landscapes for future generations. His bipartisan Yellowstone Gateway Protection Act was signed into law, protecting the doorstep of the nation’s first National Park and 30,000 acres of public land from industrial mining. And he’s deeply concerned with increasingly intense wildfires across the west, which is why he secured $3.37 billion for wildfire mitigation in his bipartisan Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act.
Jon is a staunch advocate for Montana’s seniors—fighting to fund and protect Medicare, Social Security, Meals on Wheels, Senior Corps, and other initiatives that help seniors lead healthy, independent lives.
Jon believes Social Security is an essential benefit that seniors have paid into and earned over a lifetime of hard work. For many folks, it is their sole source of retirement income-so it has to be there for Montana’s seniors when they need it. That’s why Jon opposes any plan to privatize Social Security or reduce benefits. He’s working with Democrats, Republicans and Independents to make sure the program stays solvent-not just for today’s seniors, but for their kids and grandkids as well.
Jon also knows Medicare ensures seniors have access to quality affordable health care, which is why he opposes any initiative that would cut Medicare or turn it into a voucher system. Instead, Jon is working to strengthen Medicare by making sure doctors and hospitals get fair reimbursement rates so that it is financially feasible for doctors to see older patients.
Montanans work hard to enjoy their retirement years, and that is why Jon has fought hard against attempts to charge Montanans in their 50’s and 60’s more for life saving health insurance.
As Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Jon is one of Congress’ most effective advocates for veterans. He is committed to working with both Republicans and Democrats to hold VA accountable, pass meaningful legislative reforms, and follow through on this country’s steadfast commitment to take care of the men and women who have served in uniform.
Jon knows we must work to improve veterans’ access to health care, benefits, jobs, education, transportation, and housing. And he believes that Congress must take their marching orders from veterans—not the other way around. That’s why Jon routinely holds hearings on critical veterans’ issues and meets with Montana veterans face-to-face.
As the top Democrat on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee since 2017 and a member of the Committee since 2007, Tester has been a tireless advocate for veterans suffering from conditions related to the military toxic exposure. He has authored, introduced, negotiated, and passed historic laws to provide long-overdue care and benefits to tens of thousands of veterans suffering from conditions related to their toxic exposure.
He teamed up with Republicans to pass the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act into law, to ensure that more veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange can access essential care and benefits. And he championed historic legislation to deliver all eras of toxic-exposed veterans receive their earned health care and benefits under VA for the first time in the nation’s history with his Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act. In a political climate where partisan divide rules in Washington, Jon has successfully worked across the aisle to push these landmark laws across the finish line.
Jon is also leading the push to bolster critical mental health care and resources for veterans suffering from the invisible wounds of war. Last Congress, he successfully championed the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act, a groundbreaking law to widen and improve veterans’ access to lifesaving VA mental health care and services. And he continues to put forth commonsense legislation like the Revising and Expediting Actions for the Crisis Hotline (REACH) for Veterans Act and Post-9/11 Veterans’ Mental Health Care Improvement Act to improve veterans’ access to life-saving mental health tools.
He is also continuing to hold VA accountable every step of the way by making sure the Department implements these and other laws—such as his Deborah Sampson Act and VA MISSION Act—as intended by Congress. This includes holding a steady hand of oversight on the VA Caregivers Program, which he fought to expand to veterans of all eras—successfully including language in the VA MISSION Act.
Jon believes veterans deserve action. And they also deserve elected officials who will stand up for them, not stand in their way. He is deeply grateful for the sacrifices veterans and their families have made for our nation, and won’t stop fighting until the men and women who served receive the quality benefits and care they have earned.
From health care to education, jobs and equal pay, Jon works hard every day on the issues that matter most to Montana women and ensures they have a voice in Congress.
Gender should have no bearing on a paycheck, which is why Jon is sponsoring legislation like the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Even the Playing Field Act to end the gender pay gap. Equal work deserves equal worth. It’s as simple as that.
Jon knows that the federal government shouldn’t stand between a woman and her doctor and that all Montanans deserve high quality care. He firmly believes in a woman’s private right to make her own health care decisions without interference from the government and opposes putting women and doctors in jail when exercising this long held right. He is helping to lead the fight in Congress to guarantee privacy for women to make their own medical decisions.
Jon also continues to support Title X family planning programs despite recent challenges in the courts, and backs Planned Parenthood funding. Jon is working with bipartisan partners in pushing the Department of Veterans Affairs to take steps to improve the quality of care for women veterans.
Jon has always been surrounded by strong women, and every day he fights for policies to ensure that his granddaughters have the exact same opportunities to succeed as his grandsons.