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Jon Tester
Montana
Senator since 2007
“Montanans know who I am: They know I'm a lifetime Montanan. They know I understand rural America. They know I understand public lands and not privatizing them. They know I understand the importance of public education.”
Homespun, honest, and (sometimes crudely) outspoken, Senator Jon Tester is one of the last remaining voices of rural America in the Democratic Senate. His fellow senators often describe him as folksy, the embodiment of the “good old” local farmer. Bestowed with a larger-than-life charm and blunt-matter-of-factness, Tester has found success as a career politician while refusing to lose sight of his humble agricultural roots.
Born in Havre, Montana, Tester is a proud third-generation farmer with an unwavering connection to his family homestead. Before entering the world of Washington politics, Tester studied music at the College of Great Falls, working as a music teacher at an elementary school. He was eventually elected to the Big Sandy School Board, where he discovered his penchant for politics. Today, Tester continues to raise his crops back home while balancing the ups and downs of Senate politics. Famously, he brings back freshly butchered meat from his farm to eat while he’s working in D.C. He’s quick to tell the story of his weathered, two-fingered hand, the result of a meat-grinder accident when he was a young boy put to work on the family farm. The key to Tester’s success with an increasingly Republican rural Montana electorate lies in these modest details — they imbue his character with a warm, rural authenticity.
And, though it may come as a surprise to some, Tester often votes in line with Biden’s Democratic agenda; according to FiveThirtyEight.com, he votes with Biden’s position 90 percent of the time. While Democrats tend to label Tester a centrist, moderate voice in Congress (which he proudly accepts), far-right critics paint him as a liberal in farmer’s clothing. The truth about Tester lies somewhere in between. Like the so-called liberals he is likened to, Tester staunchly supports the right to abortion access, and, while he opposed gay marriage in his early Senate campaigns, Tester has since spoken out in support of LGBTQ+ Americans and cosponsors the Equality Act. Tester is reliable in his opposition to the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court Decision, which he feels allowed for corporations and third-party groups to wield an outsized influence in American democracy. However, as liberals who deem Tester a centrist note, he holds traditionally conservative positions on gun control, immigration, and environmental protection. Put simply, Tester is a gun owner with a history of voting against gun control measures. In the wake of the tragic Uvalde school shooting, Tester has opposed new restrictions on semi-automatic rifles. “I think this stuff is moot,” he said on the subject. And while he once worked as an elementary school teacher, Tester supports arming school teachers as a solution to America’s gun violence problem, deferring to local school boards and communities to make those decisions rather than advocating for federal gun safety protections. While he criticized Donald Trump’s decision to cancel DACA in 2017, Tester voted against the DREAM Act in 2010. In 2021, Tester joined Republicans in fighting a proposed ban on fracking and voted to withhold COVID-19 relief funds from undocumented people residing in the United States.
A rugged countryman at heart, Tester misses the mark with his fellow Democrats on some important issues. However, staying true to his farming roots seems to keep him popular with a rural, increasingly red Montana electorate.
—Iman Husain
Iman Husain is an artist, freelance writer, and staff writer for WeeklySenator. She was born in a small town in Alabama and raised in Tempe, Arizona. She now resides in Providence, Rhode Island, where she studies Visual Arts and American Studies at Brown University.
Policy Positions
Reproductive Rights
“Women must have the right to make their own healthcare decisions without interference from their government… that’s why I voted to codify the protections in Roe…”
Tester is a staunch supporter of abortion rights and reproductive justice, viewing the choice to have an abortion as a private healthcare decision that should not be interfered with. In response to the leaked draft that showed the Supreme Court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade, Tester co-sponsored and voted for the Women’s Health Protection Act. While this legislation could have codified abortion rights before Roe v. Wade was officially overturned, it failed to pass in the Senate.Anti-Gun Control
“I’ve made a living with a gun and a butcher shop for 20 years on the farm, and I understand how important it is for Montanans, myself included, to be able to protect your home with a gun.”
Tester is a gun owner who has been notoriously wishy-washy when it comes to getting behind gun safety measures. In 2016, Tester opposed a Democratic attempt to tighten gun ownership restrictions by requiring background checks for guns purchased at gun shows and online. Tester opposed this because it would “have blocked family members and neighbors from buying and selling guns to one another without a background check.” In the wake of the tragic Uvalde shooting, Tester said he would not support new restrictions on the ownership of semi-automatic rifles, like raising the minimum age required for purchase. While he has worked as an elementary school teacher in the past, Tester said he supports deferring to local school boards and communities to decide whether or not they should arm school teachers. Despite his forwardness about his views, Tester claims to remain open to debate on the subject.LGBTQ+ Rights
“Harassment and bullying people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity is unacceptable and must not be tolerated.”
In his 2006 and 2012 campaigns, Tester ran on a platform that opposed marriage equality. In 2013, however, he reversed his position, citing that “no one should be able to tell a Montanan or any American who they can love and who they can marry.” According to Tester, leaving his rural community and meeting different types of people allowed him to open his mind and overcome past beliefs and stereotypes that he held against gay people. Ever since, he has been a champion for the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans. Tester has worked to fight discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans on the basis of their sexual and gender identities. He has supported the Student Non-Discrimination Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and the Equality Act.Campaign Finance
“Dark money is a threat to our democracy. I will do everything I can to defend Montanans from this shadowy behavior because we need more light in our elections, not less.”
Tester is an advocate for transparency and accountability in the American political system. He supports finance reform, sponsoring multiple bills to fight the outsized influence of third-party and corporate interests on political and judicial matters. He openly opposes the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which allowed corporations and unions to make unrestricted donations to super PACs.
