By Amberli Emery
Sam Forstag’s campaign wants western Montana voters to see a smokejumper, union leader, and working-class champion.
That biography makes a compelling campaign advertisement. It does not erase his political record.
Forstag is not merely a firefighter who happened to become a Democrat. Before running for Congress, he was a registered lobbyist who worked for organizations including the ACLU of Montana and Planned Parenthood. During that work, he opposed legislation protecting girls’ sports, restricting gender-transition procedures for minors, and limiting drag performances involving children.
Those are not invented accusations. They are matters of public record.
In 2021, while representing the ACLU of Montana, Forstag opposed House Bill 112—the “Save Women’s Sports Act.” That legislation required school athletic teams to be designated according to biological sex.
In plain English, Montana lawmakers were trying to preserve female athletic competition for biological girls. Forstag stood against that effort.
In 2023, he testified against Senate Bill 99, which prohibited certain gender-transition surgeries and medications for minors. He argued that lawmakers should leave those decisions to families and their chosen medical providers.
That carefully polished language does not change what the legislation addressed: irreversible or potentially life-altering interventions involving children.
The claim that Forstag personally demanded taxpayer funding for pediatric transition surgeries goes further than the evidence I have seen. We do not need to exaggerate his record. The established truth is serious enough: when Montana considered restricting these procedures for minors, Forstag opposed the restriction.
That same year, he testified against legislation restricting drag performances and “drag story hours” in public schools and libraries. Speaking for the Montana Library Association during debate over House Bill 359, he accused lawmakers of trying to create “fear and distrust” and argued that the legislation was overly broad.
Again, strip away the professionally crafted language.
When legislators attempted to draw boundaries between adult entertainment and spaces occupied by children, Forstag fought the restrictions.
Now he wants Montana voters to focus on his parachute, his work boots, and his union credentials.
He wants us to admire the packaging without examining what is inside it.
A man can demonstrate courage while fighting wildfires and still hold political positions that are profoundly wrong for Montana. Respecting difficult work does not require surrendering our judgment about the policies that person helped advance.
Forstag grew up primarily in Portland, moved to Montana in 2012, attended the University of Montana, became involved in political organizing, and worked as a registered lobbyist between fire seasons. Moving here does not automatically make someone an outsider forever. But wearing Montana as a campaign costume does not automatically make his political ideology Montana’s ideology, either.
A voting record matters.
A lobbying record matters.
The organizations a candidate represented matter.
The causes he personally defended before needing votes matter.
Forstag is now campaigning on housing, health care, public lands, Forest Service employment, and the struggles of working people. Those are legitimate concerns, and they deserve serious discussion. But economic messaging cannot be allowed to camouflage an aggressively progressive social record.
His support from Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not an accidental association. It fits the record.
Forstag and his defenders will say he was protecting parental rights, medical privacy, libraries, and free expression. Voters should recognize the contradiction: parents who object to boys competing against their daughters also have rights. Parents who do not want drag performances connected to their children’s schools and libraries also have rights. Children facing permanent medical consequences deserve protection precisely because they are children.
Apparently, those rights and protections were not the ones Forstag chose to defend.
Western Montana does not need another politician who adopts a rugged biography while carrying a Portland-progressive political agenda into Washington.
We are not obligated to reject the evidence of our own eyes because a candidate once jumped from an airplane into a wildfire.
Service deserves respect.
Courage deserves respect.
But neither one purchases immunity from scrutiny.
Sam Forstag should be judged by the full record—not simply by the heroic portion selected for his campaign advertisements. That record shows a professional advocate who opposed protections for female athletics, opposed restrictions on gender-transition procedures involving minors, and opposed efforts to keep adult-oriented drag performances away from children.
That is not a smear.
That is not political “fear.”
That is his record.
Montana voters should believe it.
Sources:
Montana Legislature committee and lobbying records, 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions
House Bill 112, “Save Women’s Sports Act,” 2021
Senate Bill 99, restrictions on gender-transition procedures for minors, 2023
House Bill 359, restrictions involving drag performances and minors, 2023
Fox News, “Dem smokejumper’s lobbying past clashes with working-class Montana campaign,” July 15, 2026
© Amberli Emery
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