Rhonda Knudsen Seeks Son's House Seat

Speaker of the Montana State House, Austin Knudsen, will be unable to run for his current seat in 2018 do to eight year term limits. In his place, Rhonda Knudsen, his mother, has become Montana House District 34’s next Republican hopeful. At press time, Knudsen was the only candidate filed to run in the district.

The Courier reached Rhonda Knudsen to talk about her motivation for running, her policy priorities, and her experiences. A lifelong resident of Roosevelt County, Knudsen graduated from Culbertson High School, became a civil engineer, and worked as a federal employee. Since retiring, she has worked with her husband on their Ranch outside Culbertson.

Knudsen described her motivation for running in few words. “I want to keep our taxes low,” she said adding that, “I want to see the state maintain a smaller budget.” Knudsen also stated she wanted to keep a good job force and bring jobs into Montana.

Knudsen’s desire to further reduce taxes comes on the heels of an almost $230 million dollar budget shortfall last year that required a special session of the legislature to fix. When asked what her view of those blanket cuts were. Knudsen responded that a lot of the cuts were discretionary, and made by the Governor. When pressed on whether the cuts were good thing for rural Montana Knudsen was non-committal reiterating, “a lot were discretionary.”