The Bureau of Land Management’s Montana-Dakotas office created an access specialist position in 2008 to great fanfare, but budget cutbacks and changes in administration seemed to blunt that effort. In the past two sessions of the Legislature, there have been bills introduced that would require anyone who gated and padlocked a road previously open to public travel to first justify they had the right to close it, instead of the current situation where landowners block access and leave it up to the county or private individuals to contest the closure in court. Both bills never made it out of committee, Gibson said.

“The good-old-boy system is alive and well” in the Legislature and in county government, Gibson said.

Governor's race

Access has become a prominent issue in this year’s governor’s race after it was reported that Gianforte sued Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks over an easement across his Bozeman property. Gianforte has said the lawsuit was not about denying the public access through his property along the East Gallatin River in Bozeman, but the lawsuit has made political hay for the Bullock campaign.

Gianforte was also recorded saying at a campaign stop in Malta that FWP is “at war” with landowners in the state trying to “extract access and using extortion to do it.”