Montana state lawmakers will get a slight uptick in their pay during the next legislative session. The roughly 20 cent per hour raise was part of a 1 percent increase to all state employees’ pay approved last year. Lawmakers are also looking at ways to update their budgets for communicating with constituents.

The five Democrats competing in their party’s primary for the U.S. House faced tough questions about their electability Thursday night in a debate in Helena.

The Montana Department of Revenue is in the process of closing half of the agency’s offices across the state that evaluate property taxes and, on occasion, informally help people with their income tax questions. Revenue Director Mike Kadas updated lawmakers in the Revenue and Transportation Interim Committee Wednesday on how his department is handling budget cuts passed in the 2017 legislative session .

About 100 students walked out of Columbia Falls High School today in support of the Second Amendment. The walkout was part of a larger nationwide event.

A month-and-a-half after students nationwide walked out of class to advocate for safer schools, some students in Columbia Falls plan to walk out of class Wednesday in support of the Second Amendment. "This walkout is necessary because the students who didn't walk out on March 14 because they support gun rights deserve to have their own walkout voicing their opinions and what they believe in," says Braxton Shewalter, the organizer of the walkout.

With just more than a month before the June 5 primary, the five Democrats vying for their party’s nomination to take on Republican incumbent Congressman Greg Gianforte are still gently teasing out what sets them apart from the rest of the field. The candidates generally repeated their main stumping points at a two-hour forum on Saturday at Columbia Falls High School, organized by the Flathead County Democrats.

A lawsuit that challenges Green Party candidates’ appearance on election ballots later this year will stay in state court after a federal judge refused to pick up the case. In the lawsuit, Democrats say not all the signatures gathered in the petition to put Green Party candidates on the ballot should have been counted. They were set to continue calling witnesses in state district court Monday morning.

Tonight on "Campaign Beat:" Trump threatens Tester, Republicans debate who's a "real Montanan," and the new campaign ads range from funny to poignant. Sally Mauk, Chuck Johnson and Rob Saldin review this week's Montana campaign news.

Students in Helena are hosting a town hall meeting this evening to talk about solutions to gun violence. But their goal of having large non-partisan representation at the event doesn’t look like it’ll happen. Leaders of the Helena Youth Against Gun Violence Group say they’ve invited all 17 candidates in the primary races for U.S. House and Senate to what they’re calling a Town Hall For Our Lives . However as of this morning, only five of the candidates, two Greens and three Democrats have said

The Montana Green Party says they have witnesses ready to refute in court the claims that the signatures on petitions to put the party on Montana’s ballot this fall are invalid. The Montana Democratic Party is suing the Greens and Montana’s Secretary of State , saying he improperly validated 183 signatures on those petitions. They argued their position in a hearing last Tuesday in Helena . That hearing resumes Monday, when defendants will get their first opportunity to present witnesses.