Penny Ronning for U.S. Congress

10/21/2026

There are political attacks, and then there are acts of moral depravity that reveal the character of the people behind them.

Vivek Ramaswamy has chosen to spend millions of dollars using the mother of a childhood s*xual abuse victim to publicly discredit and humiliate her own daughter, Dr. Amy Acton. This is a mother who failed to protect her child from s*xual abuse and remained married to the man accused of ra**ng her.

Think about the calculated cruelty of that decision. A man seeking the highest office in Ohio has decided that retraumatizing a victim of childhood s*xual violence is an acceptable strategy for winning an election.

This is not politics as usual. This is the deliberate exploitation of a victim's childhood trauma for political power. It is a profound moral failure.

And every person who excuses, defends, or celebrates this cruelty should ask themselves what kind of society we are becoming when the suffering of a s*xually abused child becomes campaign am******on.

Shame on Vivek Ramaswamy. Shame on everyone involved in producing this ad. And shame on a political culture that has become so morally bankrupt that destroying a victim is considered a path to victory.

10/19/2026

When Republicans question the fitness of Muslim candidates because of their religious beliefs, Democrats call it religious discrimination. And rightly so. But when Democrats subject Alani Bankhead's religious beliefs to similar scrutiny, suddenly it's called vetting.

Religious bigotry does not become acceptable simply because the political parties change.

Alani served our country honorably for more than 21 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and leading military and investigative teams around the world. The United States military entrusted her with extraordinary responsibilities, and she’s proven her honor to her oath to defend the Constitution.

Yet rather than seriously examining her positions on healthcare, education, national security, reproductive rights, and the economy, much of the criticism focuses on her faith, her tone, and whether she was sufficiently agreeable to powerful political men.

What makes this particularly disturbing is how readily Democratic women participate in applying these standards to other women.

We cannot demand that Republicans stop judging candidates by their religion while Democrats do the same. We cannot claim to fight s*xism while requiring women to demonstrate a level of obedience, agreeableness, and political deference we would never demand of men.

When we excuse in men what we condemn in women, we aren't challenging the system that has kept women out of power. We're enforcing it.

10/18/2026

In 2016, we heard, "but her emails."

Ten years later, 18 women brought allegations of s*x discrimination against the University of Montana, including allegations involving then-President Seth Bodnar. The university settled for $350,000.

And once again, we are watching how female candidates are scrutinized, how men are defended, and whose voices are dismissed.

I believe the women.

10/09/2026

A government that makes a spectacle of killing is not demonstrating strength. It is demonstrating the depths of its moral decay.

09/09/2026

As a flight attendant in the 1980s, I worked Military Airlift Command (MAC) flights in and out of Bahrain, Turkey, Greece, Panama, Sicily, Egypt, Germany, Guam, Spain, England, and other parts of the world. In the 1990s, I worked United Flight 93 for more than two years.

In 2001, my friends and colleagues fought terrorists in hand-to-hand combat aboard airplanes. They were among the first responders that day, and they lost their lives.

I spent years of my airline career being trained on terrorism and security. I walked through dangerous places with armed guards. We trained for emergencies most passengers never imagined, knowing that if the unimaginable happened at 35,000 feet, we were the ones who would have to respond.

All these years later, I can still hear passengers boarding the long, narrow cabin of a 757 (the aircraft used for UAL 93). I can smell the jetway. I can see the faces of the gate agents. I remember confirming the security knock with the pilots before departure. I can still recite my emergency commands verbatim and move through my emergency checks from memory.

Some things never leave you.

Twenty-five years later, this anniversary feels different. More raw. More wounded. And, for the first time in all these years, less safe.

I remember what September 11 taught us about the cost of believing we are safer than we are.

09/06/2026

When I ran for Congress in 2022, I spoke often about the powerful connection among agriculture, healthcare, and the economy. Each demands serious attention on its own, but we cannot build a strong and secure country without understanding how deeply they depend on one another.

I believed that then, and I believe it just as strongly today.

Agriculture is not simply an industry. Our ability to produce our own food is a matter of national security. When a nation loses control of its food supply, it creates a vulnerability that can be exploited by foreign governments, global instability, and anyone seeking economic or political leverage over us.

What we grow, how we grow it, and whether families can afford to put nutritious food on the table directly affect our healthcare system. The health of our people affects the strength of our workforce, the financial stability of families, and the broader economy. And a strong economy is essential to sustaining the farmers, ranchers, healthcare systems, businesses, and communities that keep our country functioning.

Agriculture. Healthcare. The economy.

They form a power triangle. We can debate policies affecting each one individually, but we cannot afford to make those policies in isolation. Strengthening one strengthens the others. Neglecting one eventually weakens them all.

Food security is national security. A healthy population is economic strength. And a nation capable of feeding and caring for its own people is a nation better positioned to protect its independence and its future.

When our own leadership is weakening the systems that feed us, keep us healthy, and sustain our economy all at the same time, we must stop calling the damage unintended. At some point, we must acknowledge what is happening right in front of us.

The blueprint was made public in Project 2025. Now we are watching the policies follow it. Weakening these foundations of American strength is not an unintended consequence of the agenda. It is the agenda.

And no leadership working to weaken its own people is working for its own people.

09/05/2026

Yesterday, five former members of the Billings City Council came together with Shaun Brown’s family and loved ones to celebrate his life and his extraordinary service to our community.

The years we served together gave us a shared experience. We spent countless hours together, worked through difficult decisions, celebrated the good days, carried the weight of the hard ones, and occasionally tested each other’s patience. We didn’t always agree, but we learned to trust and respect one another.

Years later, those bonds remain. We know each other in a way that comes from having shared the responsibility of serving a community we all care about. Standing together yesterday reminded me how much I value these people and the history we share.

It meant a great deal to stand together again, this time not around the Council dais, but alongside Shaun’s family to honor our friend and fellow public servant.

I am thankful for these former colleagues and for the privilege we had of serving Billings alongside Shaun.

09/02/2026

I have spent the past couple of decades fighting human trafficking, working alongside law enforcement and victim service organizations to put extraordinarily violent people behind bars and build systems of support for victims of crimes most of us cannot imagine enduring.

This year in Montana has been particularly active. We may be approaching a record year for arrests and victim recoveries, if we have not surpassed previous numbers already.

So, when I read that the FBI has changed its hiring standards so that certain histories involving purchasing s*x or be******ty are no longer automatic disqualifiers for employment, I am horrified.

There are jobs in our society for which character and judgment must matter. Law enforcement is one of them.

The FBI investigates human trafficking, child s*xual exploitation, s*xual violence, public corruption, organized crime, and some of the most horrific offenses committed against human beings. Agents are entrusted with tremendous authority. Victims are asked to trust them with the most painful and vulnerable details of their lives. The American public trusts them with extraordinary investigative power.

That responsibility should demand higher standards, not lower ones.

Purchasing another human being for s*x is not simply a youthful indiscretion or an embarrassing mistake in someone's past. The commercial s*x industry is deeply intertwined with trafficking, coercion, exploitation, addiction, homelessness, childhood s*xual abuse, and violence. Those of us who work in this field understand how extraordinarily difficult it can be to know whether the person being purchased is there by choice, coercion, desperation, or trafficking.

I have worked with some exceptional FBI agents over the years. My immenese respect for their work is one of the reasons I find this so disturbing. The men and women serving with integrity deserve an institution whose standards reflect the seriousness of the badge they carry and the enormous trust placed in them.

We cannot separate the standards being established within our federal government from the people establishing them.

Standards communicate values. Leadership establishes standards. And when those standards are lowered, that communicates something, too.

When our government lowers a standard involving conduct as serious as purchasing human beings for s*x, Americans have every right to ask why. We have every right to ask what message that sends to victims, to law enforcement officers who have spent their careers investigating these crimes, and to the American public.

Public service should demand more of us, not less. The greater the power and responsibility entrusted to someone, the higher the standard should be.

Lowering standards of character and judgment for those entrusted with enforcing our laws does not make America great.

It does not make America safer.

It diminishes the integrity of our institutions, betrays the trust of the people they are supposed to serve, and makes our country more dangerous.

There is nothing great about that.

08/25/2026

I am saddened by the passing of my friend and former fellow Billings City Councilmember, Shaun Brown.

When Shaun and I were running for City Council, he was always friendly to me, but a little distant. Then we found ourselves seated next to each other at a Chamber of Commerce candidate forum. At the end of the forum, Shaun quietly told me that he had not thought we would have anything in common and that he had been told he would not like me. He smiled, shook my hand, and said he had been wrong on both counts.

We went on to win our races (for Shaun, his second term) and serve together on the Billings City Council for the next four years. During that time, I came to know Shaun as a dependable and thoughtful public servant. He showed up. He came to meetings prepared and informed, took his responsibilities seriously, and cared about the community he was elected to serve.

Shaun and I worked together on several issues, most of which passed. One that did not was our effort to establish dedicated funding for Billings city parks. That loss crushed us. Shaun believed strongly that people should be able to freely access and enjoy our city parks and that those public lands should be protected and cared for.

Shaun was also a very private man serving in a public role, and I respected that about him. It was not easy for him to do.

I will always appreciate that Shaun took the time that day at the candidate forum to decide for himself who I was. That handshake became four years of working alongside one another, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, but always sharing the responsibility of serving the people of Billings.

I am honored to have served beside him, and appreciative of the years he gave in service to our community. My heart goes out to his family and all those who loved him.

Shaun Brown, a beloved husband, father, son, brother, and friend, passed away peacefully on August 18, 2026 leaving behind a legacy of love, kindness, and unwavering generosity.