Republican Greendorfer pitches himself as ‘classical liberal’ alternative for HD 59

Republican Montana House District 59 candidate and civil rights advocate Marc Greendorfer, 62, is charting a moderate course, casting himself as a “classical liberal” and “middle-of-the-road" alternative in the race against incumbent Democratic candidate Katie Fire Thunder, 25.

Fire Thunder’s position was vacated by Ed Stafman, who resigned in November 2025, citing a desire to spend more time with his family. The Gallatin County Commission unanimously appointed Fire Thunder from a trio selected by the 27-member Gallatin County Democratic Central Committee in December 2025.

HD 59 encompasses the southeastern Bozeman area. The jurisdiction is bordered by Saddleview apartments off Haggerty Lane to the north, Gallatin National Forest to the south, the Park County line south of I-90 to the east and Fowler Lane to the west.

Greendorfer, a corporate lawyer turned civil rights attorney from the San Francisco Bay area, spent the past 13 years fighting antisemitism. He said to the Chronicle that although his more socially left-leaning positions leave him “not loved by the Republicans,” the R next to his name on the November ballot is also unlikely to appeal to Democratic voters.

“I’m probably shunned by a lot of Republicans,” said Greendorfer, who did not take Republican Party campaign funding. “A classical liberal is what Republicans should be. It’s small government, individual property rights, let people be as they are with very limited government interactions.”

Political labels are irrelevant to Greendorfer.

“If anything, I’m probably a moderate Republican, but even then, there’s so many things that the Republican Party does that I disagree with,” Greendorfer said. “I don’t see myself as a Republican.”

Greendorfer lauded Fire Thunder working as an intake and victim services legal assistant for Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell’s office, but critiqued Bozeman Tenants United solutions for local housing issues, like rent control and Airbnb restrictions, although she has not specifically addressed rent control to the Chronicle.

Strangers ripped an Israeli flag down from Greendorfer’s property multiple times after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in southern Israel that killed approximately 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and resulted in 251 hostages.

“You could see it was very racially motivated,” said Greendorfer, who attends Chabad Lubavitch of Montana, an orthodox-style Bozeman synagogue. “Audrey Cromwell did a great job prosecuting these two people. When we finally got resolution in that manner, Katie reached out to us, talked about our options and made sure we were taken care of. She is very professional, very sweet, nice person.”

Housing, taxes

Fire Thunder is a co-founder of Bozeman Tenants United, a citywide tenants union supporting rent control, a local or state government rule limiting how much landlords can charge tenants by restricting rent raises.

Fire Thunder has political experience from previous positions with the Montana Budget and Policy Center, former State Representative Alice Buckley’s 2022 campaign, and Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign. She said previously she brings a perspective and legislative goals aligned with her time as a Bozeman Tenants United organizer, but has not addressed rent control to the Chronicle specifically.

“I’ve lived in places where they’ve had rent control like San Francisco and New York City,” Greendorfer said. “It always ends up hurting most everyone other than one constituency: the renter. It's only renters who already have a rental unit and stay in it for the long run. Renters who don't have a rental unit, or who want to move to a different unit, are actually hurt by rent control.

(For) everyone else, people stop investing in real estate, they don’t build as many units, they don’t refurbish, maintain them. It’s a very bad policy.”

Housing affordability, promoting universal healthcare and equitable taxation are Fire Thunder’s top legislative issues.

Equitable taxation means taxpayers contributing their ‘fair share’ for public services. It relies on two main ideas: People with less money or less valuable assets pay less tax, and people with more money or more valuable assets pay a larger share.

“Big Sky has the second most billionaires to New York City,” Fire Thunder told the Chronicle previously. “To make sure ... the wealth that is coming is being taxed equitably and protects us all...even Republicans are seeing this influx of wealth...we can tap on it more.”

Greendorfer concurs with Fire Thunder that Montana has a housing affordability issue, but contends established older homeowners are more disproportionately affected than younger residents.

“I am sitting here in a house where the property taxes have doubled since I bought (it),” Greendorfer said. “My neighbor across the street is older, on Social Security. They bought their house 30-50 years ago for tens of thousands of dollars. It now has an assessed value of more than $2 million. Their property tax bill is about to force them out. Social Security doesn’t cover it.”

Greendorfer favors a less than 2% cap on annual property tax increases. He balked when asked if either party is paving the path to affordability.

“Republicans failed us on this, Democrats haven’t done any better,” Greendorfer said. “There should have been a fundamental transformation of property tax in Montana.”

On income tax, Greendorfer bucks the state GOP and is aligned with Fire Thunder against Governor Greg Gianforte’s proposal for a single, flat personal income tax rate of 4.7% for all taxpayers for the 2027 legislative session. The proposal aims to replace the state's two-tiered income tax structure, which is slated to drop to a top rate of 5.4% and a lower rate of 4.7% in 2027.

“The governor's proposal to bring a flat tax is robbing our state,” Fire Thunder said previously to the Chronicle.

“I don’t know if it is going to rob the state, (but) why change something for the sake of changing it,” Greendorfer said. "Unintended consequences will always bite you. I don’t know who is complaining about the current (income) tax system in terms of its structure, but I know people will complain after. On that alone, I oppose it. If the wealthy, the billionaires coming into this state are pushing for this, I suspect it is because it will benefit them. Consequently, it will hurt others.”

Fire Thunder was a leader with Bozeman Tenants United during the organization’s 2021 successful effort to have the City of Bozeman pass an ordinance limiting non-owner occupied short-term rentals, like Airbnbs, in order to free up long-term housing availability. Greendorfer does not support policies to restrict these properties. 

“I don’t have a right to tell people they (shouldn’t) have short-term rentals,” Greendorfer said. “I don’t think the answer is more regulation. I still believe supply and demand outweigh any government interaction. You can’t legislate around that. At some point in the future Bozeman will become less desirable (to tourists).”

For Greendorfer, the political differences between himself and Fire Thunder and her predecessor Stafman are slight.

“It is a matter of degree, not a quantum difference,” Greendorfer said, criticizing Stafman’s more liberal positions on race and its relationship to criminal justice.

Stafman, who spent 25 years practicing law as a civil rights attorney and then as a criminal defense lawyer, was a Democratic sponsor behind House Joint Resolution 32, a failed proposal for a discrimination study on Montana's criminal justice system.

“I know there is an element of (racism in policing),” Greendorfer said. “I just didn’t think there was as big of an element as (Stafman) did.”

When asked if his candidacy is an exercise in democracy, Greendorfer, who is against environmental exploitation, urban sprawl, selling public lands and is tentatively opposed to data centers due to resource concerns, signaled the premise is partially true.

Greendorfer also believes the government has “no right” to weigh in on marriage or abortion.

“These are individual decisions,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican, (the) government should not be involved. I think I defy categorization.”

Greendorfer moved to Bozeman from California in 2018. Early in his career he worked for financial consultant Charles Schwab in San Francisco. Greendorfer graduated law school from The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, a private New York City college rooted in Modern Orthodox Judaism in 1996.

Greendorfer initially pursued a career at large New York City firms, including the defunct Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon. The firm had prominent associated Republicans on its roster, including President Richard Nixon, who joined after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial election. Former Republican New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani and former Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo were associates.

Cuomo was a summer associate two years before Greendorfer came on board. The firm dissolved in 1995.

“It was not a nice place,” Greendorfer said, labeling lore surrounding Nixon’s time at the firm as “matching the reputation.”

Greendorfer later moved to different New York City firms conducting corporate securities law. He first visited Montana while fishing with his brother, who was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base in the 1990s. Greendorfer moved to California in 2001.

From corporate law to civil rights

Greendorfer began his own legal practice in 2009 after the firm he worked for collapsed in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. He shifted from corporate law to civil rights around 2013.

“I got a call from a very old friend asking about the state of antisemitism in the U.S.,” Greendorfer said. “He started asking me tough questions about the constitutionality of (antisemitism) and public policy. At first, I blew him off. He kept pushing, so I started looking into it.”

Greendorfer, owner of local firm Tri Valley Law, found himself fighting antisemitism as a civil rights advocate. He co-founded the Zacher Legal Institute, a “think tank and advocacy organization using the law to battle against antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel.” The National Jewish Advocacy Center acquired the organization earlier this year.

“The more I investigated it, the more I saw the other side, The Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, other left-leaning organizations, publishing information that was simply legally false,” Greendorfer said.

When asked what inspired him to fight antisemitism, Greendorfer referenced his family’s history surviving the holocaust. Greendorfer’s mother was a holocaust and concentration camp survivor.

“She was dragged out of her apartment by Nazis,” Greendorfer said. “She had to watch as Jews were killed in the street in front of her. She traveled from a concentration camp across Europe by herself to come to the U.S. ultimately with her mother.”

Greendorfer’s mother and grandmother were Czechoslovakian. Most of the family was killed in Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp and ghetto in the country.

“One of the most impactful things was my grandmother, who also survived, once looked at me and said, ‘It can never happen again.’” Greendorfer said. “As I got older, I realized that she was talking about this delegitimization...movement.”

Greendorfer’s civil rights practice is focused on Jewish people, but he also fights for equality for other races and the LGBTQ+ community. He has been involved in approximately 100 civil rights cases.

“This is not really a Republican or Democratic thing, left versus right,” Greendorfer said. “Both parties are stoking the flames in ways that are reminiscent of the Holocaust era. The reality of people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens...and so many others on the right beginning to repeat the same kind of nonsense is one of the motivating factors for me to run for public office.

It’s not because I want to do something regarding Israel or Jews in Montana (as a politician), it’s that I realized that it’s so radicalized on both sides that someone needs to come in as the voice of reason. All I care about is that my people have a homeland. I have no interest one way or the other about the political future of the state of Israel.”

ICE

Regarding reported human rights abuses from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Greendorfer agrees with the Democratic perception.

“You could take something that is a legitimate law enforcement action like ICE action and do it in such an intrusive, inappropriate, disruptive way that it becomes counterproductive,” Greendorfer said. “The way it’s being done and the disruption it is causing must be accounted for.”

Greendorfer is trying to be “realistic” about his chances of winning Democratic Bozeman.

“I would love to win, but I am realistic about my chances,” Greendorfer said. “It’s to make sure the momentum of the left is given a pause, so voters can think. (I am) running. I also support LGBTQ rights, oppose discrimination, but want lower taxes, a fairer system and a more conservative point of view, maybe (voters) should take a look.”

Regarding competition from Fire Thunder, Greendorfer defers to Bozeman voters. He said whether or not the political prodigy wins reelection, she is part of a younger generation that will inevitably end up leading.

“If the people of Bozeman really do think (Fire Thunder) aligns best with their views, that’s what elections are for,” Greendorfer said. “I respect that process and that as an older person, the next generation is taking over. They have every right to change things in their vision.”