I think quite a few rich liberal environmental types have moved into the state - celebrities and such. It doesn’t take much in a state with such a small population to make a big difference. Also, it seems there is a lot of dependency on government there. The biggest employers are government - the post office, and especially the government schools.
Even in our local paper I can’t believe how many of the job want ads are for various government or quasi-government agencies. From all the jobs for counselors of various kinds, you would think that nobody in this country can live his life without a personal nanny provided by the state.
Thats right. A lot of them had or have property in Montana. Robert Redford was among them. One area was referred to as “Hollywood on the Yellowstone.” Ted Turner bought up enormous tracts of land (113,613 acres) in SW Montana called the Flying D ranch.
This is from Wikipedia
Ted Turner caused a stir in Montana in 2003 by providing a significant amount of funding to a project aimed at restoring a westslope cutthroat trout population to Cherry Creek and Cherry Lake. The controversy stemmed from the use of the poison antimycin to kill the abundant fish population currently living in the stream.[11]
Recently, there has been worry that Ted Turner is systematically taking over land surrounding the Ogallala Aquifer.[12] Ranchers in the area have consistently been outbid by Turner (and his associates).