Toplines: The Power of the Veto; Sigh, Knee, Dye; Watchlist & Wins
Upcoming Events
Billings
Join us Thursday, May 8th 5:30-8:30pm at 406 Pride for our May Stitch and Bitch: Sewn and Seen Montana Trans Quilt Project edition! We’re taking our monthly(ish) Stitch and Bitch and combining it with a wonderful project starting with Butte artist BT and Catalyst Montana. Attendees will create an art piece with personal meaning on an 8×8″ square of fabric. There will be assorted fabrics provided, but attendees can bring fabric that might be meaningful to them. For example- a piece of clothing you’ve outgrown but gave you euphoria at one time, etc. Same with art supplies, we’ll provide some, but feel free to bring anything you love to work with! RSVP here
Bozeman
Join us at Studio Wheelhouse on April 26th from 12-2pm for our Burn Book, Bad Bills Poetry event! Gather in community with friends and strangers to talk about your feelings regarding the current 2025 legislative session and repurpose bad/hateful/harmful bills into black out poetry, collages, or other art that brings you joy! RSVP here
Missoula
Join us Friday, May 2nd from 2:30-3:30pm at the UM Branch Center for our UM Student Group meeting to decompress, talk out strategies, and for organizers and activists of all different realms to come together to a political home, and be in solidarity and community. Sign up here for the next meeting!
Join us at The Center on the 4th Monday of each month from 6-7:30pm as we partner with the Western Montana Community Center to bring you a MONTHLY Stitch and Bitch! Bring your current project (or start a new craft!) while you gather in an environment of support, create community, and build collective power through arts n’ crafts! A hodgepodge of embroidery, knit/crochet, and collage supplies will be available. Sign up here for the next event on April 28th!
Statewide Phonebank
Sign up for a shift to Get Out the Vote for upcoming School Board Elections! Join us on zoom to phone bank young Montanans and encourage them to vote in the upcoming school board election on May 6th! We’ll have fun games, prizes, and a chance to make a difference in your community Shifts are 6 to 8pm, Monday, April 28th – Thursday, May 1st and Monday, May 5th 6-8pm or Tuesday, May 6th 4-6pm.
The best part about April session days is getting to lay (and sometimes cry) in the sunshine after a full day of legislative debates. This week, we are touching grass and germinating hope as we tumble through the last few wild days of the session.
The Power of the Veto
As of today, over 300 bills have reached the Governor desk. That is out of the 1757 bills that were formerly introduced. So far, our team’s focus has been on the legislative process but as the session winds down, and the Governor receives more bills, we need everyone focused on what he does with the policies that have made it to him.
Once a bill reaches the Governor, he has 10 days to take action before the bill automatically goes into effect. Depending on his opinion of the policy, the governor has the power to do one of a few things: sign the bill, veto the bill, veto a line in the bill, or issue an amendatory veto.
The first one seems straightforward. A signed bill is an endorsement from the Governor. Bill signings are often paired with some fanfare in the governor’s office, with bill sponsors, stakeholders, and press invited to show off the success. Vetoes are where things get sticky. And whether or not legislators are still in session determines the type of veto the governor is allowed to issue, and the type of response legislators will likely take if a veto arrives.
As long as legislators are in session, the Governor can issue any type of veto. But once session is officially over and legislators go home, the Governor can only issue a general veto – he cannot do a line item or amendatory veto because the legislature is no longer in session to debate the changes.
If the Governor vetoes a bill after the session is over, legislators can vote (by mail) to override the veto. But, as seen in previous post-sessions, it can be hard to motivate legislators once they are out of the building to reach the ⅔ majority to override a veto.
Just this week, the Governor issued amendatory vetoes on SB 218 and HB 446, both anti-trans legislation that saw significant compromise from legislators before making it to the executive branch. These vetoes set back these bipartisan efforts. After a veto is issued, bills return to legislators to debate and decide whether they will override the Governor’s vetoes, forcing their version of the bill into law.
We will keep you up to date as we watch the fate of these two bills, both up for debate in the House and Senate as early as Monday. If you have a moment, it is worth calling the Capitol Switchboard 406-444-4800 or messaging legislators to tell them to reject the Governor’s changes.
Sigh, Knee, ☠️
We’ve reached peak exhaustion at the legislature. Rumors of a Saturday, April 26th sine die were dashed quickly this week as legislators clashed over property tax relief policy. This in the same week that they handily passed $30 million in tax credits for filmmakers and a change to income tax rates that provides tax cuts to the wealthiest.
But what actually is sine die? And how does it happen?
Like many other big actions in the legislature, sine die is a motion brought by a legislator from when the floor is in session. It is the ability of the majority to decide to end the session early, before day 90. Bringing and passing a sine die motion can be initiated in either the House or Senate. And also like many big actions, it cannot be debated or overruled.
Once a legislator makes a motion to sine die, the chamber votes on it. If it passes, all action of that chamber stops – and it is quickly communicated to the other chamber that half the legislature is done working. The final chamber must then complete any remaining work within 24 hours and pass a sine die motion. Most importantly, any bills that still needed input from both chambers are now officially dead.
While we don’t have relief yet from this session, the end is very close – day 90 lands on the 5th of May. If legislators can’t figure out their priorities by then, they will need to make a plan to come back, if they care about helping Montanans with rising housing costs.
Legislators haven’t convened a special session since the autumn of 2017 to deal with state budget shortfalls. This might be the year we see our next special session, especially if a motion to sine die passes before property tax relief.
Watchlist & Wins
The Free Conference Committee on HB 682 met on Friday, April 25th at 3pm to debate potential changes to a bill that would impact youth access to gender affirming care in Montana. Two amendments were discussed, each proposed by members from each party’s leadership team: Rep. Howell and Majority Leader Fitzpatrick. Both amendments similarly aimed to align the bill more closely with existing medical malpractice laws. After hearing from members of the community, as well as a handful of out of state interest groups, legislators ultimately voted unanimously to pass Majority Leader Fitzpatrick’s amendment to keep the statute of limitations at 4 years after discovery of injury.
Rep. Kelly Kortum’s historic tenants rights bill has landed on the Governor’s desk. And while this is a victory in and of itself, the policy isn’t passed until the Governor signs the bill, or as mentioned earlier, at least doesn’t veto it before the 10-day window passes. Take a moment in the next few days to send a message to the Governor’s office (governor@mt.gov) or call him next week (406-444-3111) to tell him to sign this bill into law!
Hero of the Week
This week’s hero is Sen. Daniel Zolnikov for speaking out against pressure to fall in line with what the Governor wants, just because he said so. For background, throughout the past month senate committees have been hearing a series of confirmation hearings for Governor appointees. And it was during one of these committee hearings when trouble began.
On April 1, Senate Energy, Technology, and Federal Relations committee heard SR 59, to confirm the Governor’s appointee to the Pacific Northwest Electric Power and Conservation Planning Council. When the candidate showed up without clear evidence that he had the background and knowledge for the role, Sen. Zolnikov objected to the appointment – and SR 59 was tabled in committee.
Fast forward to Thursday, after Senators successfully blasted SR 59 out of committee and got it onto the floor for debate. Sen. Zolnikov stood clearly and defiantly against the narrative that he fall in line and approve whoever the Governor appoints – instead of asking questions about the qualifications of appointees. He demanded to know if the Senate is just a rubber stamp for use by the executive branch, or if Senators still have the power to engage in an authentic confirmation process.
For his tenacious non-compliance, we make Sen. Daniel Zonikov our hero of the week.
Villain of the Week
This week’s villain is Sen. Daniel Emrich for his appalling use of antisemitic language on the senate floor during a debate on vaccines and community care. On Thursday, Senators debated HB 364, which would reinstate requirements for tracking and reporting on student vaccination data within our communities.
After the bill carrier explained the importance of the bill for immunocompromised individuals and families with infants, Sen. Emrich stood to share some outrageous views on the policy. He started with saying that the bill would ostracize anyone who isn’t vaccinated, and ultimately would force people to vaccinate against their will. He then went on to declare that it would create an unfair view of unvaccinated people as ‘diseased’ and through some form of mental gymnastics, compared the carrier’s words and the bill’s purpose to something out of Nazi Germany, sharing that policies like this are what led to the Holocaust.
Just so we are clear, vaccines or tracking community health data didn’t cause the Holocaust. He is as wrong as he is offensive. It is for this abhorrent language that we make Sen. Daniel Emrich our villain of the week.