Toplines: The Finish Line; What’s Next; Watchlist + Wins
Upcoming Events
City Council Candidate Info Session! May 7th, 6- 8 PM @ Black Dog Coffee X 10th Ave, 3115 10th Ave N, Billings. Dreaming of a better future for Billings? City Council makes crucial decisions for our city! Join us and come learn how they can make that vision a reality! Billings needs responsible, forward thinking community members who want a safe, thriving future for our city. Join us to hear why new City Council candidates are urgently needed for the upcoming election! Light food and drinks provided!
May Stich and Bitch: Sewn and Seen-Trans Quilt Project Edition!
May 8th, 5:30 – 8:30 PM @ 406 Pride Resource Center, 310 N 27th St, Billings. 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. These squares will be sewn together, with pieces from other communities, to create a living textile that will travel to as many Prides in Montana as possible.
Craft and Act with Wheelhouse May 15th, 5 – 6:30 PM Studio Wheelhouse, 10 Evergreen Dr Ste B, Bozeman. Forward Montana and Wheelhouse are partnering to bring you a monthly Craft and Act event! Every second Tuesday of the month from 5-6:30pm, come to Wheelhouse to craft, build community, learn about current events, gain resources, and participate in calls to action.
If you haven’t yet, take a big deep breath of freedom from the 69th legislative session. Whether you occasionally followed along, or couldn’t escape the hallways and hearings – we all deserve to remember what it’s like to breathe without the anxious waiting on 150 legislators to decide on issues that impact our daily lives. You did it!
The Finish Line
Monday morning arrived at the Capitol building with the whispers of sine die echoing the halls. But as many legislators were quick to point out – no one was going home until they agreed on a solution to this session’s top issue: property tax relief. After spending 85 days debating over 1,700 bills, which included at least 100 policies to undermine our courts, take away our constitutional rights, and jeopardize crucial funding across our state, some legislators had the audacity to declare that they should go home without passing any property tax relief and call a special session later in the year to continue the debate.
Some conservatives used mic time during policy discussions to air grievances against other party members. In both the House and Senate, instead of ‘keeping to the bill’ as we were so aptly reminded by committee chairs, a number of conservative legislators lodged their petty complaints about the state of the Republican party. And while property taxes aren’t really our area of expertise, we were salty at how much time legislators used for political mudslinging, instead of solutions to rising housing costs.
Amidst this tax debate, last week’s amendatory vetoes to SB 218 and HB 446 were still moving. Good news: the House rejected the governor’s amendments to SB 218, and the bill will be returned back to the Governor without his additions. Devastating news: Governor’s amendments to HB 446 passed by one vote.
But don’t freak yet. The ‘effective date’ i.e. when it goes into law, is July 1. The first anti-trans bill the Governor signed in March that targets trans people’s right to use public restrooms and changing rooms is already held up in court.
The final moments of the session on Wednesday afternoon included speeches for termed out legislators, songs, tears, and for the Senate, another rules fight. We won’t bore you with the wonk, but just know, even in the final hours of the session, some Senators were still using their mic time for name calling, pointing fingers, and disparaging remarks.
What’s Next?
Now that the 69th Montana legislative session is over, legislators move into what is known as the ‘interim’. This spans the next 18 months, with interim committee membership released by the end of May and committee meetings scheduled for as early as July. Unlike the session schedule, interim committees meet every monthly or quarterly – and only a portion legislators sit on interim committees, chosen by Speaker Brandon Ler and President Matt Regier.
The main role of the interim is to study specific issues impacting the state – and while this time is largely influenced by study bills passed during the session, community stakeholders can also voice their requests during the first interim committee meeting. With at least 25 study bills headed into the interim, legislators will soon receive a poll to voice their opinion on what the interim committee should focus on.
And the elephant in the room: a special session. Due to fierce disagreements around the budget, property tax bills, and the anxiety around federal budget instability, legislators have been discussing the likelihood of a special session since February.
There are two ways we get to a special session: Governor Gianforte calls for legislators to convene on specific topics; 2/3 of legislators vote to return to Helena. For the history nerds, despite regular legislative attempts to call special sessions (for example), it is usually the Governor who makes it happen.
For now, we wait and let the dust (and drama) settle, while we dig into the lasting implications of the vibes and policies that came out of the session.
Watchlist & Wins
Legislators may be home, but the Governor has a lot of decisions to make. As of Friday, May 2nd, 575 bills have been transmitted to the Governor – and hundreds more are on the way.
Here are a few we are hoping he signs soon…
Rep. Kelly Kortum’s renters’ rights bill, HB 311, that makes property managers return rental application fees if for those who don’t get offered the rental, saving a single renter hundreds of dollars.
Two fantastic policies to address waste and energy in our communities. First, HB 477 from Rep. Marilyn Marler, which would phase out styrofoam single use food containers over the next 5 years. And SB 188, from Sen. Chris Pope, which establishes “Montana Solar Shares Act,” to create a comprehensive, state-wide framework for shared solar energy facilities. Both demonstrate incremental, yet important forward momentum in the state towards protecting our constitutional right to a clean, healthful environment.
And a hard fought reproductive rights win: HB 475 which would finally prohibit the use of shackles on incarcerated women during labor and childbirth. Congratulations to Rep. James Reavis and advocates like Legal Voice for their tireless efforts to get this policy passed through both chambers.
Here are the bills our communities need the Governor to veto…
As shared previously, this legislature has sent two egregious policies that target unhoused community members in our state. HB 208, which allows for cities to penalize unhoused folks, and HB 642, which establishes civil penalties at $500/day. These heartless policies have no place in our laws.
While we are so glad half of the 23 anti-LGBTQ policies didn’t pass this session, it is hard to see the glass as half full while we wait for the Gov. Gianforte’s decision on at least seven bills, the majority of which are about targeting transgender individuals.
This session’s attacks on the Montana Environmental Policy Act arrived at the Governor’s desk last week. These bills are short-sighted policies focused on prioritizing the interests of private industry over our constitutional right to clean air and water.
Our voting rights took a hard hit this session with three bills: HB 413, which creates confusing standards for state residency and imposes barriers to students’ access to the ballot; SB 490, which ends Election Day voter registration at noon, making it harder for rural and young voters to cast ballots; and HB 821, which raises the vote threshold to 60% to pass a citizen-led constitutional change – a direct response to last year’s CI-128 victory at the polls.
And speaking of attacks to reproductive rights, HB 388, the bill to protect pregnancy centers from government regulation, including whether they have to keep patient information private, arrived on the Governor’s desk last Friday, April 25.
And an unexpected win for housing affordability…
After watching other housing affordability bills fizzle out, we were excited to see a last ditch effort make it through the legislature. HB 924 will, among other things, create a new Housing trust for the state. This trust will act as a revolving loan program, with loans made available to affordable housing developments. Overall, it invests $31.2 million over the next two years for affordable housing projects!
Hero of the Week
This week’s hero is the Montana American Indian Caucus. We have been enamoured with these 12 legislators and MAIC Director since the beginning of session. Why? It isn’t just their vibrant authenticity, they consistently focused on the issues impacting their communities and centered solutions over political games. And this caucus had impressive wins this session.
From Medicaid Expansion to Indigenous People’s Day, to passing policies that ensure continued investment in language preservation and Indian Education for All.
Through it all, this group of legislators met regular racism and ignorance of their peers, and the public, with snappy clap backs without breaking decorum. The Montana American Indian Caucus has shown us that it is possible to have legislators that lead with values and integrity. This is why they are our final hero of the week for the 69th Legislative Session.
Villain of the Week
This week’s villain is theFreedom Caucus. One thing that was adamantly clear this session is the divisions in the Republican party. Starting day 1, the Freedom Caucus has been attempting to rewrite the narrative on this session’s political power grabs. They have used innumerable time at the mic to call out other Republicans, creating the now infamous name ‘the Nasty Nine’ to describe nine moderate Republicans who chose to work with Democrats on issues such as Medicaid renewal and property tax reform.
To us, it seemed the Freedom Caucus wanted to spend more time on political infighting this session, than real policy solutions for Montana communities. It was also from this caucus that we saw the worst of the constitutional threats, from anti-transgender policies to attacks on the judiciary, the Freedom Caucus made it their goal to waste Montana taxpayers money.
The Freedom Caucus demonstrated what it looks like to bring vindictiveness and vitriol to the work. And for this reason, the Freedom Caucus is our villain of the week.
