Toplines: Trans People Will Live Forever; State Budget Making Moves; Watchlist + Wins
EVENTS, GATHERINGS AND RALLIES
CAPITOL EVENTS
Friday, April 18, from noon to 1pm Defend the Montana Supreme Court Rally. Some legislators are trying to play politics with the State Supreme Court – but we won’t let that happen! Join Catalyst Montana, Forward Montana, Northern Plains Resource Fund, and Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund at the Montana State Capitol to defend the Montana Supreme Court! RSVP HERE
Friday, April 18, 2025 from 10am to noon. Join Catalyst MT for their lobby day, where attendees can gain hands-on experience in sharing their lived experience and vision with legislators in the Montana State Capitol building in Helena! For more information and to RSVP, go here!
COMMUNITY EVENTS
Join the MSU FMT Club Meeting for community, crafts and civic engagement! Monday, April 7th from 6-7pm Wilson Hall and every other Monday!
Tuesday, April 8th from 5-6:30pm at Studio Wheelhouse- We are partnering with Studio Wheelhouse 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. Sign Up Now
Thursday, April 10th, from 5-7pm at the Yarn Bar join us for our Queer Skillshare: Drop Spindle! Join us for an introduction into how to spin your own yarn. Drop spindles and wool provided. This event will be limited to 10 people, so please RSVP soon! Sign Up Now
Join us Friday, April 11th 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!
Trans People Will Live Forever
Monday, March 31st marked Transgender Day Of Visibility. Around 11am at the Capitol Flag Plaza, a dozen organizers began assembling for one (of many) rallies across the state to celebrate our transgender, non-binary, Two Spirit, and gender-diverse family, friends, and neighbors. Community members from across the state gathered despite gray skies and spring snowfall to listen to trans voices, including Montana’s two trans legislators Rep. SJ Howell and Rep. Zooey Zephyr, and to scream our undying devotion to protecting trans rights.
But the impact of both these policies will harm everyone – not just trans individuals. Legal Voice and ACLU of Montana acted immediately – and District Judge Shane Vannatta has placed a temporary restraining order on HB 121, delaying implementation until at least April 21, when advocates and the state appear in court to begin their debates.
Anti-trans legislation is still moving in the session. Thursday, the House Judiciary committee voted to pass SB 218, another bill that would undermine transgender individuals’ access to health care in Montana, by increasing the statute of limitation of medical malpractice from 2 to 25 years for any type of gender-affirming care.
This makes two bills we anticipate hearing next week on the floor. The other? SB 164, which rewrites laws against child endangerment to criminalize doctors and parents who support trans youth under 16 in accessing gender-affirming care. The House has already rejected previous egregiously harmful legislation. Call and leave messages for Republicans who already voted against anti-trans policies. Capitol switchboard (406-444-4800) is open from 7am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.
State Budget Making Moves
Huge news out of the House this week. Through a bipartisan vote of 60-39, Representatives passed the bill containing the state budget, HB 2. Amongst the piles of policy that legislators sift through, HB 2 is the most important. Why? Legislators are constitutionally required to pass a balanced budget – and that is all they are obligated to do each session. Of course, we need them to pass policies to improve our communities – and sometimes they do that too.
It’s a tedious process to assemble the state budget. Since January, six budget subcommittees have met daily, getting lost in the spreadsheets and arguing over line items. Each subcommittee is made up of a handful of Senators and Representatives from both parties and specializes in one section of the state budget. After a month of subcommittee hearings and debates, the first drafts of each section are sent to the House Appropriations committee – where they are debated and amended, ultimately piecing together the first draft of HB 2.
Finally, on Wednesday, Representatives spent 8 hours on the House floor going through each section of the budget, in their last attempts to change how much money certain projects across the state receive. By the time of the final vote, of the 43 proposed amendments, only 6 passed. We are excited to see representatives approve a budget that allocates over $20 million in state and federal dollars to after-school programs, food banks, and summer meals for k-12 youth.
The next stop for HB 2 is Senate Finance and Claims, where they will again debate each section and attempt another round of edits. As of Saturday, April 5, it is day 67 of the session.
With angsty vibes at the Capitol, some are dreaming of the end. But until the budget is delivered to the Governor’s desk, no one is leaving.
Want more information on the budget process, check out Montana Budget and Policy Center.
Watchlist & Wins
Housing
Historic tenants rights bill, HB 311,which would require landlords to reimburse rental application fees to applicants who didn’t receive the rental, was amended twice this week and passed unanimously out of committee. Let’s keep up the momentum! Call (406-444-4800) and message Senators by next Tuesday and tell them to vote YES on HB 311.
Reproductive Rights
This session’s main anti-abortion bill, HB 316, which wants to amend the constitution to give legal rights to zygotes, will be heard next Tuesday, April 8th, in the Senate Judiciary committee. This bill is not only attempting to reverse last autumn’s CI-128 victory, it would remove access to basic reproductive rights and health care. Sign up to testify or send a message to Senators to vote NO on HB 316.
Climate
This legislative session is one step closer to passing two anti-climate bills. We’ve talked about these before – HB 285 and HB 291. Both of these bills would open the state to industry and development practices that could harm our clean air and water. The Senate debated and ultimately passed these bills, on a mostly party-line vote.
Next, these two bills will head to the Governor’s desk – but it isn’t too late to have a say! You can call the governor’s office at 406-444-3111 and urge Governor Gianforte to veto HB 285 and HB 291.
And some good news…
In a definitive win on the House floor Tuesday, April 1, representatives voted 41-59 to reject SB 42, which would have undermined the foundation of our fair and impartial judiciary, by mandating the partisan election of Montana judges and justices. Call and message legislators who voted against this bill and thank them – as well as remind them that we still need their ‘no’ votes on HB 838, which would allow for the partisan election of Montana Supreme Court justices.
On Friday evening, senators debated SB 543 one of the two remaining bills allowing for partisan election of Montana Supreme court justices. The Montana Supreme Court is the safeguard of our state constitution. We were screaming to see SB 543 go down in a 22-27 vote! In today’s political climate, we must keep our state’s highest court fair and impartial.
Hero and Villain of the Week
This session has seen a number of proposals to curtail community power in our elections – by undermining voter rights and limiting access to the ballot.
On Thursday night, the Senate debated a policy which would create new barriers to citizen-led ballot initiatives: HB 201. This bill would require signature gatherers to disclose not only their status as a paid signature gatherer, but the state where they ‘legally reside’. Conservatives in support of the bill claim that last summer’s signature gatherers were brought in from out of state to mess with Montana values.
This week’s hero, Minority Leader Pat Flowers (D-Belgrade), called out a fellow senator’s claim that communities are demanding reform to our citizen-led ballot process. In his floor speech Sen. Flowers condemned these false narratives and told his fellow senators that he hoped communities were watching as elected officials vote to undermine our change-making power. Don’t worry, we are watching. For popping off to conservatives, we make Minority Leader Flowers our hero of the week.
This week’s villain is Rep. Tom Millett (R-Marion) who presented SB 42 on the House floor. During his opening speech, we sighed while he listed off political headlines disparaging Montana’s judicial system, specifically calling out recent decisions from our state supreme court that protected our communities from partisan overreach.
Rep. Millett told fellow legislators that Montana is a ‘laughing stock’ of the nation because our courts have maintained their independence from partisan reforms. He continued to uplift the disingenuous assertion that partisan election of judges is really about voter information. And then left us confused with his final remarks, stating that no matter an individual’s party affiliation, he trusts our judges to be impartial in their rulings, calling on legislators to ‘trust judges’ by voting for SB 42. Legislators demonstrated their trust of judges by voting down SB 42 – making us wonder who the laughing stock really is in this session-long fight to protect our judiciary.