An update from the House

Weekly Update House District 14

Believe it or not, the legislative session is almost a third of the way over; the body meets for 90 days every other year.

This past week there have been a lot of discussions in committee, on the House Floor and in the press about taxing relief and spending priorities.

On the spending side of things, the House Appropriations committee will be breaking up Governor Bullock’s plan to roll $400,000,000 of spending into one bill. The Governor’s strategy has been to combine a selection of different spending bills with the logic that everyone would be compelled to vote for it because it would contain at least one project important to the district. In that version of the bill there were upwards of a half dozen projects that would happen in House District 14, but upon closer observation the amount of investment the district would get would be a whopping 75% less than the average district.

With the bill being broken up, legislators will have the opportunity to individually vote on programs such as the Treasure State Endowment Program, Quality Schools, programs to build large buildings on University campuses, and many others.

There has also been discussion about whether the state should pass a tax relief package, what it should look like, and how we should go about it. There are currently a number of bills alive that, if passed, will have to be considered by the Governor. Opponents argue that the taxation committees ought to hold on to all of the bills until a late date and only pass one or two out, however the tax committees understand that they are only the first step in this deliberative process. Keeping these tax relief possibilities alive while the committees set the revenue estimate (the amount of money the state expects to bring in the next 24 months), will allow the body to determine what bill will be the best fit for Montana.

Also this past week:

Bullying in School:  HB 284 by Representative Dudik (D-Missoula) would require school boards to adopt a bullying policy and prohibit bullying. For accreditation the Office of Public Instruction already checks for bullying policies and there are state administration rules and Board of Public Education policy on bullying. This bill was heard in House Education.

Only one tax at a time, please: HB 276 by Representative Hertz (R-Polson) would submit to the people for a vote a state Constitutional Amendment saying that if the state ever adopted a sales tax, an income tax would be prohibited. It was heard in House Taxation committee.

Bill of Rights Posting: HB 293 by Representative Brown (R-Sanders) would require the posting of the Bill of Rights in public buildings. It was heard in the Local Government committee. After heated debate the bill ultimately failed in committee on a 10-10 vote.

Surveillance: HB 344 by Representative Zolnikov (R-Billings) will be heard in the upcoming week. In general use, the bill would prohibit the use of automatic license plate scanners by law enforcement.

Nick Schwaderer

House District 14