Rep. Loge responds to 'vicious' emails, calls

This last week was a very busy week trying to take care of the Senate Bills needing to come through the House. It was also a week to present House bills to the Senate committees and study up on House Bill 2, the budget. Any House revenue bills were still allowed to be presented to the house committees for review this weeks well. Those bills will have to pass out of House committees and across the House floor by March 24 to have time to make it through the Senate before we will adjourn.

One very tough bill came through our Business and Labor Committee. The bill was Senate Bill 72, in short, “An act creating a presumption in favor of firefighters for certain diseases.” The decision that came out of committee tabled the bill. This action has brought vicious emails from firefighters and calls to all members of the committee as well as threats. My mother was even attacked in one of the emails I received. That is quite overboard, I felt. It Is quite understandable for people to be disappointed in outcomes. This decision was made on a bill. Yes, it does affect a group of citizens, but these decisions are made on the bill, and not against any group of people. We know we cannot make everyone happy with our voting. At times, there are three sides to a bill in public sentiment. In my reading and understanting of this bill, I had several reasons for opposition. For one, it created a huge liability for the state of Montana that, I thought, the employers should rather be assumming, whether it be in the union contract or in the benefit packages of insurance. There were also some fairly vague wording in the guidelines of qualifying criteria without setting up a monitoring process and records. One other piece of the legislation, as written, was that the account would be distributed “If the department determines at any time that the money in the account is not adequate to fully pay all claims, the department may make appropriate reductions in benefits to all claimants.” These are a few of the reasons I could not support this bill and I would be open for discussion.

Our next action for the week was House Bill 2, which is the “General Appropriations Act.” This is what appropriates the monies to be spent by the agencies of government. There were many amendments to the bill that were proposed but were voted down to hold the budget in check. Reports on the news were that the legislature cut funds to almost all agencies and programs but in reality, in most cases, the legislature held spending to the past levels. The increases asked for were not approved due to revenues being down and the legislatures need to have a balanced budget. There is a small rainy day fund. Next week the Senate takes a look at this budget and with a new revenue estimate coming as well, some appropriations may be added or as they say, backfilled into the budget on a priority basis. The final version is still a few weeks away.