The proposal came as an amendment to House Bill 2, the state budget bill. The committee would cost $90,000 over the two-year budget.
The is the second attempt by lawmakers to create a panel to review abortions to see if the provider should be reimbursed by the federal insurance program. A previous attempt died on a 9-10 vote in the Senate Finance and Claims Committee, with a handful of Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition.
That earlier amendment would have created a panel of three physicians, with the governor, Senate president and House speaker each appointing one, to determine if abortions for women insured by Medicaid were reimbursable. To qualify, the abortion would have to be deemed medically necessary, necessary to save the life of the mother or because the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.
Governor s tax cut bills, now working together, advance
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After weeks of circling each other in a rapidly escalating dispute, the legislative and judicial branches finally met Monday in the state Capitol.
The Select Committee on Judicial Transparency and Accountability hearing had all the makings of a showdown more typically seen in congressional proceedings: an email scandal, lawmakers prepared with adversarial questions and, seemingly unprecedented at any level, all seven state Supreme Court justices on hand to answer questions.
The investigative committee formed last week issued a subpoena for the justices to appear Monday. The subpoena sought any polling or other correspondence related to pending legislation. Last week the justices put the brakes on those subpoenas, as well as another for the court administrator s work computers, saying the scope and ability of legislative subpoenas needed further review.
Itâs part of Shawn Reagorâs job to distill information for lawmakers and bring to the forefront human stories that illustrate complex policy. But the pace at which the Montana Legislature heard, advanced and dispatched bills in the last week made that a challenge.
âWe have a spreadsheet of everything and Iâm having a hard time keeping track,â said Reagor, program director with the Montana Human Rights Network. âFor any member of the public to be able to keep track and know who to contact and when and what to say? It makes it really difficult.â
Early in the week, Reagor testified on a bill that was one of 20 heard by the House Judiciary Committee in a single day. The session is careening toward the transmittal deadline, which is the cutoff for policy bills that donât deal with money to advance from their original chamber or face defeat.
The General Government Appropriations Subcommittee OK d the rental assistance money on a unanimous voice vote with no debate Thursday. Earlier in the week, the state Department of Commerce advocated for the additional funding, saying it estimated it would need a total of $44 million to run the program aimed at helping renters stay in their homes.
At the start of the session, a budget committee cut the amount of funding from the pot the federal government made available for the state from a $200 million appropriation to $17 million. In doing that, Republicans on the Senate Finance and Claims Committee said the state spent $8.4 million on a prior program that also included assistance to homeowners and questioned how much was needed in this iteration of the program.
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