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Montana State News Bureau Chief Holly Michels summarizes the day s news from the Montana Legislative session for March 15, 2021. Holly Michels
A long-time goal for pro-business groups in Montana â requiring government reimbursement for the cost of regulations â is gaining ground in the Legislature, while alarming others who fear it will cripple the stateâs budget and its ability to enforce measures that protect the public.
Senate Bill 260 would broadly expand how the state defines private property, while requiring that many regulations and rules that devalue property by 25% or more be compensated by the state or local government enforcing them. It passed the Senate on a party-line, 31-19 vote shortly before a midpoint-of-the-session deadline and faces its first House hearing Tuesday.
A voter drops off mail-in ballots at the Yellowstone County Court House June 2, 2020.
HELENA The 67th Montana Legislature has been marked by a series of bills attempting to change the elections process in Montana.
Some of them, like House Bill 455, didn’t even make it out of committee. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway, R-Great Falls, would have made absentee voting much more difficult. During its only hearing, Rep. Geraldine Custer, R-Forsyth, said the bill was unworkable.
“This is probably the worst bill I’ve seen all session,” Custer said, “and it needs to die.”
However, a cluster of other bills is still moving through the legislative process, including House Bills 176, which would do away with same-day voter registration, 506, which would change how ballots from new voters are processed and 530, which would force the Secretary of State to conduct election security assessments..
In the background of the first half of the Montana Legislature, lawmakers have been quietly cultivating the bill to bring recreational marijuana s implementation to life.
Legislators in the majority party said last week they hope to reach a consensus-worthy bill â a reflective but revised version of the initiative voters passed last year â and have continued to hold high-level meetings with the governor s office. The bill could surface by the end of this week, a spokesperson for the House GOP said.Â
Rep. Mike Hopkins, R-Missoula, has taken a leading role in pulling the pieces of implementation together and is expected to carry the bill. He and others have prioritized a safe implementation of cannabis, which remains illegal at the federal level.
House Bill 422’s sponsor, Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, attributes its failure, at least in part, to last-minute lobbying efforts by established telecommunications companies in Montana that were caught off guard by the bill’s passage through the process.