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Come 2014, it’s up to voters to decide the fate of Montana’s primary election system and late voter registration date. The Montana House and Senate cleared two referendums last week that could change the state’s voting laws. The measures passed largely along party lines, with Republicans voting in favor. Senate Bills 408 and 405 are the same proposals that led Senate Democrats to pound on their desks and shout at the Republican Senate president earlier this month as they sought to halt legislation’s passage. The first of those measure...
It is crunch time at the Legislature, and lawmakers are trying to push through several major pieces of legislation to meet deadlines for sending them to the other chamber. On the eve of its Easter recess last week, the House last week passed a state employee pay plan, albeit a very different version than the one Democrats introduced in January. House Bill 13 now charges the executive branch with determining salary increases for individual employees. It urges officials to pay particular attention to workers with low salaries and those who have n...
After four years of pay freezes, state employees are still waiting to hear whether they will receive an across-the-board 5 percent raise over each of the next two years. Roughly two dozen people supported House Bill 13 at a January hearing before the House Appropriations Committee. That measure finally surfaced for a vote last Wednesday when Rep. Steve Gibson, R-East Helena, made the motion. But he was the only Republican who joined Democrats on the GOP-controlled committee. The measure failed, but that didn’t stop the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Kath...
A panel of lawmakers is set to vote on the state’s budget this week after three days of public testimony on the best way to spend more than $9 billion over the next two years. “I think that we’ve made great progress,” Dan Villa, the governor’s budget director, told the House Appropriations Committee last week. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an executive and legislative branch be this close this quickly in the process.” At the moment, the governor’s requested budget and House Bill 2, the Republican-led appropriation subcommittees’ prop...
Although he’s no longer Speaker of the House, former Montana Republican legislator Mike Milburn pays close attention to what’s happening in the statehouse from his farm near Cascade. So far, he has noticed a lot of talk about fiscal responsibility. Contentious debates over issues like workers’ compensation, nullifying federal laws and medical marijuana were commonplace in the Capitol two years ago. “Last session, we were a little more policy driven,” Milburn said. “What they are looking at (this session) is balancing the budget, keeping tax...
Renee Rasmussen spread both arms wide in front of her to demonstrate the magnitude of the problems facing her eastern Montana school district as it endures a steady stream of new students, largely thanks to the oil boom. “It keeps me up at night,” the Bainville School District superintendent told a committee of lawmakers last week. “I do not have a method to pay for teacher housing or to pay for the school, whether that be $60,000 modular classrooms or whether that be an add-on.” It’s no secret that towns like Bainville along the oil-rich...
