The Roundup -

Greetings from Helena! The committees are about finished with their work. In Judiciary Committee, we had a Governor’s Judicial appointment for District 9, Gregory Bonilla. Shelby will be his headquarters. He answered my questions on the...

Greetings from Helena! This has been one of the busiest weeks in the Montana State Legislature since I have been here, for two reasons. One reason is that any Senate bills with a fiscal note have to be transferred to the House by Tuesday, April 4. Th...

Greetings from Helena! It seems like things are picking up again as deadlines are getting closer. We just have four weeks to finish our work for the year. We haven’t even started on HB2 and other spending bills. Every committee has been full of...

Greetings from Helena! It was good to be home for a few days and seeing the friendly faces in eastern Montana. I get a lot of emails and phone calls from my constituents in SD18. The large majority are in support of how I vote. There are a small few...

Greetings from Helena! In Judiciary committee we heard bills about landlords and tenants, protecting individual rights from government, the abuse of the judicial system, and etc.  It seems like there is a lot of concern about parent’s rights....

Greetings from Helena! The Transmittal deadline is coming up fast.  I am going to introduce four more bills this week that need to be heard and hopefully moved through the Senate before Transmittal. There are two bills dealing with FWP, one dealing...

Greetings from Helena! We finished our 6th week, so we are one-third of the way into the 68th Legislative Session. We heard a variety of things in Judiciary this week. We heard some bills about dealing with injunctions. There are some cases where...

Greetings from Helena! Jan. 30 - Some of my bills are moving through the process. I introduced SB55 in committee, which deals with the DEQ becoming a member of a national lobbying group, to deal with the Federal government, which is very anti-mining...

Things keep rolling on fast pace at the Capitol. There are lots of people involved in this process. There are elected officials, people representing themselves, agencies, and of course there are lobbyists and special interest groups, trying to help...

Greetings from Helena! Our second week of session seemed like a busy week. I presented my first two bills: SB 58, which raised the cap on Block Management from $25,000 to $50,000, and SB 42, which allows an easier path for a right of way through...

Greetings from Helena! We are back in Helena for the 68th Legislative session and Freedom is still the foundation I stand on as we talk legislation, write legislation, and vote on legislation. I am reminded of the quote by Benjamin Franklin “They...

Dear Editor, For years we have watched the passion of the “Pro-choice” and anti-gun people and the progress they have made. There has been over 50 million babies killed by abortion since 1973, plus thousands of women have died, in the process....

Greetings! The 66th Legislative Session officially came to a close on Thursday, April 25, the 87th legislative day. We came home that night, just in time to enjoy the nice rains. Some of the bright spots of the session were that we passed some...

Greetings from Helena. I hope everyone is enjoying spring. We have finished Legislative Day 77. There is still talk that we might finish before the allotted 90 days. Time will tell. One of the bills we passed out of Judiciary Committee and the Senate...

Greetings from Helena. The big bill this week on the floor was HB 2, the budget. There are 5 parts to HB 2, so it took most of one day for the hearing and debate on the floor. We resisted several amendments, mostly by Democrats who wanted to raise...

Greetings from Helena. We put in some extra-long days this week, with extra floor sessions. As we near the final weeks of the session we will probably see more of these as deadlines are approaching. HB 2, the budget, was heard in Senate Finance and...

Greetings from Helena. We finished Legislative Day 60 on Saturday. SB 137, my Ag fuel bill, was signed by Governor Bullock on March 21. It will become effective on July 1, 2019. HB 2, the budget, will probably be heard in the Senate this week. This...

Greetings from Helena. It was good to be home for a few days during transmittal break. We came back to Helena on the 10th and hit the ground running. Things will continue to get busier as we get closer to the end of the 90-day session. SB 137, a...

Greetings from Helena! We finished week 7, another snowy week, and are looking forward to the transmittal break. All non-fiscal bills must be moved from one house to the other by March 1st. I heard some troubling news this week for Richland County an...

Greetings from Helena! There are some legislators and bureaucrats who think “We the People” can’t operate without the government telling us what to do. That was very evident in the hearings this week at the Capitol regarding Child and Family...

Greetings from Helena! It was an interesting week to have two carbon tax bills to deal with global warming. A couple mornings when I was walking to the Capitol, I was considering sponsoring a bill to make everyone own a SUV to warm things up a bit....

Greetings from Helena! We have finished 20 days of our 90-day session. The three committees I am on are real important committees, but they can be emotional at times. In Fish and Game, we heard a bill (SB70) to remove Headwaters State Park from the...

Greetings from Helena. The bills are starting to pick up and make their way through the committees. So we are seeing more and more bills on the floor. A lot of the bills have been clean up bills and nothing very controversial. But there are some good...

Dear Editor, One thing that is disappointing to me is when candidates campaign one way and then vote the opposite once they are elected. In Eastern Montana candidates like to campaign like a conservative Republican because they can't get elected if...