HELENA – Lawmakers have left the Capitol in Helena after a chaotic end to the 68th Montana Legislature. Republicans, who held a supermajority this session, celebrated legislation passed on education, tax relief and protecting children and parental rights, while Democrats said they were disappointed with a lack of long-term tax relief and immediate solutions for the state’s housing crisis.
The Legislative session came to a close on May 2. Lawmakers passed 748 bills this session, out of almost 1,700 introduced, according to the statistics from the legislative branch. All that policy was made in the midst of a historic Republican supermajority and unrest over social issues, with the Republican-backed censure of Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr from Missoula grabbing national attention in the final two weeks of the session.
The call to sine die, or adjourn, came first, unexpectedly, in the Senate on Tuesday afternoon. When the Senate adjourned, the House had yet to pass the budget, which is the only bill the Legislature is constitutionally required to pass. The House worked long into the night to pass all the bills they could before adjourning at 9:15 p.m. In the end, the House passed the more than $14 billion budget in House Bill 2 with Senate amendments on a vote of 88-8.
“It did disrupt. It threw us for a little bit of a curve ball, but I think we still kept our eyes on the ball. Maybe we didn’t hit the home run but we still got a triple out of the deal,” Speaker of the House Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, said Wednesday about the Senate’s early adjournment. “We came into this session unified behind a set of policy principles, which I’m proud to say that we have accomplished. Our historic Republican supermajority coalesced around the foundation that defines the Republican brand, which is liberty and respect for the people of Montana.”
While Zephyr’s censure and expulsion, first over comments she made about a bill that would ban gender-affirming care and then for what Republicans said was encouragement of a protest in the House chambers, dominated national headlines, the bulk of the session focused on issues like housing access, health care, education, red-tape relief for businesses, childcare and mental health. Social issue bills restricting abortion and gender-affirming care drew the hottest debates this session. Policy watchers said the 68th session was highlighted by the unusual tensions and extreme reactions about some of that legislation, most of which passed.
In the end, Republicans said they were proud and pleased with the work they were able to do.
“Last session, the first with a Republican governor in 16 years, we passed a lot of bills, but a lot of those were relatively simple and easy policies that Republicans had just been waiting for a conservative governor to sign,” Senate Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls said. “This session was different. We had dozens and dozens of really serious, dense policy bills across a huge variety of subjects. It was a lot of work, but I think we got to a good place in the end.”
Democratic leadership said they were disappointed with the way Republicans participated in the legislative process this session, citing hyper-partisanship and a lack of cooperation. In a post-session press conference on Wednesday, party leadership said progress on healthcare and childcare were big Democratic successes this session. But, they said policy addressing issues like housing, education and reproductive health fell short.
House Minority Leader Kim Abbott, D-Helena, said her caucus spent the majority of the session pushing back against GOP policy.
“The main thing I think that I want to say is that every day Republicans showed up to attack the rights and freedoms of Montana’s families, parents, kids, and really prioritized out-of-state corporations and the wealthy over the working people,” Abbott said. “But as you know, Representative (Laurie) Bishop said yesterday on the floor, we punched above our weight and every day when we showed up, we fought to defend the rights and freedoms of Montanans -- the right to privacy, the rights of health care.”
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