Legislature Hears Piles of Bills Ahead of Key Mid-Session Deadline

Lawmakers are on break this week after several marathon debates on bills last week in the run-up to the Legislature’s mid-session break. Last week was what Montana legislators call “transmittal week” — the last 5 days for general policy bills from the first half of the session to pass either the Senate or House, or they are effectively dead.

“Members of the Committee, we’ve got a lot of work to do today. I’m going to try to move things along as best I can,” said Sen. John Esp, R-Big Timber, starting what became a nearly 12-hour-long Senate floor session on March 5.

The deadline only applies to general policy proposals — bills concerning the budget, constitutional amendments, and fiscal changes have a different deadline later in the session.

March 5, the House heard more than 100 bills, and the Senate debated more than 60. On March 6, the schedule included 92 bills in the House and 69 in the Senate.

At the halfway mark of the session, lawmakers have sifted through bills on the session’s hot-ticket issues like property tax, Medicaid, and education. All four of the major property tax bills—the two major Republican efforts and their Democratic opposition—are still alive.

Several bills that aim to recruit and retain teachers are gaining support in education. And a bill that continues Medicaid expansion in the state emerged from a pile of proposals seeking to change or phase out the program.

As the deadline loomed, members of both chambers attempted what are called “blast motions” to revive tabled bills. Wednesday night, Rep. Ed Stafman, D-Bozeman, made a motion to revive his bill that would cover in-vitro fertilization under Medicaid after it died Tuesday. That motion ultimately failed.

“First, I just want to apologize to the body. I know it’s late, and if there wasn’t so much at stake, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Stafman said.

Lawmakers will take a short break from March 8 to March 14 before reconvening to finish the last 45 days of the 90-day session.