Since the beginning of the legislative session, Republicans have been blasted over their hypocrisy on health care.

As we know, the GOP has assaulted Montanan’s right to health care. They have cut funding from services that provide health care to children, they’ve tried to repeal protections for people with pre-existing conditions, they even tried to close the Columbia Falls Veterans’ Home. They falsely claimed they were doing this things because our state couldn’t afford these projects, however, what many of them forgot to mention was that nearly every single one of them is receiving tax-payer funded health care.

Because of this hypocrisy, Sen. Anders Blewett sponsored a bill that would disclose which lawmakers were taking tax-payer funded health care. This bill would be a much needed dose of sunlight on a legislative session that has seriously lacked transparency.

The bill received wide bipartisan support in the Senate and was sent to the House for debate. House Republican Leader Rep. McGillvray even offered to serve as a co-sponsor for the bill. However, the House quickly killed the bill in committee.

After the bill was killed in committee, Democrats in the House began pushing to force a full floor debate on the measure. In addition, there were rumors that people were considering a lawsuit against the state if the names of the people receiving health care was not released.

Today, just hours before Democrats planned to attempt to force a full floor debate on the measure, the state agreed to release the list of names of those receiving health care.

The list showed that nearly every single lawmaker was either receiving health care from the state or receiving subsidies to pay for their own private health care.

Unfortunately, when Democrats pushed to make the bill a law, Republicans still opposed the measure. Not surprisingly, even Republican Leader McGillvray even voted against the bill. Hypocrisy in action.

Montana is one of two states in the black. Obviously, this is quite a feat during the country’s recent economic struggles.

Our state was able to do this through prudent economic leadership and shared sacrifices by Montanans.

One of the groups that carried a lot of these sacrifices were our state employees–teachers, nurses, state troopers and firefighters. During the economic downturn, our state employees made an agreement with Governor Schweitzer that stated they would not receive any form of pay raise for several years.

Last fall, as it was clear that our state economy was improving, the Governor and state employees agreed that they would begin to see small pay raises again.

This agreement requires the approval of the state legislature to go into effect. The GOP has made it clear, despite the fact that this small pay increase was accounted for in the Governor’s balanced budget, that they have no interest in providing these hard-working employees with the small raise.

During the hearing for the bill, dozens of proponents of the agreement between the Governor and employees talked about the hard work they do and very few opponents spoke. Despite this, the committee refused to send the measure to the full House.

Today, Democrats in the House attempted to force a full floor debate of the merits of the bill. Unfortunately, the move failed on a 39-54 vote.

The actions of the GOP once again illustrate their hypocrisy, especially when you consider that earlier in the session, they voted themselves a pay raise.

Throughout the legislative session, we’ve seen the GOP systematically assault voting rights and access to the ballot. It began early in the session, when they killed the vote-by-mail bill. This bill would have, by all accounts, increased the turnout and security of our elections. Since then, they have continued to push policies to make it more difficult for Montanans to take part in our electoral system.

Today they were at it again.

The Senate State Administration Committee today heard two bills that would undeniably suppress voter turnout in the state. The first, from Rep. Regier, would eliminate election day as a paid holiday for state employees. It doesn’t take too much examination to realize why the GOP might want to make it harder for state employees to vote. For nearly three months, the GOP has pursued policies targeting the hard-working state employees. The GOP has sought to roll their pay back to 2005 levels, restrict their benefits and retirement and eliminate some of their jobs all together. With their assault on our state employees, it’s no wonder they don’t want them to vote.

Secondly, the Senate State Administration Committee also heard a bill that would roll back same-day registration in Montana to the Friday before elections. Rep. Champ Edmunds, the sponsor of the bill, attempted to portray those who register on election day as lazy and irresponsible. He clearly is forgetting that these voters are well within their rights and duties as voters in the state. His bill would unfairly put additional burdens on all Montanans that seek to have their voice heard.

The Republican extremists in the legislature have worked to systematically rig our electoral system in Montana, by making it more difficult for those voters who’s interest they are working against cast their ballots.