Archive for Media
Today, with a bipartisan majority, the Senate approve Rep. Sesso’s (D-Butte) bill to authorize the construction of the Southwest Montana Veterans’ Home in Butte. If the Senate amendments to the bill are agreed to by the House, it will then go to the Governor to sign into law.
This veterans’ home will meet a crucial need and improve the lives of veterans in Montana. Currently, 1/3rd of our state’s veterans population lives in the southwest corner of the state. Unfortunately, this means veterans who live in that area and need to reside in a veterans’ home must be moved 240 miles to the home in Columbia Falls or over 400 miles to the home in Glendive. Such a large move can often lead to isolation of our veterans from their families.
Democrats have made it a priority to care for our veterans. They fought against Republican efforts to privatize the Columbia Falls veterans’ home, which would have sacrificed the quality of care our veterans receive. In addition, Democrats have pushed measures to ensure veterans returning to civilian life have opportunities to find a good job when they return home.
Democrats understand that veterans have sacrificed for us, we should be willing to do what it takes to ensure they’re cared for.
Conference Committee
Posted by:After weeks of negotiations and wrangling, today the House and Senate came together to iron out differences between their versions of the state’s budget. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that Republicans in the committee have no desire to pass a responsible budget that will meet Governor Schweitzer’s muster.
Republicans on the committee, which is made up of four Republicans and two Democrats, made it abundantly clear that they have no interest in creating a budget that will meet the Governor’s criteria. Upon their first meeting today, Republicans quickly dismissed amendment after amendment from Rep. Sesso and Sen. Williams, the two Democratic members of the committee.
Sesso and Williams made is abundantly clear that they were only interested in taking part in a conference committee that actually worked to create a responsible budget that would meet the needs of the state.
Republicans on the committee intend to jam through the conference committee, much like they did when the initial bill was in the House and Senate. They hope to complete budget committee hearings by Friday of this week.
Sen. Williams and Rep. Sesso intend to continue fighting for Montana values until the very last day. They, unlike their Republican counterparts, understand that the decisions they make in these committees will have a substantial impact on the lives of all Montanans.
Veto Brand Warming Up
Posted by:Governor Brian Schweitzer began to put his “VETO” brands to good use over the past few days.
First, on Friday he issued an “amendatory veto” to SB106, which would require the Attorney General to join frivolous lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act. In his veto of this bill, the Governor laid out several conditions for signing the bill into law. First, he restated what legislative lawyers have already said–that the legislature can’t force the Attorney General to do anything–so he said the legislature must change to state they are simply urging him to join the lawsuit. Second, the Governor acknowledged that joining this lawsuit would be extremely costly to Montana taxpayers, so to offset the costs, the Legislators who supported the bill would be required to give up half of their health insurance stipend paid for by the taxpayers.
The legislature can either accept, modify or reject the Governor’s changes to these bills. If they reject or modify the changes the Governor gets another shot at vetoing the bill.
The Governor also released an outright veto of a bill that would make it nearly impossible for Montana women to receive abortion coverage if they bought their insurance through the soon to be established health insurance exchange. This follows up on Schweitzer’s long-standing promise to veto any bill that infringes on a woman’s constitutionally protected right to reproductive health care.
In order to overturn the veto, legislators must secure 2/3 of the votes in each house of the legislature.
Gold Fever
Posted by:The Montana Legislature once again got a case of “Gold Fever” today, when Rep. Bob Wagner’s bill that seeks to force the state to do some business in gold and silver received a full debate on the House Floor.
This bill, which is based on wild conspiracy theories, received one of the most interesting floor debates of the session. If passed into law, the bill would seek to slowly move the state towards doing business in only gold and silver.
In order to illustrate the oddness of this bill, Democrats introduced a series of amendments that sought to change the bill so it would require the state to do business in other random things. Rep. Barrett of Missoula sought to amend the bill to require the state to do business in coal. Rep. Noonan, of Butte, urged members of the House to change the bill so copper became the official currency of the state.
Other members of the House took a more serious tact as they showed that the bill had clear ties to the secessionist movement.
Ultimately, the bill died by a 48-52 vote.
The full floor debate can be viewed below. It is nearly an hour-long, but incredibly entertaining if you have the time.
Referenda Madness
Posted by:As the legislative Republicans realize that the Governor wasn’t joking around when he got a shiny new “VETO” brand for all of their “bat crap crazy” bills, they are once again seeking to change the way Montana works and work around their duty to work with Democrats to get responsible, common-sense legislation passed.
They’re doing this through a record number of referenda that they plan to submit to Montana voters. These referenda are designed to both push their irresponsible policies and also to drive their base to the polls. These referenda are also the GOP’s only chance to escape the Governor’s red hot branding iron.
Choosing the path of record numbers of referenda not only shirks their duty as legislators to make important policy choices for Montanans, it also moves the state closer to the California model of legislating. As we all know, California is notorious for the large number of referenda that are sent to their voters each year. California is also not know for having the solid fiscal ground that Montana does. The GOP wants to follow the California model.
The referenda they have introduced cover a wide-range of radical policies, including ones to restrict medical decisions between a woman and her doctor as well as policies designed to hurt state employees.
The Montana GOP fails to understand that not only do Montanans overwhelmingly disapprove of the job they are doing, they also don’t like the irresponsible policies they’re pushing and they will be rejected at the polls.
"We believe that the current budget, heading to the Senate Floor next week, unnecessarily pits Montanans against, creating winners and losers” 