Montana lawmakers can now decide if their communication with lobbyists and outside groups is available to the public. That’s due to a court order from a Lewis and Clark County judge.
Montana district judge Christopher Abbott this summer ruled that lawmakers' communications with private individuals were privileged, and therefore not subject to the public’s right to know.
That information was previously kept in public record as part of “junque files”. Those are folders documenting communications between lawmakers and other parties while drafting bills.
Legislator’s staff attorneys say individual lawmakers can sign waivers giving up their privilege and make those communications public, but Abbott’s ruling means they’re not obligated to.
Abbott ordered that copies of bill drafts and lawmakers’ communications with other government officials remain public.
The order came in an ongoing lawsuit over the 2023 Legislature’s redrawing of maps for seats on the Public Service Commission.
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A bill in the Montana Legislature that would limit state officials' ability to regulate air quality standards has advanced to the Senate floor. This comes amid ongoing changes at the federal level to loosen regulations. -
A Missoula judge blocked a new law restricting which public accommodations transgender, nonbinary and intersex Montanans can access. It requires that people use gender-specific public accommodations, like bathrooms or sleeping quarters, according to the reproductive anatomy they were born with. -
Gov. Greg Gianforte Tuesday signed a bill intended to help the state’s public schools recover money lost to inflation. -
Montana lawmakers recently passed a bill that will allow communities with a resort tax to fund workforce housing to help Montanans live where they work. -
Montanans with severe mental illnesses that are accused of crimes can languish in jail for more than a year as they wait for a bed at the state psychiatric hospital. New legislation would build a facility for those patients in eastern Montana.
