Montana lawmakers will convene their 69th legislative session in January. On Tuesday, some legislators met to set ground rules for how they’ll conduct the business of writing or amending the state’s laws.
Lawmakers begin each session with a general framework of rules they can tweak.
For example, the motion to end the session, called sine die, is non-debatable. Voting takes place immediately. But in 2023, that motion led to a lawsuit when its timing appeared to coincide with a veto from Gov. Greg Gianforte.
Lawmakers proposed a new rule for the next session that says staff must record the date and time each chamber receives a veto notice. New rules could also allow debate before a vote to end the session.
Those proposals advanced out of committee and will need final approval next month when the session convenes.
Other rules proposals did not advance, like one that would require legislators to use the bathroom that correlates to their gender assigned at birth. Rep. Jerry Schillinger of Circle proposed the rule that targets transgender lawmakers.
“And it says what probably shouldn’t need to be said and puts into rules what probably shouldn’t need to be put into rules,” Schillinger said.
That rejected rule would’ve applied to a pair of private bathrooms that connect the House and Senate. Republican leaders added locks to the shared bathrooms to offer single occupancy use in 2023 after Montana elected its first two openly transgender lawmakers to the statehouse.
All Democrats opposed the rule, and were joined in voting against it by a few Republican lawmakers. That included Republican Rep. Brad Barker of Luther, who called the rule a distraction.
“I don’t see how this furthers the function or the efficiency of the Legislature,” Barker said.
The proposal and others could be revived when the rules are again debated by the full Legislature in January.
