Threatened cuts to federal funding under the new Administration have Montana organizations and nonprofits anxious about their future. The state Senate gears up for an ethics investigation of one of its members. A couple of Medicaid expansion bills advance. The state Democratic party is looking for a new leader. And state workers — and legislators — would get a pay raise under a proposed new pay plan.
Capitol Talk is MTPR's weekly legislative news and analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Montana Free Press State Editor Holly Michels and Lee Banville, Director of the University of Montana School of Journalism and Professor of Political Reporting.
Sally Mauk: Lee, this week started with the Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget, sending out a vague memo freezing most federal funding. And this caused great confusion and panic for organizations from Meals on Wheels to university researchers. Two days later, the memo was rescinded, ostensibly because of public feedback. But what struck me, Lee, was the lack of protests from our governor and from the congressional delegation.
Lee Banville: The whole reaction to this was across the board. On the one hand, you saw institutions that relied on federal funding in full on panic - really unclear of what the next steps were. And for the most part, from the leadership of Montana, whether it was the congressional leadership or the governor, it was pretty quiet because the impact of this 'funding pause', that they called it, could have been and kind of was profound. It really did sort of shake a lot of organizations kind of to their core because they were like, 'Okay, do we have funding to continue X projects? Are we about to lose millions of dollars of funding that we have already planned on spending?'. But I think you also saw that, you know, to a large degree in that flood of activity from the Trump administration, you did see, at least in this case, them sort of step it back and say like, 'No, this isn't what we're going to do.' But it is really notable that that happened without huge amount of protest from the state's leaders.
Sally Mauk: Before the memo was rescinded, here's what the CEO of Missoula's United Way, Susan Hay Patrick had to say:
Susan Hay Patrick: 'We do know that nonprofits work best when we work in partnership with government and that our collective work is worthy of support from individual donors, businesses, foundations and the public sector.'
Sally Mauk: And Lee, for a lot of Montana nonprofits, the public sector portion of their funding feels a lot shakier under this new administration.
Lee Banville: Yeah. What was sort of striking about what happened this week was, this wasn't new funding, right? This was existing funding that had been approved by Congress and sort of said that was going to go out so that, you know, these were organizations who aren't like saying, 'Oh my gosh, I hope we keep getting more money.' It was, 'This is money we've been told is coming and suddenly it's not.' And so I think what's notable about that is that's a pretty aggressive move by the executive branch to essentially step into the process that is typically in the legislative branch, which is to, you know, send out the money.
I think that if you are one of those nonprofits or frankly, any of these organizations that rely heavily on federal funding, you certainly are feeling a little less secure in what's happening than you were, you know, two weeks ago when it was a fairly normal process. The question is, what does the process moving forward look like? I mean, they're obviously it looks like they're not going to be messing too much with what has already been appropriated. But what the big question is, is what's going to happen when they come up for appropriations next? And my guess is you're seeing organizations, whether it's the United Way or others, really thinking about, 'Okay, well, what does that public partnership look like?'
Sally Mauk: And there's a lot of uncertainty, to say the least.
Lee Banville: I mean, that's putting it nicely. Yeah, I think there's a lot of anxiety, I would say, about what the future federal funding of a lot of these projects will look like.
Sally Mauk: Holly, Republican Senator Jason Ellsworth's alleged abuse of his position for awarding a lucrative state contract to a former business associate, something we've talked about at length, that's now in the hands of the Senate Ethics Committee. The Senate unanimously voted to have the committee review the deal. And here's what Senate President Matt Regier said:
Matt Regier: 'It is our job as a majority party to hold accountable anyone - Democrat, Republican, Independent, department employee or director - that would break that public trust.'
Sally Mauk: And Senator Ellsworth says he welcomes this investigation. But Holly, there was more drama this week when the Ethics Committee chairwoman, Sue Vinton, was replaced.
Holly Michels: Yeah, Sally. Vinton, who's a veteran Republican lawmaker from Yellowstone County, was pulled from running the Ethics Committee. And the reason cited was an op ed she wrote that ran in news outlets around the state that was critical of Ellsworth and his actions related to this contract. She's also critical of Democrats who've, at times, aligned with Ellsworth this session. Vinton was not happy about this removal, but now we're moving forward with the panel.
There's also been some other action related to this. Senate president, Matt Regier, who we heard in that clip. He has retained counsel on this issue. At first, he hired a well-known Republican, and former legislator, Matt Monorton. But Monforton was booted from the job pretty quickly after Democrats raised concern that Monforton had been critical of Ellsworth in social media posts. At first, Monforton was billed as the Senate's lawyer for the whole chamber. Then Regier later said that Monforton was just working for him. And since then, Regier has retained a different legal counsel.
There's also been other developments, including a very lengthy deposition from Bryce Eggleston, who's this former employee of Senator Ellsworth, who was awarded this contract, in which Eggleston is saying it was actually him and not Ellsworth that split this contract into two. And that splitting of the contract is one of the things legislative auditors said Ellsworth did that constituted an abuse of power because by splitting it, it kept the dollar amount for each of the two contracts below a level that makes it a much more public process to award contracts.
So next steps here: the Ethics Committee will meet next week, and they really need to start figuring out how they're going to go about this investigation. It's not totally clear what approach they might take there. It's also worth noting it's an interesting committee in that it is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. So it will be very curious to see how they decide to go about the investigation. If they want to, you know, call witnesses, bring people to testify, how that will look. But definitely still is consuming a lot of time and energy up here at the Capitol.
Sally Mauk: And speaking of that, Lee, lawmakers are insisting all this ethics drama is not affecting their work, but it isn't helping either.
Lee Banville: Well, it's certainly not. Yeah, it's certainly not expediting anything. But I think it is notable that a lot of the committee work, a lot of the hearings that you would expect to be happening. I mean, they're still happening. But I think what's notable is the top of the chamber is sort of like - I don't know, I don't want to say they're not paying attention. I'm sure they're paying attention - but there's so much going on on these questions that you don't see a lot of activity where the Republican Party or the leadership of the chamber is sort of really involved in a lot of these debates. All of that stuff's really happening at the committee level. And so, I think work is being done, but I think work is being done in spite of this and certainly not being aided by this. And it really is, I think, taking up a lot of the bandwidth of the leadership. So what will be interesting to see is as that legislation moves out of committee, moves onto the floor, are they getting legislation that the leadership is supportive of, or are they going to suddenly find that there's things that the committee has done that they're not crazy about and they're going to have to like work on it more on the floor and have the leadership sort of reengage about this or are they going to stay focused on these internal matters?
Sally Mauk: Holly, speaking of the session's work, a couple of Medicaid expansion bills are moving forward.
Holly Michels: Yes. Outside of the judiciary bills that Republicans are bringing in to try to change how that system works in Montana, I think this is about the biggest legislation we're going to see come through this session is if lawmakers decide to continue Medicaid expansion in the state or not. That's because the bill lawmakers passed to continue expansion back in 2019 expires this summer. So unless they do something that would be the end of this program, that extends health coverage to tens of thousands of lower income Montanans.
So we've had hours long hearings on these three competing bills. There's two from Republicans, one from a Democrat. At this point, the Democratic one has died after just its first committee hearing. That was even after its sponsor, Representative Mary Caferro of Helena, brought an amendment to dramatically curtail what she wanted to accomplish in that bill and left it as just this very barebones continuation of the program with an additional $3 million that would go to reopening offices of public assistance to help people get connected with coverage.
The two bills that are advancing right now, there's one from Republican Ed Buttrey of Great Falls, and he's the one who's carried the original bill that brought Medicaid expansion to Montana in 2015, as well as the reauthorization in 2019. His bill would repeal that sunset date. It's moving on to debate before the full House. It cleared committee on a 14-7 vote, getting some support from more moderate Republicans who joined with Democrats to get it out of the committee. Then there's another bill from Senator Carl Glimm of Kila, which would end expansion that also made it out of committee, but on a much tighter 6 to 5 vote. So now both of those bills are awaiting debate before either the full House or Senate floors. And we'll see which ones advance on to the next chamber.
Sally Mauk: Lee, the executive director of the state Democratic Party, Sheila Hogan, has announced her retirement and the party has appointed an interim director and will look to hire a permanent director later this year. I'm curious who the job might attract given the party's setbacks in recent years.
Lee Banville: Well, yeah, I would say somebody who's embracing a rebuilding time of an organization would be probably someone who would want to engage in this. I mean, it will be interesting to see, do you see someone step in who really does sort of see the party as sort of, you know, they've kind of stabilized in a weird way when you look at the legislative elections, right? They were able to pick up seats. I mean, that has changed the conversation in Helena this session than it was two years ago.
But when you look at statewide offices, you look at federal offices, it's a pretty bleak picture for the party, at least since, well, the last four cycles haven't been very good for them. So I think, you know, it will be interesting to see do they try to bring someone in who's going to really kind of more radically overhaul the way the party talks about and talks to people beyond Missoula, Bozeman and Butte, or are they going to - and parts of Helena - or are they going to really see actually, 'Well, we're kind of bouncing back." And I don't know. I think it's a daunting challenge. Right? They need to do something to really change the conversation, especially for statewide offices. And they really have been largely unsuccessful in doing that the last few cycles. It looks like this is an opportunity to really re-imagine what is the Democratic Party trying to do in Montana. But, you know, we'll have to see who is willing to take the leap into that because it is it is a pretty daunting task.
Sally Mauk: Holly, the House has approved a pay raise for state workers and for legislators who would get a pretty hefty raise if this bill were to pass.
Holly Michels: Yes, Sally. This is always kind of a tricky bill up here at the Capitol. This bill would generally give employees of the state a dollar or 2.5% raise, depending on their situation. For lawmakers, what it would do is it'd eventually make 80% of the average hourly wage of all state employees, which right now be about $20.50 an hour. And then over four years that would raise to that hourly wage average fully. It's a complicated thing for them to talk about. You know, it doesn't look good to say, 'Hey, I'm an elected official and I'm voting to increase my salary.' But the flip side of that argument is it's not nothing to leave your job for four months to come up here and serve. Not everyone up here is either retired or has wealth. You know, we've got teachers. We've got people who I think take a pretty decent financial hit. So, lawmakers point out that they do need to get paid. It did clear the House. It's on to the Senate. I'm curious to see what the governor may or may not do with it, but it is one that's always a little bit tricky up here for lawmakers to navigate.
Sally Mauk: And the governor in the past has rejected a pay raise for the legislators.
Holly Michels: Yup. Vetoed last time.
Sally Mauk: Right. So, it'll be interesting to see what he does. Well, we're out of time. Stay warm and we'll talk again next week.
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