Senate Republicans continue to split votes on key issues; Medicaid expansion is well on its way to passage; Montana's congressional delegation isn't concerned — yet — about federal workers being fired; And Montana public school classrooms won't be displaying the Ten Commandments.
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: Holly, the state Senate had a very long Presidents' Day meeting through the evening to vote to refer a number of bills to committee. And this all sounds routine, but it was anything but.
Holly Michels: Yeah, Sally. This was really, like you said, anything but routine and a pretty big flex of power against Senate President Matt Regier. There was one senator who pointed out during this hour-long affair that it was Presidents' Day. The Senate has been in this kind of massive showdown - we talked about it before on this show - where a small coalition of nine Republicans and all 18 Democrats in the chamber have joined together and are kind of running the show for the most part.
The procedural thing that happened on this Monday evening was Senator Josh Kassmier, a Fort Benton Republican who in the past has carried major legislation for the governor's office. He brought House bill after House bill up to assign them to Senate committees. So, these are House bills. They've already been transmitted from one chamber to another. They've beat this deadline that's looming in March for a bill to move from one chamber to the next, or else it would die a procedural death. That means that these bills could have just sat exactly where they were for the next month and not needed any action at all. They were also not especially major bills and generally more housekeeping items, not controversial or closely watched policies, but these nine Republicans and 18 Democrats moved all of them to committees, taking up a ton of time and running the Senate floor session pretty late into the night - definitely past my bedtime - all just to show the power that they had to do this and that they couldn't be stopped. Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, who's a Republican from Billings, said this all happened because he tried to move Senator Jason Ellsworth off the powerful Senate and Finance Claims Committee and this power show was in retaliation for that. Ellsworth, of course, is the Republican former Senate president we've been talking about all session for this contract that he tried to award to a friend and is now under investigation for.
So how this looked on the floor is Kassmier bringing a motion and then Republican senators who aren't in this group of nine would get up and oppose it. One Senator, Jeremy Trebas from Great Falls used the same language over and over and over. Then there would be lengthy debate. Eventually, there would be a vote. These bills would be reassigned on a 27-23 vote, over and over and over, for more than three hours. And while this was happening Senate President Matt Regier, he was at the rostrum in front of the Senate chamber, just powerless to stop any of this as it's all going on. The Senate doesn't have time limits on debate like the House does, or cloture. Though eventually senators did start bringing motions to shut down debate.
The day after the showdown, Regier held a press conference where he said he was disappointed in how these nine Republicans acted. We've heard him say that throughout this session. We've heard Senator McGillvray say as much as well. We haven't heard from them really plans on how they want to look at bridging this divide, maybe in the party going forward. So, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. We did see the Medicaid expansion bill get a pretty strong second reading vote in the Senate on Thursday, again with the support of most of those nine senators. So, this division really does matter in policy fights that I think we're going to see continuing through the session.
Sally Mauk: Holly, you just mentioned Medicaid expansion passing second reading. This is a bill that's one of the biggest items on the legislative agenda this session. And it's well on its way to passage without really major changes from past Medicaid expansion legislation.
Holly Michels: Yeah. Sally. So, the Senate gave really strong indication Thursday that it's going to ultimately pass this bill. It cleared, like I said, a second reading 29 - 21. It's heading to Senate Finance and Claims next, then it'll go back to the Senate. And then if it's not amended, it’ll be on its way to the governor.
It has a pretty wide margin for a bill that I thought was going to be a much bigger fight this session. I remember covering Medicaid expansion in 2019, and it took until the latter half of April for the bill to reach the governor. It is similar, like you said, to what we've seen in past sessions, it has work requirements, which the 2019 bill had. But those were put on pause because the Biden administration didn't support those. But I think Republicans are expecting to see different action from the Trump administration there. This session's bill doesn't have a sunset like the bill that initially created expansion in 2015 had, and then the one that lawmakers passed in 2019 too. But otherwise, it is pretty similar.
And we did see some interesting debate. We saw Senator Ellsworth, we talked about earlier. He was a pretty strong opponent to expansion in 2019, but he said on the Senate floor that he's seen people who've been helped by the program and avoided massive medical debt because of it. We also heard from Democrats and strong support. They've backed this program since it was first an option created under the Affordable Care Act. We had Senator Shane Morigeau tell a story about a person who's benefited from the program. He revealed at the end of the story that it was his dad he was talking about.
We did hear some Republican opposition, like we've heard in sessions past saying that the federal government could make changes at the top, which the Trump administration indicated it may do. That could lower the amount the feds pay for the program and put Montana in a pretty tough budget situation. We also heard from Republicans who just say that they feel like this is a handout, or they feel like Medicaid expansion is abused by some recipients. But this is now to Senate Finance and Claims if they don't make amendments there, it just goes back to the Senate who can then kick it to the governor. So, it is moving pretty fast for something I think people thought was going to be a pretty big fight this session.
Sally Mauk: Of course, we don't know for sure what the governor will do, but from past statements it seems like he will sign it.
Lee, also this week, Congressman Troy Downing and Ryan Zinke and Senator Tim Sheehy each addressed state lawmakers, and they praised the Trump administration taking an ax to government programs and people. And here's what Sheehy said.
U.S. Senator Tim Sheehy: What we've seen these past few weeks is a radical reform of the federal government, and we're reforming the federal government so it works for, not against, the people of Montana.
Sally Mauk: But not everyone thinks the widespread layoffs are a good idea, especially those laid off like Forest Service trail crew member Michael Maierhofer.
Michael Maierhofer: There will be six foot, seven foot tall piles of dead trees stopping you from crossing trails. There will be eroded sections of trail that you cannot cross safely. There are going to be unmaintained trailheads with restrooms you won't want to use. There are roads that are going to have boulders in them that we can't get removed.
Sally Mauk: So far, Lee, over 300 Forest Service workers in Montana have lost their jobs, and the number of federal workers laid off in Montana will surely rise. And one has to wonder if that will continue to be okay with Montana's political leaders.
Lee Banville: Well, I think, you know, on the one hand, this does sort of align with the conservative vision that government is too big, it's bloated, there are too many people in it, it's too expensive. They are really taking an ax to it. I mean, that's what they are talking about. It's not a scalpel.
Sally Mauk: ... or a chainsaw, as Elon Musk recently said.
Lee Banville: ... or maybe a chainsaw, which we might need for those trails, apparently. We're going to start to see the effects of some of these pretty sweeping cuts, whether it's trail maintenance or access to public lands. We might see issues with firefighting this summer. There are unexpected consequences once you start to arbitrarily eliminate people who have been recently hired because you can't get rid of them. That isn't really a strategic way to reduce government workforce, and it's hard to tell sitting here in February where those gaps are going to emerge. But I can almost guarantee that they are going to emerge, and that's when it will really become a test of, 'We want smaller government, but how small' and is it small in the right places or is it actually just starting to damage what we actually really value about government services. Right now, we don't know. But I think that as the gentleman was just saying, you know, you start to see those manifest themselves in ways that really do affect your enjoyment, your life. And you might start to think of that as not a great strategy of reducing government just to reduce it. Maybe actually we're cutting it in places we shouldn't.
Sally Mauk: We're all about to find out.
Lee Banville: I think we will, but it's going to take time because, it's it's going to start to bubble up in weird, unexpected places.
Sally Mauk: Also this week, Holly, the state Senate narrowly defeated a bill that would have required public schools to display the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. That was a very close vote.
Holly Michels: It was Sally. It went down 24 - 26. And this legislation was brought by Senator Bob Phalen, a Republican from Lindsay. He said he wanted this bill because it would bring morality in the schools. And he did say it was also based off a similar bill from Louisiana. That law was actually blocked by a federal judge.
Phalen says he thinks the U.S. Supreme Court would take a different view. In the debate in our Legislature here, fellow Republicans who supported the bill said that exposing children to the Ten Commandments in classrooms, they felt didn't amount to state sponsored religion. It would help to mold children, but not all Republicans agree. Again, Senator Ellsworth, who we talked about earlier, said even though he's a Christian, he did worry the bill would stray into violating separation of church and state.
The Democrats were unanimous in their opposition of the bill. We heard from Senator Susan Webber of Browning, who raised concerns that this bill could harm Native students who are already dealing with generational trauma that comes from the abuse that Natives have suffered at religious boarding schools that forced Christianity on the students. Webber at one point actually tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill so it would have excluded districts on, or near Indian reservations in Montana, or that had Native students enrolled. That wasn't successful, but the overall bill did get voted down, so likely the end of the policy. For this session, though, nothing's ever truly done until they adjourn fully.
Sally Mauk: Well Lee, Senate President Matt Regier wants to know what's wrong with mentioning God in the classroom.
Lee Banville: Which God? That's part of the problem. We have multiple religions. The First Amendment ensures that we have the right to practice our religion, but also, we are prevented from establishing a religion by state government. And so, I think the big challenge here - and this Louisiana case is fascinating, and it is moving through the federal court system. It could pave the way for allowing this. So, we might see if the Supreme Court does say it's okay to do this, we might see this bill pop back up either at the end of this session or next session. But I think that for now, I think most people see this as maybe too much of a blurring of the line between the state, which runs these public schools, and Judeo-Christian values that would be enshrined in the Ten Commandments. And so for now, I think most people have leaned towards including that federal court that is put an injunction against this law in Louisiana are saying that we can't blur it that much.
Sally Mauk: Also, Lee, Montana Democrats have announced their keynote speaker for the upcoming Mansfield Metcalf dinner, their annual, sort of, rally 'round the party event. And it's going to be none other than Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris's running mate, of course. One imagines he will mention maybe what factors led to their loss.
Lee Banville: I would imagine. I think we've talked about this, but the Democratic Party in Montana is at sort of a moment where it's got to figure out what it's doing. I mean, thanks to 9 Republicans in the state Senate, it's had a fairly good session, but its track record in statewide races has been pretty abysmal. And so, I think Walz was a figure on the national stage that hit right for a lot of Democrats who are trying to argue that we need to appeal to the 'football coach dads' as well as the elitist coastal types. And so, I think it'll be interesting to see, you know, does this help inspire or inform the decision making that has to happen within the Montana state Democratic Party because they really do seem to be at a point where they have to come up with a new strategy of how to run statewide.
Sally Mauk: Well, we'll see if Governor Walz has that strategy to impart.
Lee Banville: I mean, they didn't in 2024. But, you know, maybe he has some ideas.
Sally Mauk: Well, Holly and Lee, we are out of time. I'll talk to you next week. Thanks.
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