Shaylee Ragar: The 69th legislature is starting week eight of the session. Factions in the state Senate are cleaving further apart and impacting the chamber's work. Debates over education policy are heating up. This is The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. I'm Shaylee Ragar with Montana Public Radio.
Tom Lutey: I'm Tom Lutey with Montana Free Press.
Austin Amestoy: And I'm Austin Amestoy with Montana Public Radio.
Shaylee Ragar: Tom, Austin, so glad you guys are joining this week. How is your caffeine intake? Because mine, I think, has been pretty high.
Tom Lutey: Well, after Monday, I think I'm going to have to cut down on the caffeine a little bit. It's just really exciting around here this week. Lots of conflict.
Austin Amestoy: And, you know, Shaylee, I'm outside the Capitol, so I get to limit myself to one cup a day, just fine.
Shaylee Ragar: That is a very smart move. To Tom's point, I feel like we maybe haven't really caught up on sleep since Monday night. It was a late night at the Capitol during a rare evening floor session, a quote unquote “working majority” in the state Senate was really asserting its dominance.
Tom, first of all, who are these lawmakers?
Tom Lutey: Well, it's a coalition of 27 lawmakers, all 18 Democrats and nine Republicans, and what they've effectively done on major issues is supplant the Republican leadership, which has a caucus of 32 members.
“This isn't about Dems or Republicans or deals being struck. It's about a majority in this body doing what we think is right.”
On the Republican side of the ledger, there are nine lawmakers, some of whom have been outcasts for killing anti-abortion legislation, some challenged Republican power players in the 2024 primaries and won. Josh Kassmier, for example, defeated Montana Republican Party Vice President Lola Sheldon-Galloway in a tough Great Falls race. Of course, this would be nothing without those 18 Democrats participating and they really turned the wheel.
Shaylee Ragar: Tom, describe for us the vibe of the floor session that night. How were lawmakers reacting? What were they saying?
Tom Lutey: Well, it was interesting, the coalition in 27 was clearly in charge. Effectively, this coalition took over the Senate for several hours.
“This is not an orderly flow of business, what we're doing here tonight. We could be here for a very long time.”
Shaylee Ragar: I also remember hearing that Senator Carl Glimm of Kila was whistling, maybe somewhat of a clown song.
Tom Lutey: Yes, he did. He was whistling Enter the Gladiators as things really kicked off.
Shaylee Ragar: How does that go?
Austin Amestoy: Is that the ‘dun dun dadadadadada?
Tom Lutey: Yep, that's the one.
“There are a lot of people who are acting like it's, I don't know if it's first grade or second grade, I'm not sure.”
As things played out, someone brought Ellie Boldman a giant tub of movie popcorn, I mean like straight from a local theater popcorn.
“I think I just called a first grader, which is fun, in this fine dignified chamber.”
And then things along the way started to get a little nasty. At one point in time, former Senate President Jason Ellsworth stepped out into a hallway to vape, which immediately prompted a call by Senator Barry Usher.
“I would say that's a smack in the face to everybody in this chamber and I might be going to ethics next week.”
It was kind of a fracas along those lines.
“Why are certain people in this chamber just being puppets?”
“Decorum is really important in this chamber and I'm just gonna say you might want to do something about it.”
“Just like vaping is.”
While this is all going on, Senate President Matt Regier is chairing the floor. So he's basically the air traffic controller that's overseeing the process as the coalition monopolizes the runway.
Shaylee Ragar: What did these factions mean for policy debates?
Tom Lutey:The Senate passed a major Medicaid bill of the session last Thursday, largely on support of the coalition, though some fell off, limiting the powers of Montana courts is a big Republican priority, several of those bills have died along party lines, and we should expect to see more coalition wins as things play out.
There are major property tax debates coming up. We could very well see Governor Gianforte's property tax package amended to some point where Democrats would be willing to support it, take precedence in the Senate–that's possible.
Shaylee Ragar: So another thing to consider amid all of this kind of turmoil in the state Senate is that the legislature has pretty tight deadlines. They have 90 days to get their work done. They have to meet several different deadlines. So how is this all impacting the Senate's work and its ability to get its work done on time?
Tom Lutey: Well, the Senate was slow out of the gate. We're 11 days away from transmittal, which is the buffalo jump for non-money bills–those that don't pass over to the other house die. You could certainly see this coalition begin to advance the bills that they want to see transmit over the next 11 days.
Shaylee Ragar: Yeah, and I'll just say I've been hearing from staffers and from other legislators that they expect that transmittal crunch the time when lawmakers are trying to make sure that that their bills pass and and survive this transmittal deadline, that that crunch is going to be particularly crunchy.
We'll be tracking that and updating as we get closer to that deadline and education advocates last week were part of that wanting to get their bills across and transmitted before this transmittal deadline. They've been outspoken across the spectrum in pushing to advance their respective priorities.
Austin, you have been following these bills. There's been a lot of excitement in the State House over them and proposals for spending on public education and private education. What are we seeing, Austin?
Austin Amestoy: Yes, Shaylee, amid all the high drama in the Senate last week, there was a little bit of drama for a long-time conservative education priority, and that's boosting so-called school choice.
That is essentially helping parents pursue options outside the public school system. This session's big school choice swing was House Bill 320, or the Montana's Academic Prosperity Program for Scholars Act, which is MAPS, if you are unfamiliar with the legislature's love of very catchy acronyms. It would have given income tax credits to qualified parents of private or homeschool students who could then use that money on qualified educational expenses.
“We have a constitutional obligation to teach all of our kids, and we're not reaching those kids.”
Conservatives and private school parents and other supporters of this program said it would help students who aren't a good fit for the public school system.
“A student's education should not be entirely determined by their financial situation or where they live.”
But there was a lot of opposition to this program from public school advocates from the jump who were very loud about their pushing back.
Shaylee Ragar: Yeah, those public school advocates have definitely been making a lot of noise in the Capitol.
“We're here to fight for our students, our clients, our families and our communities.”
I was at a rally last week where hundreds gathered in the snow and cold on the steps of the Capitol to make their voices known. What are they saying?
Austin Amestoy: Right, Shaylee, that was a rally organized by the Montana Federation of Public Employees, which is the state's largest union, it represents teachers here, and they have a really powerful presence in the Capitol in a lobbying capacity.
They were fired up about a lot of things, but they were also fired up about the MAPS program, which speakers at this rally said would route public dollars to private schools, which don't have to follow state education standards. Charlie Snellman, a high school senior in Helena, spoke about this to the crowd.
“Increased attempts to redirect already tight public dollars from public schools to unaccountable private charters and voucher schemes are threatening students across Montana.”
Conservative supporters of these tax credits, Shaylee, for private school parents, pointed out that the program's total price tag in its first year, about $8 million in lost tax revenue to the state, is a fraction of what the state spends on public school.
But that didn't really matter in the end. The bill went down 55-45 in the House, which means it is effectively dead, but you know, with the legislature, there's always the off chance we could see some of the policies therein, stapled onto something else as the session moves forward.
Shaylee Ragar: With the debate over aid for private school parents stalled at the moment, what's happening on the public side?
Austin Amestoy: Right, and here's where we actually see a lot of bipartisan agreement. Over the last couple years, listeners have probably heard stories and read them from Montana reporters about a lot of school budget woes happening across the state. Schools have been battling inflation for a while, but with a bunch of pandemic aid coming down from the federal level, it wasn't quite clear how bad that issue was until that aid dried up last year.
We saw schools across the state making steep budget cuts, cutting teachers and administrative staff. And this year, this session, they came to lawmakers saying, we need help. The Montana School Boards Association estimates that the state has fallen behind past funding obligations by about $92 million.
But the moral of the story is, there's a big deficit they're trying to make up and the targets for making up that deficit is:
“It's a program called the STARS Act, which stands for Student and Teacher Advancement for Results and Success.”
Republicans are driving that measure forward, but it does have nearly universal bipartisan support so far.
Lawmakers worked on it for about a year before the session started. It dangles $55 million in potential new funding for schools who can get a cut of it if they ensure their early career teachers are making at least $41,000.
“Its focus is really clear. It's about getting money to the classroom.”
So the idea here is we’ll help you close the inflation gap if you boost starting pay for new teachers, which has been a real problem in Montana for many years now. Democrats have tagged along for that bill. They're largely in support, though they and some of the union members that we heard from on the steps of the state capitol say they don't like that the money has strings attached, although I will mention that it hasn't stopped Democrats from supporting the STARS Act so far.
It does need final approval from the House before it can move to the Senate. On an initial vote in the House, more than 90 percent of lawmakers were in favor as we've seen, anything can happen in the legislature.
The bottom line here, though, Shaylee, is that schools are depending on the STARS Act passing to just get by.
It's not some revolutionary bump in funding for schools. It's restoring money that's been eaten up by inflation in recent years. As a Montana Free Press reporter Alex Sakariassen reported back in December, Kalispell Public Schools just hammered out a new teacher pay agreement with their union that actually relies on the STARS Act passing, otherwise, Kalispell's going to have to make more cuts to payroll.
Shaylee Ragar: Got it. Well, thank you both so much for your reporting. We'll end it there today. Before we go, you guys, what was your favorite moment last week?
Tom Lutey: That would have to be Monday night’s session, particularly Ellie Boldman's giant bucket of movie popcorn and all the hot buttered shenanigans of the evening.
Austin Amestoy: Yeah, I'd love to diversify our answers here, but my notable moment is actually Monday as well. Of course I'm not in the Capitol, but I was actually lying in bed getting ready to go to sleep because of my morning shift the next day and I saw a Tweet that the so-called shenanigans were occurring. I flipped on MPAN on my phone, and it was what I watched as I drifted off to sleep.
“This is fun, right? Let's stay all night. I like it.”
It is probably the nerdiest thing I could be watching at 9 p.m. and I don't think my fiancee was too amused, but I couldn't help myself.
Shaylee Ragar: I'll tell you my favorite moment. On Thursday last week, we had a long floor debate on Medicaid expansion. It had been a super busy day and I had kind of been scrambling to get organized and get myself together and I realized I had forgotten lunch. I was trying to cobble together some string cheese and crackers when Tom walked in my office and he offered me a pasta lunch instead–some incredible gourmet puttanesca. It was so good. That's what it's all about up here, we just kind of watch out for each other and it was so good, Tom.
This has been The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. Thank you guys for joining.
Tom Lutey:Thanks, Shaylee.
Austin Amestoy: Thanks for having me.
