Shaylee Ragar: The 69th legislature is starting week eight of the session. Priority legislation for the Montana American Indian Caucus is revived and advancing through the statehouse. Lawmakers are at odds over how best to ease the burden of property taxes. This is The Session. A look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House.
I'm Shaylee Ragar with Montana Public Radio.
Kaiden Forman-Webster: I'm Kaiden Forman-Webster with Montana Free Press and ICT.
Eric Dietrich: And I'm Eric Dietrich, also with Montana Free Press.
Shaylee Ragar: Eric, hello. How are you?
Eric Dietrich: Well, last week was a long week.
Shaylee Ragar: Yes. We are coming up on a big transmittal deadline, which we'll talk about later, but first, Kaiden, it's your first time on the podcast.
Kaiden Forman-Webster: That it is.
Shaylee Ragar: Yes. Could you introduce yourself to us, please?
Kaiden Forman-Webster: Well, I'm from the Flathead, so born and raised in Polson, an SKC student getting a Bachelor's in tribal administration and government, so currently a senior, and so I was offered this fellowship between Montana Free Press and ICT, and I figured it'd be a good opportunity to actually understand the government and use my degree for some good, I suppose.
Shaylee Ragar: Well, Kaiden, we are so happy to have you on the podcast and here up the Capitol. You have been following some legislation in the Senate that the American Indian Caucus is prioritizing. Let's start with who is the American Indian Caucus?
Kaiden Forman-Webster: It is made up of 12 different house representatives and senators.
I think they span all of the different reservations across Montana. There's multiple from CSKT where I'm from. So it's, those are like the first ones I've kind of picked on to get to know because it felt more like home and it's been very enjoyable to get to know them. And like I said, very intimidating at first meeting them. But now I'll go in and talk with them, get to know what they're about.
Shaylee Ragar: I want to first talk about a bill that's related to the Montana Indian Child Welfare Act. What is this bill, Kaiden, and what would it do?
Kaiden Forman-Webster: So it is a reinforcement of ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act, which is the federal guidelines for Indian child adoption.
“Native children of Montana have long been and remain dramatically overrepresented in the foster care and child welfare systems. They are separated from their families at a significantly higher rate than non-native children.”
And Montana created its own version just to reinforce those federal laws.
“Studies show that strong cultural identity reduces mental health risks and separation from culture increases depression and low self esteem, especially for children placed in non-native homes.”
Most importantly, it resets the sunset date that was on the 2023 MICWA bill.
“Senate Bill 147 removes the sunset date so it can flourish into the future for the state of Montana as well as makes important adjustments to ensure proper health and safety of the child.”
“This bipartisan bill has unified support from all tribes in Montana and it's widely accepted as best practices.”
Proponents of the bill also really focused on the cultural compacts that were put into this bill as well.
“Having MICWA in place respects state-tribal relations by requiring state child family services first consult with tribal nations to identify family or closest of kin to placement of the child.”
“Legislation like Senate Bill 147 ensures that native children can grow up connected to their culture promoting the health and sovereignty of our entire communities.”
Shaylee Ragar: So that's representative Jonathan Windy Boy of Box Elder who's sponsoring that, right? He's one of the most senior legislators in the building.
Windy Boy has another bill that got a lot of attention last week related to Indian Education for All. So what's that policy that he's moving?
Kaiden Forman-Webster: So he brought that forward pretty recently. It will require accountability for schools.
“As another generation passes through our schools, robust and uniform Indian Education for All remains elusive. We can and must do better.”
Of the 405 school districts, 150 of them were either underreporting or did not report at all what they were spending their Indian Ed money on. There's a lot of trouble actually getting schools to include tribal history in curriculum.
“Unfortunately, the Indian Education for All program has been grossly abused by Montana schools who receive funding and do not properly utilize that funding for IEFA purposes.”
Shaylee Ragar: Cause there is also a Montana constitutional requirement that they teach this curriculum in schools. Is that right?
Kaiden Forman-Webster: So the constitutional amendment was created back in the 70s. I don't believe any curriculum was ever really created behind it. So then you get to the late 1990s and they try and get more of a concrete curriculum created for involving Native American culture in Montana schools. From there on out, it was constantly a fight to actually get that to happen and this is just another year where it's trying to be reinforced once again.
Shaylee Ragar: Got it. Well, we did see a couple of fights play out in the Senate last week over these bills. They failed to advance out of committee, they were tabled in committee. Then representative Windy Boy blasted quote unquote “blasted” those bills out of committee before the full Senate. ‘Blasting’ is a procedural term, believe it or not, that refers to a motion, asking a chamber to override a committee's decision to table a bill, to pull it out and put it before the full chamber to consider now that these bills have been revived, where did they go now?
Kaiden Forman-Webster: Well, since they were revived, they made it through the Senate, they're now making their way to the House. As far as how they'll do on the House side, I'm not quite sure how that'll end up going. They're gonna need a pretty strong sponsor to make sure that they can articulate the importance of these bills.
Shaylee Ragar: One other policy we should talk about, Kaiden, is a proposal to create Indigenous People's Day. This is a proposal that has been introduced many times in the state legislature, but has failed to advance in the past.
“I think I got yelled at last session on the floor, so I'm happy this dynamic has definitely changed.”
Shaylee Ragar: This time, it is advancing. Talk us through that.
Kaiden Forman-Webster: The big difference on this year's Indigenous Peoples Day bill compared to previous sessions is that it looks to coexist with Columbus Day.
“Let's come together as a state and honor all of our histories, all of our people, celebrate all of our ancestors' tendrils.”
Which was the major selling point for a lot of Republicans.
“You know, we are all here because of Columbus and that history, but other people were here prior–everybody wins.”
Shaylee Ragar: So this bill has more momentum than it has in the past. We'll be keeping an eye on it as it moves to the house for consideration and see how it does.
But now I want to move on to property taxes. Eric, you've been following a lot of the debates over the best ways to mitigate the rise in property taxes.
Eric Dietrich: If there's anything everybody in the building agrees on, it's probably that, of course, they don't agree on the right way to go about doing it.
Shaylee Ragar: Right. Okay. Governor Greg Gianforte's favorite bill would lower taxes for primary Montana residences and small businesses, and it would shift a higher tax burden onto second homes and short term rentals.
“As I've said before, rising property taxes fuel the affordability crisis hitting homeowners across the nation.”
The bill has been amended to tie it to a proposal backed by Democrats. Eric, what happened there?
Eric Dietrich: I think that the probably the longest short of it, right, is you have this much tighter proposal coming from a Republican governor, not all Republicans support the governor's bill. And as it goes through the process that is making it harder for the proponents to find the votes they need to keep things moving.
One step in the process and the House Appropriations committee, a week before last, was that they needed democratic votes to get it through and so they amended it to make it more palatable to Democrats. They tweaked some of the rates in a complex bill, a bunch of dials and knobs that you can twist.
Democrats have been worried about whether or not it provides enough relief for lower value homes, so they amended it to do print a little more of that relief and then include this clause says–hey, if the legislature doesn't pass one of the Democrats bills, it's going to provide even more relief for lower income homes
Shaylee Ragar: And Democrats are in the minority–capital ‘M’ Minority.
Eric Dietrich:Yeah, not as big of a minority as they were in last session, but the political dynamics around this particular bill, I think, put them in a position where they were at the table and had some leverage. The other proposal, the Democratic proposal, is an income tax credit that would offset property taxes.
So it would be kind of based on household income and how big is your property tax bill. It ties the income and property tax systems together in a way that would be a big policy change for the state. It's really interesting and may or may not have enough support to go through.
Shaylee Ragar: I agree with you that the governor's bill is still the property tax bill to watch, but there is another proposal from Democrats that is in competition with this bill that is also advancing. Tell us about that policy, Eric.
Eric Dietrich: Yeah, so the Democrats brought that bill pretty explicitly as a kind of a, not quite one to one, but like a direct alternative to the governor's bill. So you have basically choices between the two and may end up kind of mashed together down the road, but the primary differences are that the governor's bill kind of tries to spin some dials and knobs and quote, unquote, “Rebalance the property tax system”.
The proponents of the governor's bill are worried about…as you take down taxes and residential properties, pushing tax dollars onto businesses and farms. And so that's why they have the second home tax component in there that would provide another revenue sink to kind of offset some of the savings.
The Democratic bill doesn't have that. It doesn't try to distinguish between primary and secondary residences. Instead, it tries to raise taxes more on higher value homes and lower taxes more on low value homes and kind of shuffle stuff around that way.
Shaylee Ragar: So we have some competing tax bills. We have some companion tax bills that could work in conjunction with others.
So as these bills advance, Eric, what will you be watching for?
Eric Dietrich: Two things. One is, of these high profile bills, what happens to them, even if the bills die, like their component pieces may get kind of taken out and put in other things. Sometimes stuff gets stitched together in interesting ways, especially kind of late in the session.
But there are a bunch of other ideas around local option taxes, where you could have a local option sales tax that would offset property taxes, a bunch of stuff going on in circulation in the building here, right?
Shaylee Ragar:The property tax debate is far from over. Before we leave, Kaiden, what was your favorite moment from last week?
Kaiden Forman-Webster: A bill that I did not think would be as exciting as it turns out to be, is a milk bill. I think Montana is the last state that has a law that makes it so you have to sell milk within 12 days, and it's generally good for 21 days. And so, Greg Hertz is the one bringing the bill forward, which will change how long grocery stores can sell their milk for.
And it could potentially go from 12 days to 17 days or potentially all the way up to the 21 days.
Shaylee Ragar: Who knew milk could be so spicy? Eric, what was your favorite moment from last week?
Eric Dietrich: Of course we're running up on the transmittal deadline, which is kind of the midpoint of the session and most stuff has to kind of get through its first chamber or dies by the end of this week.
So last week I was walking around the building, outside the House Judiciary meeting room and saw they had for every bill they hear, they put out a clipboard of people to sign up for opponents. And I was aghast. I think there was a table with 13 clipboards sitting outside the House Judiciary committee and went, oh my gosh, those poor guys in there.
Shaylee Ragar: Sign of the times, too many clipboards. I will say my favorite moment is being a citizen legislature in Montana is really cool. You never know who you're going to run into in the building. I learned that my high school biology teacher is now a lobbyist. And I got to chat with her in the hallway.
Eric, I do want to note, you talked about the transmittal deadline. That is a very important deadline. That's coming up this week. Policy bills have to be transmitted from one chamber to another, or they die by transmittal deadline. We know committee hearings are going to be super long and busy this week, and we will have updates for our listeners when the dust settles.
This has been The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House.
Thank you guys for joining.
Kaiden Forman-Webster: Thanks for having us. This was a fun time.
Eric Dietrich: Always happy to talk about tax policy.
