The 69th Legislature is starting Week 11 today. Republican Senate President Matt Regier joins the podcast.
President Regier sat down for an interview with MTPR before lawmakers took several days off for transmittal break and before the state Senate voted to have legislative auditors review public contracts he signed to retain outside legal counsel.
Shaylee Ragar: The 69th Legislature is starting Week 11 today. Republican Senate President Matt Regier joins the podcast. This is The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. I’m Shaylee Ragar with Montana Public Radio.
A quick note: President Regier sat down for an interview with MTPR before lawmakers took several days off for transmittal break and before the state senate voted to have legislative auditors review public contracts he signed to retain outside legal counsel.
Senate President Regier, thank you for joining me today.
Matt Regier: Hey, thanks for having me here. It’s always great to chat with you.
Shaylee Ragar: How are you doing?
Matt Regier: Oh, I’m doing excellent. A little bit of sarcasm in that, but, no, doing good. You got to smile no matter what life gives you and we’re halfway through. So I think a lot of people are excited for a week off and I’m right there with them.
Shaylee Ragar: Yeah, halfway through the session. I want to back up and start chronologically here. Let’s talk about day one of this legislative session. A group of nine Republican senators voted with Democrats against the Republican majority. They have the numbers to stymie the majority when they want to.
Why do you think that this faction formed? And how do you think they’ve impacted the Senate’s work?
Matt Regier: What disappointed me so much, I mean, it’s just procedure. To go against your own party and procedure is something that just baffles me. You ran as a Republican and dance with the ones that brung you.
I get that we’re different on the issues, but procedure, that should be something that you back up your caucus on, and that didn’t happen on day one.
Shaylee Ragar: What does unifying the caucus look like going forward in the second half of the session?
Matt Regier: I’m a big believer, if you’re going to do something, do it in front of the curtain.
Let’s show your peers, show, the Capitol building, show the people out there in Montana that, hey, this is what I believe. This is what I want to stand for. Let’s do it in front of the curtain. Let’s talk it through. You have different issues even on procedure with me. That was day one and nobody came and talked to me.
I had even called the whole caucus and talked to their priorities and everything and nobody mentioned a word of, hey, I’m upset about this. So I will keep trying to reach out as well as to the executive branch and even the judicial branch, like we had nominations here for judicial judges, we’re starting on that, filling some vacancies. So talking to all branches of government and talking to all people within my caucus here.
Shaylee Ragar: Well, that brings me to some policy I want to talk about. Bills to regulate the judiciary are a huge priority this session for Republicans. We’ve seen some of those bills advance, some are not advancing.
How are you feeling about the progress of those bills and which ones are still alive?
Matt Regier: You know, feeling pretty good. It is tough. We had a big bite at the apple. The temperature between the legislature and the judicial branches was high. I think that package of bills was great to be out there and debated.
Some of them haven’t made it so far, but a lot of them have. And I think they’re good, common sense, just better way to operate our judicial branch here in the state of Montana. I’ll give you one example is when a judge recuses themselves, right now they can pick their own replacement.
There’s a lot of good judges in Montana, but you get an activist judge, they’re here and you get an activist judge then that just picks his golfing buddy because he knows how he’s going to rule in that case. And that’s not justice. That’s not fair. That’s not blind. So this bill just changed it to random selection.
The judge recuses himself–randomly, a new judge will be picked. It won’t be that guy’s golfing buddy who he wants. So, simple things like that. To me, that’s straightforward. I think every Montana would be like, yeah, that’s the way I want my judge randomly picked. I don’t want an activist on either side of the aisle.
Shaylee Ragar: Something I wonder about when I watch these debates over the judicial branch bills is the legislature is a check and balance on the judiciary as the judiciary is a check and balance on the legislature, the executive branch, the executive branch is checks and balances. Where do you find that line of having checks and balances and also being allowed to be checked and balanced by the judicial branch?
Some say that some of these bills are overreaching their ability to check your power.
Matt Regier: That’s the system. No matter who’s in it, everyone should be jealous for their role in state government, whether that’s the exec. I mean, we’ve had our rubs with the exec too, and even in the same party, like he’s jealous of his power, his role and that’s great, but we should have a legislature that stands up for ours and a judicial branch that stands up for theirs.
I think people look at that and go, oh, the branches are rubbing against each other. And it’s like that’s part of how it’s structured to be that we’re supposed to be. I’m jealous for our role here as legislators, and I don’t want to abdicate that to any other branch of government but once again, I don’t think they should either. So I think that push and pull is how a government should be.
Shaylee Ragar: With that in mind, that that tension is just going to be present and is designed to be present, I am thinking about tension with the executive branch with the legislature. Governor Greg Gianforte did not endorse you last election cycle while endorsing some of your colleagues.
You won. Now you’re Senate president. How would you describe your working relationship with the governor?
Matt Regier: I mean, we’re on the same page on a lot of different stuff. The governor can endorse whoever he wants to endorse, that’s fine. I don’t take any of this personally. I know some people do, but I don’t.
I like the tensions that we do have and what we’re arguing about. I said this before, we’re arguing about tax relief. We’re all in agreement that we’re going to do some sort of tax relief. We’re taking too many dollars from Montanans. How do we give it back?
Shaylee Ragar: It seems like we’re teed up to do a lot of work on property tax and income tax in the second half of the session. Which specific policies do you like?
Matt Regier: I do like the concept of changing up rates. Myself, as well as some of my colleagues, prefer a Senate Bill 90, which takes tourist tax–right now we tax tourists hotel tax, we need to stay in a hotel or rent a rental car and a lot of that money is going to the state general fund.
We have too much money coming to the state general fund. And I would argue even if Senate Bill 90 didn’t go, that that money should stay back in the local counties where tourists are using the water, sewer, police, roads, and that’s all paid for by the homeowners in those communities.
Shaylee Ragar: Other policy that we are seeing Republican lawmakers again prioritize this session would restrict gender affirming care, social and legal affirmations for transgender Montanans, like being able to update your driver’s license. We’re seeing upwards of a dozen bills across both chambers. The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that less than one percent of Montanans identify as transgender, so it’s a lot of oxygen and energy for these bills for a small percentage of people.
What do you hope that they accomplish?
Matt Regier: Yeah, I think on that whole issue, if we’re taking that issue broad, and Montana’s always been independent, and I think what happened with that LGBTQ movement, that it crossed a line when it said, hey, you will have your child share a bed with a biologically different sex on school sponsored trips.
We had a bill that affected that I think that’s where Montana’s I mean we saw this at the national level this let’s go around with Trump, but as well as Montana are seeing that shift of you can’t force us and a lot of these bills I know the other side would probably say different, but we look at them as just I’m standing up for parental rights on that.
There’s two sides to that coin, so.
Shaylee Ragar: I understand you’re talking about the issue somewhat broadly here, and speaking to House Bill 121, which would have regulations on public accommodations, where transgender people can access public accommodations. I’m thinking also, though, about just kind of this philosophical argument of Montana’s not wanting to be forced to engage with this kind of political discourse and then also transgender people are saying, we don’t want to be forced to do that either. We want to self determine. We want to have the right to say that I would prefer to go by a different name or access health care that medical experts are saying is the standard of care. What do you say to that?
Matt Regier: Well, that’s where I look at you’re forcing somebody else to do what you want to do.
Senator Glimm’s bill that just defines what a male is and what a female is. So, are there just two genders? Is there male and female? And that’s where I land on the side of just the reality of what it’s been for centuries.
Shaylee Ragar: And I know I’m running out of time here, so I want to ask you briefly about the state budget.
We’ll also have to see the legislature put together a state budget in the second half of the session. How are you feeling about how that’s going so far and, and the surplus that we have?
Matt Regier: To me, when state government, well, any government, but especially state government, because that’s where I’m at, is running a surplus, that’s a big red flag.
We tax, we take your money by force, and we should only be taking enough money to operate. The expenses that we’ve set out for the two-year biennium. So when we keep running these surpluses, to me it’s obvious we are taking too much money from the people in Montana. Coming into this session, it was what, $522 million more every year we’re taking in than what we need to operate.
So we’ve got a huge ending fund surplus. The cash already has piled up there. So now there’s a question of, what is it, 1.4 billion, I believe, of cash that is sitting there. What do we do with that? There is some stuff like prisons. I know we’re shipping prisoners out because we’re full in capacity.
So the Department of Corrections, we’re going to need some large investments in that. I think a lot of people are on board on that, but that still leaves a lot left to argue about how to spend that. There’s still a whole second half here to go through, but there’s going to be some deep conversations in what does House Bill 2 look like at the final, because at the end, you got to get the votes to pass it. We need a budget and which side is going to give will be interesting to play out for sure.
Shaylee Ragar: Do you have thoughts on where cuts might be most appropriate?
Matt Regier: Well, I don’t even think we’ll get down to cuts because, I mean, I wish we would get down to where we can find efficiencies.
And that’s one thing too, like you talk about DOGE at the federal level, and this is one thing I’ve asked the second floor and even talked to the house about it, like, where is our Montana DOGE? Where are we finding things that, hey, this, this program is unneeded. And so far that list has been scant.
And I’m not so worried about the dollar in the end, if there’s legitimate needs, legitimate programs, like I said, the prison needs to be done, we need investments, let’s do it. Education, you need to fund that, I get it, but let’s find the efficiencies, the things that we don’t need, the fluff that’s been going on for decades, let’s cut the fluff out. Like to me, that is our responsibility as the legislative branch,
Shaylee Ragar: So on the DOGE topic, the federal effort to reduce spending. Do you think the state is prepared for the federal cuts that we could see come down that affect our budget? Do you think the state should be doing more to prepare for that?
Matt Regier: Yes and yes. We do have surpluses and we do have the reserves to go through and things are cut. But then, the other part of could we do better is, and I say yes to that too, of, that’s finding that efficiency. It’s obvious the feds are rockin and rollin, whichever way you look at it, they’re shakin things up.
It’s gonna affect states, for sure, and Montana as well. Like, Medicaid expansion, like we talked about, is that gonna continue as is? I will be shocked if it does in two years and we’re back in without having to come back for a special session because of something the feds did or changed that changed up our funding.
Montana’s a big, we’re heavily federally funded. So what the feds do is going to affect even Montana exponentially more than some of the other states.
Shaylee Ragar: Do you think the federal government should be asking states for more input as they’re going about this process?
Matt Regier: Yeah, I would hope so, it still takes guts to shake things up, but to know what you’re shaking, it would be very valuable.
Shaylee Ragar: I know you have to get back to the floor, so I’ll let you go. Thank you for taking the time today.
Matt Regier: Thanks a bunch, Shaylee. I sure appreciate it.
Shaylee Ragar: This has been The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. We’ll be back next week with the latest coverage from the state capitol.
Thanks for listening.
