2019 Legislature Report

This last week finished week two of the 66th legislative session. Week two brought a lot of bills to committees and out of committees. In the first few weeks of session, many bills are brought forth as a result of interim committee meetings throughout the last year and a half. Many other bills are brought forward by request of agencies. Both these types of bills are to clean up language, streamline operations, or simply because of a need to address an issue. I brought three of these bills through committee and on to the house floor. One was from MDT to allow Motor Carrier officers to assist Highway Patrol officers by writing tickets to trucks that ignore the chain up laws on the mountain passes. The other two were from FWP, dealing with opening more hunter access to private lands through landowner cooperative agreements. There have also been legislator written bills coming out of committees this past week. One very important issue was HB 159. This bill deals with K-12 education funding. The idea of getting this bill out as early as possible is to work any flaws out and try for a passage to get the important information back to the schools as early as possible.

This week the committees will be very busy with bills and executive actions. In the business and labor committee we have nearly fifteen bills for hearings and executive actions on about as many. All the other committees have heavy workloads, so the bills that pass committee will increase in numbers showing up on the house floor as well. Just as an example, we are slated for seven bills for second reading and three more for third reading on Monday and these numbers should go up as the weeks work progresses.

Always present are the bills still being drafted or are being addressed by the legal department or the fiscal notes being made. We have several bills being drafted dealing with Medicaid reform, child safety, water rights, and wolf issues to name a few. Please consult your Montana Legislature website and look up information to stay informed.

Denley M. Loge, House District 14

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