12 days of legislative Christmas

We’re all familiar with the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” In recognition of the holiday season, I’d like to share some of the good work your state lawmakers accomplished in the legislative session at the beginning of the year, in a shortened format of the song.

Without further ado, here are the Twelve Days of Christmas, Legislative Edition. The Legislature passed:

TWELVE major infrastructure and investment bills. These included investments in roads and bridges, water and irrigation systems, wildfire fighting, the state prison, law enforcement pensions, teacher health insurance, and more.

ELEVEN education-related bills, other than charter schools, to benefit students and teachers. These bills increased education funding, incentivized raising starting teacher pay, increased trades education, helped special needs students, and increased flexibility in learning at work-based programs, online, or in a different district, among other reforms.

TEN energy and natural resources bills, ranging from regulatory relief to lowering timber taxes to building electric transmission capability to opposing the removal of hydropower dams.

NINE election bills. These new laws strengthen the integrity of our elections by banning outside money in election administration, increasing post-election auditing, banning election machines from connecting to the internet, cleaning up voter lists, and more. We also passed NINE pro-housing bills dealing with zoning and infrastructure, and NINE additional housing red tape relief bills.

EIGHT bills to benefit our active duty military members, their families, and veterans, among which are a 50% tax exemption on retirement pay and pay increases for National Guard pilots fighting wildfires.

SEVEN pro-life bills, including legislation to ban taxpayer funding of abortions, protect viable unborn children, and more.

SIX each of pro-family and pro-firearm bills. The pro-family bills assist in adoption, increase access to childcare, and more. The pro-gun bills restrict government from infringing on Second Amendment rights, prohibit the backdoor financial tracking of gun sales, and help in preventing firearm suicides.

FIVE tough-on-crime bills to make our communities safer. SBs 38, 265, 491, and 13, as well as HB 112, crack down on sex trafficking, human trafficking, and sexual predators, and more.

FOUR bills to protect Montanans’ privacy in the age of technology. SB 397 restricts the government’s use of facial recognition technology. SB 384 protects Montanans’ online data and SB 351 protects our genetic data. SB 325 creates special protections for electronic communications between spouses.

THREE bills that provided nearly $900 million in property tax and income tax rebates to Montanans, up to $3,850 per family (HBs 192, 222, and 816). Those are just the one-time tax relief bills, several other bills provided hundreds of millions more in permanent tax cuts on income, property, business equipment, and more.

TWO bills that allow different models of charter schools to be created in Montana, expanding educational options for students (HBs 562 and 549).

ONE bill that strengthened the ethical requirements in state law for both legislators and judges (HB 412). It’s not often that you hear about politicians mandating stricter ethics for themselves, but that’s exactly what your Republican Legislature did this year.

Those 102 bills make up the Legislative 12 Days of Christmas. In the holiday spirit, all are meant to protect our rights, strengthen families, make our communities safer, improve our children’s futures, and make life more affordable.

Senator Jason Ellsworth,

President, Montana Senate

Note: bill number citations were provided for all referenced legislation; some bill numbers were removed to meet the Sanders County Ledger’s word count