Legislature closing access to behind-the-scenes bill influences

The Montana Legislature is preparing to close the door on public access to communications between lawmakers, lobbyists and stakeholders concerning draft bills. 

Legislative staff informed lawmakers this week that the communications, previously available to the public and frequently examined by journalists, no longer needed to be made publicly available, based on a District Court ruling concerning a Republican lawmaker’s communications about a bill that redrew Montana’s Public Service Commission districts. 

In June, state Sen. Keith Regier successfully fought off a request for the behind-the-scenes information regarding a bill Regier authored to redraw the five districts of the Montana Public Service Commission, which regulates monopolies. Five individual voters joined by the nonprofit group Montana Conservation Voters requested the information. 

Lewis and Clark County District Judge Christopher Abbott ruled July 12 that Regier and other lawmakers’ communications with lobbyists and “stakeholders” when writing bills are protected from public scrutiny. 

Legislative Services on Tuesday issued a form for lawmakers to sign if legislators intended to continue sharing the information with the public. 

“The purpose of this document is to inform you of your rights under this order to exercise your privilege as a legislator to not provide communications that are subject to legislative privilege to the public,” the waiver reads. 

At issue are “junque files,” folders concerning bill drafts that include communications between lobbyists, and legislators, legislative staff and other third parties providing input as a bill is written. A junque file might show communications between a mining lobbyist and a lawmaker about proposed environmental policy, for example. Records within the files show when amendments to a bill are being directly submitted by a lobbyist for a government utility, or a teacher’s union. 

As Montana Free Press reported in January 2023, “when a particularly perplexing bill materializes in front of the Legislature, there are a few tools available to help investigate its backstory. Chief among those is the almighty junque file.” At issue in the MTFP story was a bill proposing civil penalties for adultery. 

Hearings on the adultery legislation, House Bill 204, by Rep. Bob Phalen, R-Lindsay, were short on details. The junque file contained communications between Phalen and the legislative staff that explained why the bill was being introduced: a concern about unfaithful wives and judges sympathetic to attractive women.