Montana Senate works to get back on track

Senate Republicans worked to get the first week of the Legislature back on track Wednesday, countering a bipartisan revolt that stalled several committees during the session’s opening week.

Lawmakers on Wednesday scrapped plans for a committee dedicated to issues concerning the executive branch. That came after Republicans and Democrats assigned to the committee took to the Senate floor two days earlier with an amendment to reassign themselves to other committees and demote their regularly scheduled executive review committee to an on-call basis. The Senate as a whole will have to take up Wednesday’s amendments to settle the matter.

Sen. Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, led the Monday rebellion. He said the expertise of members assigned to the Executive Branch Review Committee, including his own, was wasted on a committee that no other previous Legislature thought necessary.

“From my perspective, it was just taking those people who have expertise and experience that would really contribute to and giving them the opportunity to use their expertise [elsewhere],” Flowers told Montana Free Press.

On Wednesday, a Senate hearing calendar wasn’t published, while House lawmakers pressed ahead with 21 bills scheduled for hearings in several committees.

It was never clear what the Executive Branch Review Committee would be doing, said Flowers, which concerned the three Democrats assigned to it. With 18 Democrats in the 50-member Senate, minority lawmakers are thinly spread across 23 committees. Getting the three Democrats reassigned improved party input on major issues like state budget spending and economic development. 

The committee’s five Republicans and three Democrats all backed Flowers’ amendment to the Senate rules that assigned them to the powerful money committees, either Senate Finance and Claims or Business and Labor. On the floor Monday, Senate Democrats put their 18 votes behind the measure and three Republicans not on the Executive Review Committee backed the measure as well. The votes were enough to amend the rules on a 27-23 vote.

What followed was a days-long delay in the work of several Senate committees, which paused as majority leadership considered next steps for the 90-day session. 

“It messed up the whole system” prepared over the previous two months, said Sen. President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell. “So, that was two months undone in 15 minutes, or reshuffled.” 

In addition to amending the Executive Branch Review Committee out of existence Wednesday, the Rules Committee also ensured the dissatisfied members who rebelled wouldn’t have the last word on where they would be assigned. Monday’s floor amendment was countered Wednesday with language allowing the Committee on Committees to determine assignments.

After the Rules Committee met, Flowers told Democrats in a caucus gathering that the upcoming floor vote on the changes to the rules, while ending the Executive Branch Review Committee, would also nullify the reassignments won in Monday’s coup. The message to minority party members was to hold the line against the rules changes likely to be voted on Thursday afternoon.

Senate committees appeared to be returning to schedule later in the week, though  uncertainty persisted for agencies and lawmakers.

“We’re ready today,” said Jon Ebelt, spokesperson for the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. “I just dropped off our hard copy of all of our presentations.”

Ebelt told Montana Free Press the department was expecting to start with introductions in Senate committees on Thursday, a step taken in the House at the start of the week.

Sen. Chris Pope, D-Bozeman, a veteran lawmaker, said he hadn’t experienced such a broad shutdown of committee work at the start of a legislative session. 

“There are so many committees that aren’t meeting,” Pope said. “In almost 10 years, I don’t recall this ever being the case.”

Mara Silvers contributed reporting.