Some Montana lawmakers passed dozens of bills in the legislative session that adjourned in April. Others didn’t get a single one across the finish line.
A Montana Free Press analysis of the 69th Legislature shows most lawmakers managed to get at least one bill to the governor’s desk, while a handful came up empty. Many others played quieter roles behind the scenes, their influence not always reflected in the final bill count.
Montana Republicans had firm numeric control of the Capitol, holding 58 of 100 House seats and 32 of 50 Senate seats, in addition to the governor’s office. That dynamic helped Republican lawmakers pass bills at a much higher rate than Democrats.
The two parties diverged wildly in both the rate and the amount of legislation to become law. Republicans passed more than six times as many bills as Democrats — 813 versus 134. GOP-sponsored measures also cleared the bar at a much higher rate, with nearly 60% of Republican-sponsored bills passing, compared to 35% of measures brought by Democrats.
These figures, which include budget and policy bills but exclude resolutions, are based on an MTFP analysis of the 1,516 non-resolution bills introduced during the 2025 session. More than a fifth of those bills, 327, were introduced by the session’s 10 most prolific lawmakers, all Republicans.
The number of bills sponsored by individual legislators varied widely, averaging just over 13 per Republican and 5.6 per Democrat, but ranging as high as 53 for the session’s busiest bill sponsor, Polson Republican Sen. Greg Hertz, who saw 30 of his bills become law.
Hertz, a former speaker of the House, credited his success to relationships built over seven sessions in the Legislature.
“I’ve always focused on fostering relationships with legislators. And I think that’s helped me pass bills,” he said in a recent interview.
Hertz did, though, lament some of his failures, notably two bills that aimed to reduce property taxes by making it harder for local governments to pass and sustain voter-approved taxes.
None of the session’s 10 most prolific bill sponsors sported a perfect batting average. The most successful, House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls, passed 29 of his 34 bills, an 85% success rate.
Fitzpatrick said in an interview that he tries to think through potential objections from lawmakers, constituents and interest groups and drafts his bills to address or avoid those concerns where possible.
“I don’t like to bring a bill unless I think I’m going to pass it,” Fitzpatrick said.
Billings Republican Sen. Daniel Zolnikov advanced 17 of his 30 bills, many focused on technology. He credited his ability to move legislation to preparation, his focus on tech issues over the last six legislative sessions, and looking to other states for successful models.
“We don’t have to do something brand-new all the time,” Zolnikov said in a recent interview.
Other Republican lawmakers brought dozens of bills with minimal success.
Freshman Rep. Lukas Schubert, R-Kalispell, for example, sponsored 32 bills and saw four become law.
His unsuccessful bills include House Bill 734, which would have prohibited dispensing menstrual products in male-designated restrooms, and House Bill 753, which would have required teachers to show imagery from late-term abortions during sex education classes in public schools.
Schubert did have success with House Bill 752, an anti-child-pornography measure that establishes damages and a legal mechanism for minors to sue content providers that host “child sexual abuse material” on social media and other platforms.
In an interview, Schubert blamed his bills’ poor showing on moderate Republicans.
“I’m not a RINO or anything like that,” he said, using an acronym for Republican in Name Only. “The real conservatives were in the minority.”
Legislating from the minority-party side of the aisle, Democrats were not nearly as successful at passing bills. The Democratic lawmaker with the most success, longtime Whitefish Sen. Dave Fern, managed only seven. Rep. Ed Stafman, D-Bozeman, sponsored 15 bills without getting any to the governor’s desk.
Seventeen legislators ended the session without a successful bill. Four — Crow Agency Rep. Sidney Fitzpatrick, Hays Rep. Mike Fox, Bozeman Sen. Denise Hayman and Arlee Sen. Jacinda Morigeau — sponsored no measures.
One Democratic legislator without any successful legislation, Bozeman Sen. Chris Pope, had a single bill, a community solar project measure, voted through the Legislature but vetoed by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte. The bill could be resurrected via a pending veto override poll being conducted by mail. However, it faces long odds in that process, in which any lawmaker who fails to return their ballot is counted as a vote against overriding the veto.
Of the 17 lawmakers who ended the session without any passed legislation, only two were Republicans — Sen. Bob Phalen, a Republican from Glendive, and former Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton. Ellsworth’s lifetime ban from the Senate floor over an ethics violation appears to have hampered his ability to move legislation. In 2023, when he was Senate president, Ellsworth passed four bills.
Many of the legislators interviewed for this story said there is more to being an effective legislator than proposing and advancing legislation.
Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick pointed out there are multiple other ways to make an impact in the Legislature, referring to lawmakers who, for example, serve on influential committees. “There’s lots of people that are good legislators that don’t, you know, offer a lot of bills, or they work behind the scenes,” he said.
Sen. Emma Kerr-Carpenter, D-Billings, who introduced a single bill, which failed to pass, described her decision to not carry a lot of legislation as “a pretty intentional choice” that allowed her to focus on her committee assignments, namely the influential Senate Finance and Claims Committee, and offer amendments that she referred to as “harm reduction.”
Kerr-Carpenter said that during her tenure in the Legislature she’s found that “a lot of times, the things that are going to make things better for my constituents’ lives are not necessarily sweeping policy changes. It’s literally knowing how to maneuver money through the system. It’s knowing who to talk to within the administration to change administrative rule. It’s those sorts of things that … seem to make bigger change than actually passing a policy.”
Rep. Schubert described a different ambition. “The goal is to pass, you know, legislation that does stuff,” he said.
This story was updated July 7, 2025 to clarify that HB 752 is focused on child pornography.
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