With the legislative session two months away, Montana lawmakers are wasting no time filing bill requests with the Legislative Services Division. Holdover senators and unopposed candidates could begin filing bills before the Nov. 2 election, and now the newly elected legislators are also joining in.
For Flathead lawmakers, the large majority of proposed bills deal with fiscal issues, such as taxes and property appraisals. Health care is also a common theme.
Here are some of the bills Flathead lawmakers had proposed as of last week, with more expected as the session draws closer.
Taxes
Among the most touted issues of the campaign was eliminating the state’s business equipment tax. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle agreed something should be done, either through a tax holiday or getting rid of the tax all together.
And while Gov. Brian Schweitzer has already proposed phasing out the equipment tax, multiple lawmakers – including State Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, R-Kalispell, Sen. Ryan Zinke, R-Whitefish, and Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell – have bills in the works to handle it as well.
Tutvedt said the governor’s plan to replace economic indicators within the business equipment tax to eliminate the tax for all but the state’s biggest companies mirrors his own.
“It looked very familiar,” Tutvedt said on a call from Helena last week.
Another major issue for Tutvedt and Rep. Scott Reichner, R-Bigfork, is adjusting the state’s property appraisal and reappraisal processes. One of Tutvedt’s proposed bills would reset the reappraisal to every two years, and another would allow tax adjustment rates for residences with a loss in taxable value.
Reichner has six bills dealing with appraisals in the works; though they do not have official titles yet, he said during his campaign that he would try to address several reappraisal facets, including allowing Montanans to appeal their tax valuations at any time; ensuring all employees at the assessor’s office are certified appraisers and shifting the burden of proof of accurate valuation to the state instead of the landowner, among others.
Health Care
Local lawmakers also have bills dealing with health care choices for Montanans, including Sen. Verdell Jackson, R-Kalispell, who submitted a bill seeking to nullify federal health care laws.
“The basic purpose of it is we would do our own health care program instead of having the federal government do it for us,” Jackson said. “It’s not to try to change the federal health care, it’s basically to allow us to do our own.”
Rep. Jerry O’Neil, R-Columbia Falls, proposed a bill that would allow an entity to perform medical or pharmaceutical care without a license under certain conditions, an idea he discussed during his campaign for House District 3.
Though he will not be carrying any bills specific to health care, Tutvedt said addressing the new federal health care law and how it “oversteps the bounds” would undoubtedly be an issue at the upcoming session.
Other
Tutvedt noted that one of his major bills will attempt to rework the rules on rates for cabin lease sites, by basing the rates on the rental market rate instead of the general market.
Another is the push to have Montana recognized as a state that officially requests a U.S. Constitutional amendment to mandate a federal balanced budget, Tutvedt said. If 38 states follow suit, the amendment will be approved without a constitutional convention, he said.
Jackson noted that he would be submitting several bills dealing with water rights that have not passed in previous sessions. He said it is an issue that is gaining popularity as more people take stock of how their rights have been eroded.
“The purpose of those bills is to protect water rights of citizens,” Jackson said.
The senator also said he expects multiple “freedom bills” this session.
Other bills include Regier’s proposal to “criminalize (an) offense involving the death to an unborn child.” Regier also proposed a bill that seeks to submit a repeal of the Montana Medical Marijuana Act to Montana voters.