Bills to Support Missing Persons Advance Despite ‘Woke’ Allegations in Montana Legislature

A bill to require the Office of Public Instruction to create human trafficking curriculum passed the Senate this week — after a debate over whether it pushed a “woke” agenda.

Sen. Susan Webber, D-Browning, said Senate Bill 107 intends to protect children by teaching them the signs of sex trafficking and human trafficking.

Webber said Tuesday the country and Montana both have done a lot in recent years to address the problem, including the creation of a Montana Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force.

A separate bill this session, House Bill 83, would allow the task force to raise money, and it also passed the House floor last week after avoiding an allegation it was “woke.”

Although Webber ticked off a long list of work Montana has taken up, she said SB 107 is the first preventive measure to stop the problem before it starts, and it would help all youth in Montana.

Sen. Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls, said he wasn’t completely sold on the idea and proposed an amendment to “encourage” rather than “require” OPI to create the lessons.

Emrich said he worried the bill came with “woke” concerns after hearing comments from a supporter, and he argued its terms are complex and could confuse children.

In support of the change, Sen. John Fuller, R-Kalispell, said the Legislature shouldn’t “dictate” to another statewide official, and he believed doing so would be “an egregious violation” of the body’s authority.

Generally, Fuller said he approved of the bill but the amendment would make it more palatable.

Opposing the amendment, Sen. Derek Harvey, D-Butte, argued lawmakers have not had problems mandating directives to another branch of government — Republicans are keen on changing the courts this session — and he offered a different interpretation of how the bill dealt with one concept of being “woke.”

“There’s parents that woke up without their kids in their bed,” Harvey said. “There’s kids laying in places that they’ve never been before. And guess what? They woke up this morning in fear.

“So if we’re going to talk about woke, let’s talk about the reality of what these people are waking up to every day.”

Sen. Cora Neumann, D-Bozeman, said Montana is a major trafficking corridor, and she said the amendment would void the bill altogether because OPI already is “encouraged” to develop those lessons. Neumann also said teachers can handle complexity.

“To say our teachers wouldn’t understand how to teach this is disrespectful to our teachers,” Neumann said. “We give them very complex curriculum all the time to learn and to pass on to their children.”

The amendment failed, and the bill passed second reading 44-6, with Emrich voting no, but Fuller in support.

In the House last week, a bill from Rep. Tyson Running Wolf to allow the MMIP Task Force to accept grants and donations passed with significant support, although it also faced an allegation it was a “woke” idea.

Rep. Lukas Schubert, R-Kalispell, said the problem of missing people is “significant,” but he alleged the legislation discriminates because many people who aren’t Native American also go missing.

Schubert pitched an amendment to prohibit state appropriations to the account and said he would “fight back against the woke far-left agenda.”

Running Wolf described the amendment as unfriendly and said he “adamantly” opposed it, and Rep. George Nikolakakos, R-Great Falls, offered a short rebuke of the idea.

“I recommend we send this amendment back to the playground where it belongs,” Nikolakakos said.

A recent report from the task force, under the state Department of Justice, said Indigenous people make up 6.5% of Montana’s population, but account for 30.6% of people reported missing.

Of the 2,263 persons reported missing in 2023, 1,570 were non-Indigenous and 693 were Indigenous, the report said: “These numbers have remained consistent in previous years of study.”

Schubert’s amendment failed on a 96-4 vote, with Republican representatives Caleb Hinkle, Fiona Nave, and Tracy Sharp joining Schubert in support of it.

The bill passed second reading with 100 members in support. It appropriates $1.

Schubert didn’t vote in the third and final reading, when the bill passed with 97 yes votes. A vote roster counted two members excused and Schubert absent, although the Montana State News Bureau reported he was present in the chamber.

This story originally appeared in the The Daily Montanan, which can be found online at dailymontanan.com.