The last couple weeks in Montana have felt an awful lot like that time Mitch McConnell said, “It seems with every new day, we have a new veto threat from the president.”

Except… they’re not just threats, and they’re coming from the governor instead of the president. Gov. Greg Gianforte has wielded his veto pen on 32 pieces of legislation from the 2025 legislative session since legislators left Helena last month, according to Montana Free Press’s 2025 Capitol Tracker.

Keep in mind: that’s 32 vetoes out of more than 800 total pieces of legislation passed by this year’s legislature.

The legislation he stopped from going into place ranged from line items on the state budget last Friday, to bills focused on environmental and healthcare issues.

Read on for a rundown of some of this session’s high-profile vetoes.

Each session, the legislature must pass the state budget.

Gianforte gave line item vetoes on that piece of legislation, explaining each one in a veto letter. His letter stated the budget he received from the legislature “wasn’t as fiscally responsible as the one I proposed,” and that it includes “unnecessary spending.” He wrote that he stripped $31 million from House Bill 2 with the items he vetoed, which include a one-time $3 million student loan repayment program for “nurses, licensed practical nurses and psychiatrists at the Montana State Hospital or other state-run facilities” and a $6 million “raid” of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, among other items.

In addition to the line item vetoes in the budget, Gianforte vetoed several environmental bills: Senate Bill 188, House Bill 477 and Senate Bill 537.

SB 188 would have established a framework for community solar projects. HB 477 would have phased out Styrofoam containers and promoted compostable alternatives, while SB 537 directed recreational marijuana tax revenue toward the establishment of a Habitat Legacy Account to protect public lands, among other programs.

In his veto letter on SB 188, Gianforte wrote that he worried about a lack of guardrails for the Montana Public Service Commission to proceed with the bill’s implementation. With HB 477, Gianforte raised concerns of government overreach in his veto letter, and he referred to SB 537 as “an unprecedented use of the general fund to pay for functions that belong at the local level,” growing the state government rather than “right-sizing” it.

His vetoes on those bills drew criticism from some environmental groups. Montana Conservation Voters put out a press release about the vetoes, highlighting that each passed with bipartisan support.

“These weren’t radical bills,” said Renee Kelly, interim executive director of Montana Conservation Voters. “They were Montana solutions to Montana problems, vetted, supported, and passed by Republicans and Democrats alike. Governor Gianforte didn’t just veto these ideas. He vetoed commonsense cooperation and progress.”

Several bills the governor vetoed were related to healthcare:

Senate Bill 394, which would have provided workers’ compensation coverage for post-traumatic stress disorder for first responders.

Senate Bill 422, which aimed to require insurance providers to cover the cost of FDA-approved drugs for advanced or metastatic cancer.

House Bill 585, which defined the Medicaid reimbursement rate for physical therapists, speech-language pathologists and occupational therapist services.

House Bill 643, which would have reimbursed counties for holding state inmates in their facilities.

Again, each of those bills passed both chambers with bipartisan support. Gianforte’s veto letters are linked, so you can read why he chose not to sign each bill into law.

Remember, these aren’t the only bills Gianforte has used his veto pen on, just a sampling of some of them.

As for next steps in the process: Legislators have the ability override the governor’s veto.

It takes a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate to do so. The secretary of state sends legislators the bill, the governor’s veto letter and ballots to vote on the override when a legislator wants to attempt to override the governor’s veto.

At least three of the bills listed above — SB 188, SB 537 and HB 643 — have pending veto override efforts, or sponsors who’ve promised to take that action. In short: the legislature may be out, but things aren’t finished yet.

I’m Mariah Thomas, and I’ve got the rest of your Daily Roundup this Wednesday afternoon.

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