O'Neil: Reduce spending

Jerry O’Neil said the bill he’d most like to see passed this year is one that would allow political parties to support and oppose judicial candidates.

“Right now judicial candidates are supported by trial lawyers and other attorneys and that gives a bias toward judges that are favorable towards trial lawyers rather than favorable toward the people and businesses of Montana,” O’Neil, state representative for House District 3, said. “We need both. We need more information about judicial candidates, not less.”

O’Neil, who served before in the Montana Senate, plans to introduce a number of other bills, including a bill to award attorney fees and costs to a person not found guilty for self defense, which is supported by Montana Shooting Sports Association.

The representative will present a bill to require a person who lives in the state to qualify under the same residency requirements as it presently takes to get a hunting license. O’Neil worries that out-of-state students who attend Montana colleges and universities are taking advantage of Montana residency and may be double voting in the state they’re from and in Montana. Those students can’t get an in-state hunting license, but they can register to vote. O’Neil would see the same requirements for an in-state hunting license applied to voter registration.

Another bill O’Neil will present is one to pass his “Made in Montana Free-Market Health Care Act,” which O’Neil hopes will allow Montana residents sufficient liability insurance, bonds or assets to provide unfettered health care and medicines in the state.

O’Neil told the story he’d heard of a state resident who traveled to India for a medical treatment for prostrate cancer that wasn’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“I would like to see people get (care) in Montana rather than go to India to get it,” O’Neil said. “I think we’re plenty smart enough in Montana to provide the best health care in the world. We’ve got some awful good hospitals here and health care professionals.”

The representative surmised that the reason a number of treatments to diseases aren’t available in the U.S. but are in other countries is because pharmaceutical companies don’t want those treatments marketed, reducing the profit the companies make off medicines for on sick people.

“We’ve already got Montana laws that allow health care and pharmaceuticals that aren’t approved by the FDA.”

O’Neil would also like to pass a bill to require the Legislative Interim Committee rate Montana’s U.S. representative and senators on how their actions in Washington, D.C. affected Montana’s sovereignty and publish the results in the official voter pamphlet.

“There is a conflict between how a U.S. senator votes for the people and votes for the state,” O’Neil said. “They’ve voted for welfare of the people of the state even if the state legislature would rather do it themselves and not have the money go through Washington. One consequence of having welfare go through the federal government is the federal government is in debt farther than it’s ever been in history.

“I would like to have each legislator rate how our federal congressmen are enabling the state to take care of our people as opposed to how the federal government is taking care of our people. We’ve got to have control over government. I think we’re at a very dangerous place with how our government spends money.”

For O’Neil, much of the 62nd Legislature will be about saving money and cutting costs. The representative said he’d like to see legislators required to pay a portion of their state-provided health insurance.

“When we’re cutting down the budget for the state, we shouldn’t be immune to it or above it,” O’Neil said. “How can I ask anybody else to tighten their belt if I can’t tighten mine? We’re living in historic times. It’s going to be interesting with the federal government this far over-extended. We’ve got to do whatever we can to protect Montana citizens.”

O’Neil also said he’d like to see legislation passed to:

• Allow governments in Montana to amend and dissolve conservation easements in their possession.

• Restrict medical marijuana use to one’s own residence and allow only non-smokable forms to be consumed in front of children.

• Repeal the 2001 increase in state employees’ retirement granted by Senate Bill 306.

• Provide a portion of coal severance tax collections from newly permitted coal mines and a portion of oil and natural gas production taxes from newly drilled oil and natural gas wells to the school flexibility account.