A day's work and the demise of a Senator
I awoke slightly before 5 a.m. on Friday, April 18. I needed to reacquaint myself with four bills from the House that I would be carrying on the Senate floor.
Once a House bill has been passed in a Senate policy committee, it requires someone to carry the bill as if your own bill. The carrier needs to be familiar enough with the bill to answer questions and create an introductory speech, a reason for my early rise. Earlier in the week I carried HB 231, a complicated property tax bill from the work of the Task Force and sponsored by Rep. Llew Jones. That required a soliloquy of sorts, to simplify, and convince the body before the sleep deprived members lost interest. As you can imagine there were many questions, and comments. I came out on the short end with a 25-25 vote. Tax bills can have many lives and this bill shall live again, currently folded into a bill with a very wide title (Generally Revise Property Taxes), SB 542.
On that Friday I would carry the four bills for Republican members of the House. These were bills I enthusiastically volunteered for after taking executive action in the Senate Tax Committee. HB 140 by Rep Schomer provides a property tax reduction for injured first responders in the line of work or for those killed in action, provides the benefit for their surviving spouse. It is an add on to a program for disabled or departed veterans. HB 424 by Rep Zolnikov provides a continuation of the Class 17 Data Center tax rate and newly incentivizes on site energy production for both the center, likely a hub for AI, and at a preferable rate if sold back onto the grid.
The tax rates for the center and electrical generation also increase after the initial 10 years of operation. HB 845 by Representative Darling increases the 529 education savings account tax deduction and indexes it to future inflation rates. HB 920, by Represent Regier, allows for a set aside of land under a tax abatement for up to 10 years for the future construction of senior care and housing facilities.
All the bills passed by a wide margin and following third reading will subsequently head for the governor’s signatures. These bills, lacking controversy, are more representative of the good work we do in the legislature.
It is not easy to expel or censure a sitting member of the legislature. Such action requires two thirds affirmative action of the body. It is a rarity in legislative history. Senator Ellsworth of Hamilton was in trouble. He had misused public money by orchestrating an illegal bid, bifurcating the amount to come under the bid limit and passing it on to an associate and then made misleading statements to staff members. Following an Ethics Committee and Auditor’s investigation, a report was delivered to the Senate. Following procedure, there was no recommendation attached to the report. The Senate could not muster the two thirds vote for expulsion. Though I voted for the more severe punishment, I was able to concur with a consensus vote for a censure. This was a lesser punishment but stripped the Senator of all committee assignments and restricted his floor votes by remote.
Before the ethics hearing commenced a lobbyist gave me the memoir of the former Montana state representative and senator, Fred Whiteside.
“You need to read this as you consider the activities in this body,” he said to me.
Whiteside’s plaque is ironically on the wall just outside of Senator Ellsworth now partially vacant office. Whiteside exposed two scandals including the attempt to skim off half of the appropriation to build the new capitol building and secondly the bribery to elect Copper King, William Clark to the US Senate through suitcases of cash to voting legislators.
The censure is bittersweet. I valued the input from Ellsworth on out Local Government Committee along with floor speeches and the support for Medicaid.
There will be two well needed study bills offered for the interim to provide clear guidelines for a future ethics panel. A study will also look at money that is allocated to legislative leadership, once again lacking clear guidelines and lastly money that might be construed as slush funds, unaccounted for and left at the discretion of the executive office. We will do better!
Dave Fern
SD 2
Whitefish/Columbia Falls