News you can use
News you can use
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Montana revives proposal to make sheriffs top cops MATT VOLZ,Associated Press HELENA — A Montana senator has revived legislation that would make sheriffs the supreme authorities in their counties. The bill by Republican Sen. Greg Hinkle of Thompson Falls would require federal agents to get written permission from a sheriff before they could conduct a search, seizure or arrest in that sheriff's jurisdiction. A similar bill was vetoed by Republican Gov. Marc Racicot in 1995. At Friday's hearing before the Senate Judiciary C...
Senate panel to hear bill on bison relocation ban MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — A bill that would prohibit Montana wildlife officials from relocating Yellowstone National Park bison is being heard in a state Senate committee. Senate Bill 144 sponsored by Republican Sen. John Brendan would ban Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks from moving bison anywhere in the state except the National Bison Range. The Senate Fish and Game Committee is taking it up Thursday afternoon. The Scobey Republican has said bison relocation w...
Legislative committee guts 'Sheriffs First' bill MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — A legislative committee passed a bill Wednesday that had aimed to make sheriffs the supreme authority in Montana, but first gutted it of a key provision requiring federal officials to obtain permission before conducting any law-enforcement action. The stripped-down measure, dubbed the "Sheriffs First" bill, now heads to the full Senate. The original Senate Bill 114 sponsored by Republican Sen. Greg Hinkle of Thompson Falls would have r...
Legislative committee guts 'Sheriffs First' bill MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — A legislative committee passed a bill Wednesday that had aimed to make sheriffs the supreme authority in Montana, but first gutted it of a key provision requiring federal officials to obtain permission before conducting any law-enforcement action. The stripped-down measure, dubbed the "Sheriffs First" bill, now heads to the full Senate. The original Senate Bill 114 sponsored by Republican Sen. Greg Hinkle of Thompson Falls would have r...
Legislature to take up assisted suicide bills MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — The Legislature had been out of session in the year since the Montana Supreme Court ruled that nothing in state law prevents physician-assisted suicide, leaving doctors and terminally ill patients to operate without regulations or oversight. Now that lawmakers have convened in Helena, they are being asked to consider two competing measures: one that would create rules for doctors who are asked to write a prescription for a lethal dose of m...
Bill would count existing dams as renewable energy MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — State lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it easier for utilities to meet the standard for renewable energy production, a proposal that conservationists say would make the standard meaningless. The state's largest utility is also opposed to the bill because it would mean a windfall for hydroelectric power generators but end up costing its customers more. The measure sponsored by Republican Sen. Debby Barrett, of Dillon, w...
Lawmaker blames GOP for energy policy's failure MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — State lawmakers failed to come up with a proposed energy policy over the legislative interim because of the Republican committee members' denial of climate change, a Democratic senator said Friday. Sen. Ron Erickson, of Missoula, told a group of industry leaders at Helena conference on Montana energy the science is clear, but that GOP resistance prevented the interim committee from forwarding a bill to the full Legislature. "We had a r...
HELENA — Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioners are pledging to take a new look at how they make rules for Montana fishermen and hunters after state lawmakers accused the commission of overstepping its authority. Among the criticisms leveled is that the commission would make last-minute changes to a proposed regulation and then approve it without taking public comment. The Legislature this session passed a bill that would have added strict rules to how the FWP makes its regulations. Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed Senate Bill 2...
HELENA— Business owners dependent on the tourists headed to Yellowstone National Park are concerned about a possible government shutdown closing the park. But if there has to be one, they say, better it happen now when the visitors are few — and they pray it doesn't stretch into the summer. Congressional negotiators were trying to reach a spending agreement by Friday that would avert a shutdown of most government functions, including operations in national parks across the country. The last such shutdown took place 15 yea...
MT health director cries foul over budget process MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — Montana's health director says Republican budget writers are unnecessarily scaring Montanans by threatening deep cuts when the money to pay for the programs is there. The GOP-led House Appropriations Committee is considering the Department of Public Health and Human Services' 2012-13 budget. Director Anna Whiting Sorrell on Thursday called the GOP budget process a "façade." She says it will not give the department the resources to meet it...
College administrators warn against MT budget cuts MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — College administrators warned Montana lawmakers Wednesday that plans to cut the governor's two-year higher education budget proposal will likely result in tuition hikes, fewer classes and less financial aid for students. The House Appropriations Committee began piecing together a state budget by considering a $2.2 billion proposal by Republicans for the overall education system in 2012 and 2013. The committee first tackled higher education...
Bill to repeal medical marijuana law gets hearing MATT VOLZ, Associated Press HELENA — House Speaker Mike Milburn is making his case that Montana's medical marijuana law needs to be repealed. The House Human Services Committee is holding a hearing on the Cascade Republican's House Bill 161. The measure would strike from Montana law the 2004 voter initiative that legalized the use of marijuana by very ill patients for medicinal purposes. Opponents of the medical marijuana law say it is fraught with problems that became a...
G proposes statewide expansion of DUI program HELENA (AP) — Attorney General Steve Bullock on Thursday proposed a statewide expansion of a pilot program that requires anyone arrested more than once for drunken driving to take a breath test twice a day. Bullock said the expansion would be the first step in his plan to toughen the state's drunken-driving laws. He is also proposing criminal penalties for drivers who refuse to take a blood or breath test. And he wants to create a new charge of aggravated DUI for anyone who d...
THREE FORKS — The youngest Montana Highway Patrol officer ever killed in the line of duty fought to the end as a warrior in a shootout on a rural road, the patrol's chaplain told the officer's grieving family and thousands who attended the funeral Tuesday. Trooper David DeLaittre, 23, died last Wednesday during a traffic stop outside his hometown of Three Forks. He had stopped to investigate an idling truck in the middle of the roadway. The driver of the truck shot him in the head and torso with a shotgun, authorities s...
HELENA (AP) — Just before a plane carrying 14 people crashed short of a southwestern Montana runway last year, killing everybody on board, the pilot told air traffic controllers that he had "one more cloud to get around" before he could reach the Butte airport. A minute later, pilot Buddy Summerfield reported that the airport was in sight. That was his last transmission before witnesses saw the single engine turboprop bank left, then suddenly nosedive into a cemetery near the airport. Questions arise about the plane New d...
BOZEMAN (AP) — Authorities say moments before he was gunned down, a Montana Highway Patrol officer approached a truck that was parked in the middle of a road in southwestern Montana. Gallatin County Sheriff James Cashell said in a news conference Thursday that Trooper David DeLaittre (duh-LATE') called in the stop on Wednesday afternoon. That was the last anybody heard from the 23-year-old officer. Cashell says a shootout ensued between DeLaittre and 56-year-old Errol Brent Bouldin in the roadway outside the town of Three F...
Court: Graduation speech ban unconstitutional MATT VOLZ ,Associated Press HELENA (AP) — The Montana Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a former Butte High School valedictorian who was banned from speaking at her graduation because her speech contained religious references. The Supreme Court on Friday reversed a lower court's ruling that Renee Griffith's civil rights were not violated when school officials refused to let her speak with nine other valedictorians at the 2008 graduation. Officials reviewed the speech and said s...
MATT VOLZ,Associated Press HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission will ask the federal government for a permit that would allow a limited wolf hunt in southwestern Montana because of the threat to the elk population there. A federal judge reinstated endangered species protections for the gray wolf in Montana and Idaho this summer, but the state wildlife agency can ask for such a hunt in small areas where wolves are deemed an experimental species, such as the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. T...
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana's attorney general has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by seven gay couples seeking the same rights as married couples in making decisions about their families' health care and finances. Spousal benefits are limited by definition to married couples, and the Montana Constitution defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, Attorney General Steve Bullock said. The court does not have the jurisdiction to require the state to extend spousal benefits beyond that definition, B...
MATT VOLZ, Press HELENA — A federal appeals court declined a BNSF Railway Co. request to block a lawsuit filed by 152 Livingston residents who want the company to pay for the cleanup of toxic chemicals from a contaminated rail yard. The city and residents said in the lawsuit that huge quantities of diesel fuel and solvents have seeped into the soil, surface water and groundwater. BNSF had asked a federal judge to block the 2007 lawsuit filed in state district court, arguing the injunction was necessary to keep jurisdiction i...
HELENA — Helena attorney Beth Baker defeated Livingston judge Nels Swandal on Tuesday to win an eight-year term on the Montana Supreme Court in a nonpartisan race that took an unexpected political turn. Baker, who was an assistant attorney general for both Republican and Democratic administrations before entering private practice, campaigned on her nonpartisan background. She touted her endorsements from prominent leaders from both parties and said her experience would help her in building consensus on the court. But she l...
MATT VOLZ — Montanans hand Rehberg a sixth term Associated Press HELENA — Montana voters have handed Denny Rehberg a sixth term of office, elected a new Supreme Court justice and approved three ballot initiatives. Republican Rehberg easily defeated challenger Dennis McDonald, the former chairman of the state Democratic Party. Rehberg brushed off McDonald's attempts to paint him as an ineffective incumbent who has accomplished little during his tenure in Congress. With 98 of precincts reporting early today, Rehberg had nea...
Payday loan initiative sponsors make final push MATT VOLZ, Associated Press Writer HELENA — Supporters of an initiative to cap interest rates on payday and title loans are making a final campaign push after the measure's opponents failed to convince a judge to remove it from the Nov. 2 ballot. Groups representing the poor, the elderly and women are among those who want to put an end to short-term loans that charge as much as 650 percent annual interest, saying it's a predatory practice aiming to trap vulnerable segments of t...
Judge rules loan initiative will stay on Montana ballot MATT VOLZ, Associated Press Writer HELENA (AP) — A district judge ruled Thursday that an initiative to cap interest rates on payday loans will stay on the November ballot after opponents failed to prove signatures had been improperly gathered. The state certified the initiative, known as CI-164, after supporters turned in the signatures of 27,421 registered voters in 54 districts. The initiative seeks to cap the interest rate on payday loans at 36 percent. Opponents cont...
Judge rules loan initiative will stay on Montana ballot MATT VOLZ, Associated Press Writer HELENA (AP) — A district judge ruled Thursday that an initiative to cap interest rates on payday loans will stay on the November ballot after opponents failed to prove signatures had been improperly gathered. The state certified the initiative, known as CI-164, after supporters turned in the signatures of 27,421 registered voters in 54 districts. The initiative seeks to cap the interest rate on payday loans at 36 percent. Opponents cont...
