Our View: Legislators meeting worth attending

The Montana Legislature is reaching its halfway mark. While things started quietly, the action is slowly reaching a climax.

Issues as diverse as abortion restrictions, business incentives, tax cuts, gay rights, school aid and much more remain to be decided.

Lawmakers are being inundated with emails, form letters and telephone calls urging them to vote this way or that way.

But all the lawmakers say that nothing is as effective as personal contact with lawmakers. They like talking face-to-face with their constituents.

Here's your opportunity to do just that.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, at the Hill County Electric Hospitality Room, Bear Paw Development Corp. and the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce will sponsor a mid-session meeting with area lawmakers. It will be a chance to hear from lawmakers on the issues so far and what they anticipate will come up in the last 45 days of the session.

All five lawmakers from Blaine and Hill counties have been invited. Probably not all will be able to attend, but the Hi-Line has one of the most diverse sets of legislators in the state, so visitors will get a well-balanced view from the three Democrats and two Republicans on the Hi-Line team.

Also, Montana has some of the hardest working state legislators around. People of all political persuasions daily attend committee meetings full sessions, caucuses and meeting with constituents. They usually work five-and-a-half days a week and then rush home to see family and meet constituents.

The lawmakers will have three-and-a-half days off for mid-session break. We're lucky some of them will be able to make Thursday's session.

It will be a great time for people to get an update on the decisions that will affect Montanans so much.