Nice to be home for transmittal

This week marks the halfway point of the 90-day legislative session and the beginning of a weeklong break, called transmittal.

On Friday, Feb. 21, the Senate cleared all bills presented for consideration. The Montana House agreed to let the Senate release early to transmittal. With the House in session, days are still counted as “in session” until next Wednesday, when the House is released for transmittal.

There have been just over 1000 bills introduced during this session, which is actually below average. The budget shortfall situation has contributed to this decrease. Speaking of bills, there was a real stir when Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick introduced a bill to allow a mail-ballot election for the open U.S. House seat. This option appeals to me as I have felt for years that it would save the counties a pile of money every election. In 1985, counties were allowed mail-ballots for some special elections, excluding schools. Two years later, schools were included, and then in 2005 allowances for permanent absentee mail-ballots was enacted. There are currently counties in Montana that have more than 90 percent of residents choosing to vote permanent absentee mail-ballot. The most recent bill, Senate Bill 305, split the Senate Republicans with 20 yea and 13 nay votes. The Democrats were 100 percent yea in the third reading. The Republican split was due to a memo put out by Rep. Jeff Essmann, the State Republican leader, claiming that mail-ballots were a partisan problem impacting Republican votes. I admit, I did not understand the big deal as Sen. Fitzpatrick, the bill sponsor, had previously looked at all the numbers. There is no advantage to either party with a mail-ballot as Essmann asserted. I believe every county clerk and recorder would like to see this coming special election become a mail-ballot.

It is good to be home in north-central Montana and catch up on local goings on.

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Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester, can be resached at [email protected].