Bachmeier talks about his plans in next year's Legislature

Montana State Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, D-Havre, talked during a Hill County Democratic Central Committee meeting Tuesday about a few of the bills that he will be bringing to the Legislature for the next legislative session.

"I think next session is going to be tough and difficult," Bachmeier said in an interview after the meeting. "I am optimistic that we will get Medicaid expansion renewed, the big question is in what form it will come out. I think we'll have something pretty similar to what we have, but there could be some new requirements and hoops to jump through. Hopefully it will be a good bipartisan bill again."

Bachmeier said during the meeting he is excited for all of the bills that he plans to bring to the floor of the Legislature next session, but there are a few bills that he is particularly looking forward to.

He said he plans to bring back a bill about increasing fines for blocking public roads. The bill died in the last session. This is a big deal, he said, because there are public lands that are gated off. Bachmeier added that the bill was voted on pretty close to party lines and hopefully, next session, they will be able to get something through.

Bachmeier said he also plans on proposing a bill to revise laws related to state funding of higher education.

"Currently in Montana, we have unfunded tuition waiver mandates, so people with certain classes get to qualify for waived tuitions," he said. "It's great. It helps certain types of people get higher education and make differences in their community."

He said Montana State University-Northern has approximately 20 to 25 percent of students who qualify for these tuition waivers. This is easily a million dollars, Bachmeier said, and impacts the small university in a major way.

With this bill, he said, the Legislature will create an account outside of the Montana University System to reimburse schools individually for their unfunded tuition waivers, bringing a couple million dollars back to Northern.

Another one of his bills he is proposing will revise laws on the transportation of people with mental illness. People who are being involuntarily transported to the state hospital have to be transported by county sheriff in ankle shackles and belly locks, Bachmeier said. He added that this is an inhumane way to transport people with mental illness.

"I think our county sheriff agrees with that," Bachmeier said, "and many county sheriffs across the state don't really feel that it is an appropriate way to transport them."

He said his bill would allow the state hospital to obtain ambulances that can travel around the state and pick people up. He added that these ambulances will have people who are qualified to work with people with mental illness.

Bachmeier is also working on a bill that he said is specifically for Havre's own Keely Wilson, who has Williams Syndrome. This bill will revise laws related to selling and manufacturing of pet food, he said.

Wilson makes gourmet pet food. It is something she does to better herself and be a part of the community, Bachmeier said, and she has been doing it for a while. He said she has recently found out there are requirements she has to pass in order to continue selling her products. These requirements could result in thousands of dollars in fees and cost of testing.

"In my opinion, someone who is operating such a small, local, specialized market shouldn't have to jump through those loopholes," Bachmeier said. "So (this bill) is cutting the red tape and, hopefully, we can help Keeley out."

He added that he also hopes to adopt a vacant property registration act relating to property owners, like Sunrise Financial Group LLC.

Sunrise Financial has purchased tax liens on property in communities including several properties in Havre and then does nothing with most of the properties, letting them sit vacant.

Bachmeier said he is also planning to propose making the Montana's state rock 'n' roll song "Hippy Hippy Shake," which was written and first performed by Billings native Chan Romero and made famous by The Beatles.

Bachmeier said he thinks five to 10 of his bills will pass next session.

"A lot of these are not going to pass because of the budget," he said. "Money is tight. But a lot of the bills that (I am proposing that spend money) are centered around our community, so I'm going to be really pushing to make our local tax dollars work."

The people at the party meeting also discussed Referendum 129, a law passed by the voters in November that prevents people from handing in other people's absentee ballots unless the person transporting the ballot is a family member or a person working for a government agency such as postal workers.

Bachmeier said this referendum is unconstitutional because it limits people's abilities to vote.

Bachmeier said the passage of the referendum was led by a fear campaign that was based on the fear of voting fraud, although there has never been a single case of fraud proven in Montana.

He added that there was no information advertised about the referendum and people may have been unsure what they voted for.

While the attendees of Tuesday's meeting did not say they wanted action in the next legislative session, they did discuss trying to repeal the referendum in the future.