Legislature moves into transmittal

Week eight is the lead-up to what is called transmittal. As I mentioned last week, all non-revenue bills must move from one house to the other by transmittal: House bills to the Senate and Senate bills to the House. Our job in committees is to either pass these bills on if they warrant being passed on or vote to table them. Tabling a bill does not mean the bill is dead, it has just hit a roadblock and may not move from that position. That being said, this week was crunch time. Many bills were passed and others, for one reason or another, were tabled, making for some long days. Good news after these long days is that Judy and I will be coming home for a few days. We get a break after transmittal.

This morning, I have a bill signing with Gov. Greg Gianforte and the chair of the American Motorcycle Association, Russ Ehnes. SB-9 is a motorcycle safety bill I sponsored. It allows motorcycles to slowly move forward to the left side of traffic when that traffic is either stopped or going 10 mph or less. This gives a rider the opportunity to stay moving forward in stop-and-go traffic, which lessens the chance of them being rear ended. Utah passed a similar bill three years ago and it has dropped accidents and deaths from these types encounters.

It can be difficult sitting for hours on end listening to how some folks cannot afford their taxes, stories of botched abortions, or people losing a family member because they were denied health care. The personal stories are sad, and many are tragic. But, as a lawmaker, it is my job to balance this with the understanding that some of the proposed changes to the laws may do more damage than good. As an example, lowering taxes for one group could have the unintended consequence of raising taxes for the rest of the taxpayers in the state. It seems most of the tax bills we see have winners and losers.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that Judy and I had been limiting our exposure as best we could for health reasons. I was referring to the number of cases of COVID in Helena and not wanting to carry it to others. We are doing just fine participating in activities in which we are comfortable. I am old enough to fall into the 1B group and will get my second COVID vaccination Wednesday morning. Judy is younger and is waiting for her turn. We hope to be heading home and be there for the rest of the week and weekend. Stay safe and we may see you this week.

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