Budget bill transmittal

This past Monday we had a push to get all Senate bills through our Senate chamber for another transmittal cutoff, this time for budget bills. In order to accomplish this, we had early committee meetings and ran an all-day floor session from 10 a.m. until just about 8 p.m. We started with 25 bills on third (and final) reading, meaning we had heard and voted on them twice previously. At that point we began hearing presentations on 42 of the bills that had to get moved to the House by cutoff. Of the 42 bills, I could not vote for 13 of them. Many were taking local control away from either teachers, schools, libraries, museums, cities, or counties. A few others, either I couldn’t see that they did any good, or the bills were going to clutter up our already existing laws. I didn’t vote for two of the bills dealing with elections due to local election officials not supporting the bills, which prompted my vote.

Even with the long legislative sessions, some of the bills did not make it to the other house by the cutoff deadline. As I have heard, a number of House bills never made it our way either. Tuesday, a couple of the bills that passed second reading Monday did not pass third reading. At this time, the 68th session is getting serious about getting the budget negotiated and outlined. Therefore, many bills that have a cost to implement are being looked at very closely. This inevitably means some of the costlier or less cost-effective bills are tabled, which causes some folks frustration. Making hard decisions is sometimes not a fun place to be.

On a brighter note, Sen. Lang had two of his grandkids on the Senate floor as pages; they were both from out-of-state and did a great job. McGregor came from Colorado and Ainsley came from Washington. It was great to meet them and get to know them a bit.

I do pray you had a blessed Easter and as always, stay safe!

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Sen Russ Tempel, R-Chester, can be emailed at Russ.Tempel@legmt.gov .