The chair and vice chair of the Montana Legislature’s Senate Judiciary Committee had an agreement.
Sen. Andrea Olsen, a Missoula Democrat and attorney by trade, would pass a note to Sen. Barry Usher, the sometimes-gruff Republican chairman from Molt, whenever Olsen saw something during the course of a committee hearing that she thought needed to be pointed out. The notes were to be a silent trimming of the sails forJudiciary’s slate of bill hearings, which often include a long line of witnesses waiting to testify on emotionally charged subjects like health care for trans minors and private property rights.
Their arrangement, Olsen told Capitolized, hit the rocks a couple of weeks into the session, when Usher crumpled up a note from Olsen and threw it against the back wall of the old Supreme Court chambers where the committee meets.
Soon after, the committee had to cancel hearings for three bills after Olsen pointed out to Legislative Counsel Todd Everts that the hearings hadn’t been noticed on the online public schedule, a legal requirement.
The Legislature’s bill tracker has been a cluster all session because of inaccurate information.
“I don’t know what they did,” Olsen said of the committee’s staff after she raised concerns about the hearing schedule. “I just asked about the rules and what we should do and what motion I should make. And then when I came in, obviously someone had talked to Usher because he had taken bills off the hearing.
“And he’d moved me over by Emrich,” Olsen said.
Sen. Daniel Emrich, a Great Falls Republican, is assigned to the very last seat on Usher’s far-right flank. It’s as far away as one can get from the dais where the committee’s chair and Democratic and Republican vice chairs normally sit.
Usher gave the spot traditionally reserved for the Democratic vice chair to Cora Neumann, the newly minted senator from Bozeman.
Needless to say, all the notes were off — paper ones, that is.
“I know how to run a damn meeting,” Usher told Capitolized outside the old courtroom. “Now, she’s texting me.”
Conceding the messages are public information, the chair pulled his phone from his pocket to produce the texts from a long session that started with testimony from two district court judges and Evan Barrett, the staff member of a Democratic former governor, each warning against a bill to make judicial candidates declare a political party. The bill had been heard the previous day but because of technical issues, the judges weren’t able to speak. Olsen had objected and Usher moved to accommodate the men Tuesday morning before a new slate of bill hearings, but the committee members weren’t allowed to ask questions, as is the norm.
“Both the judges and Mr. Barrett had very unique testimony,” Olsen texted Usher. “I had questions and I’m not sure how we are allowing them to testify without allowing questions, meets the requirements.”
Later, as witnesses spoke for and against a bill making it a felony to provide or procure gender transition-related health services for minors, Olsen reminded Usher about the importance of giving opponents the same amount of time as proponents to bills.
“You can’t hold anyone to two minutes, as every single proponent has spoken over two minutes,” she texted.
The requirements for a committee chair that Olsen is so determined Usher meet are printed on a large sheet, about the size of a desk calendar, which is placed in front of the chair.
Headlined “Presiding officer” in large bold print, the memo reads.
“Maintain order, decorum, and civility.
“Cut off any debate that is getting out of hand.”
“Model Respect.”
“Honor the right of each committee member to participate.”
“Apply Senate Rules and committee rules.”
“Determine location of the media in the room.”
“I don’t have room where I’m sitting,” Olsen said of her own copy. “Now I don’t have room for my chair.”
The vice chair doesn’t want the committee’s subject matter to be lost in the distraction about procedure, public notice and equal time. The committee’s biggest bill of the session, Senate Bill 42 to establish partisan judicial elections, is one of the most major pieces of legislation working its way through the Capitol this year.
“I get a lot of comments now,” Olsen said, browsing her messages. “‘Wow, grace under fire, you are.’ That kind of stuff. And I want them to say ‘what is this Senate Bill 42?’ That’s when they get me, right? That last comment was from my landlady, actually.”
But now Olsen and Usher’s exchanges are verbal, lobbed across the three desks separating the vice chair and chair.
As the committee this week considered taking executive action on a bill that hasn’t been heard and isn’t assigned to the committee, Olsen said:
“Mr. Chair.”
As questions to witnesses veer way off topic, Olsen again:
“Mr. Chair.”
As executive action on bills begins before lawmakers can visit with constituents about how they should vote:
“Oh, Mr. Chair.”
The hiring of Matt Monforton in 3 acts
Attorney Matt Monforton’s familiarity with the Legislature was touted as a selling point Tuesday as Senate President Matt Regier announced that the former Republican lawmaker would represent the upper chamber in the rapidly approaching ethics hearings against Republican Sen. Jason Ellsworth.
“He’s got legislative background, so he knows the building, which is a huge plus,” Regier told the press. “And he was the cheapest.”
The president explained that there was money in House Bill 2, the state budget bill, to cover the cost of hiring an attorney.
Wednesday, Regier sent out a press release saying that Monforton would be Regier’s private counsel in the proceeding. There wasn’t much explanation, though it’s worth a mention that one of the accusations against Ellsworth is that he offered a business associate a “sole source” contract to work for the Senate and that because the value of the work was more than $100,000 it should have been bid competitively.
Monforton was to be paid $250 an hour and there was no indication he would hit the $100,000 threshold.
By Wednesday night, the two Democrats on the four-person Senate Ethics Committee were objecting to Monforton’s hire because they questioned his impartiality. The attorney on social media had disparaged Ellsworth and his actions.
Thursday, Regier said in an email that Monforton was out, Missoula attorney Adam Duerk was in.
“Senate Democrats complained about Matthew Monforton being outside legal counsel. I listened and am in the process of hiring attorney Adam Duerk,” Regier said. A quick look at X, formerly known as Twitter, and Facebook show no activity by Duerk.
The president referenced an earlier switch on committee membership, in which Sen. Sue Vinton, R-Lockwood, the ethics committee chair, was removed from the committee after writing an op-ed in which she disparaged Ellsworth, who was the 2023 Senate president, and Democrats who have joined forces with him at times this session. Vinton was removed by a nearly unanimous vote of the full Senate, but it was a Republican, Sen. Tom McGillvray, of Billings who made the motion to remove her.
Ewww, Grover
Grover Norquist, the godfather of the anti-tax policy, likened sales taxes to tapeworms during a guest appearance at Gov. Greg Gianforte’s press conference on tax policy Thursday morning. The emphasis of the presser was that income and property taxes are due for reduction.
Gianforte is prodding the Legislature to pass the property tax cuts he proposed for primary homes. Norquist noted that most of Montana’s neighboring states had either eliminated income taxes or established a flat tax on income.
All the surrounding states also have sales taxes, which Norquist balked at, arguing that using a sales tax to offset income or property taxes was like “swallowing a second tapeworm to try and discipline the first tapeworm.
“Both tapeworms grow at the rate tapeworms choose to,” he said.
Gianforte, not riffing on the tapeworm comment, said Montanans had no stomach for sales taxes, a subject that’s shown up in all three of his campaigns for governor.
Meanwhile, on the Capitol’s third floor, lawmakers have teased the possibility of a sales tax referendum, suggested by Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson.
In a press conference Tuesday, Senate Republican leaders briefly expressed no interest in using a sales tax to offset cuts to income or property taxes. Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray then conditioned that any discussion of a sales tax would include an assurance of tax cuts to property.
“If we could eliminate residential property taxes as a substitute for a sales tax, I think that would be very attractive to Montanans,” McGillvray, of Billings, said. “If they were assured that there was some constitutional provision that would protect their property in the future.”