By Shaylee Ragar and Tim Pierce UM LEGISLATIVE NEWS SERVICE
HELENA —
The House of Representatives passed a bill last week that calls for studying
Montana’s tax structure in the face of quickly shifting economics and
demographics.
Rep. Alan
Redfield, R-Livingston, is carrying House Joint Resolution 35, which would ask
the Legislature to create an interim revenue and transportation committee to
conduct the study. It would also include a subcommittee of non-legislative
members, like business owners or tax experts. The bill passed the House on a
94-3 vote Friday.
Montana
doesn’t have a sales tax, and state revenue largely relies on property taxes.
The state has also built a savings account through a tax on coal, but three of
the state’s coal-fired power plants are slated to close in the next few years.
Redfield
said the study also needs to focus on how population and demographic changes
have affected tax policy.
Proposals
to implement statewide or local-option sales taxes have been voted down this
session.
A wide
variety of proponents voiced support for the study resolution in a Tuesday
House Taxation Committee hearing. Representatives from the Montana
Infrastructure Coalition, the Montana League of Cities and Towns, the Montana
Budget and Policy Center and the Montana Taxpayers Association all support the
proposal.
Bob Story,
executive director of the taxpayers association, said he thinks the property
tax structure is collapsing.
“A good
study will at least move us down the road dealing with some of these issues,”
Story said.
Rep. Zach
Brown, D-Bozeman, pointed out during the hearing that many people often support
study bills because everyone wants tax burdens shifted from themselves onto
someone else. Because of this, he stressed, the composition of the interim
committee and subcommittee will need to be balanced in terms of background and
ideology.
Bill
Would Fine Hunters for Abusing Animal Location Data
The Montana
Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has exact, real-time location data of
some animals, like sage grouse or bears.
“Lots of
hunters have contacted the department and asked them for that exact coordinate
location so that they could improve their hunting ability,” said Sen. Jill
Cohenour, D-Helena when she was introducing Senate Bill 349 in the Senate last
month.
SB 349
would make it illegal for hunters to abuse tracking data. It passed out of the
Senate with a vote of 27-23 last week and is scheduled for a hearing in the
House.
Hunters
could be fined up to $1,000, serve up to 6 months jail time and lose hunting
licenses for using exact location data to track and harass or kill animals
under the proposed law.
The bill
was amended while it was in committee, removing language that would have
allowed FWP to deny data requests. Now, the bill would still allow people to
make requests, but penalize them for abusing the information.
Bill To
Prohibit Local Gun Ordinances Passes
The Montana
Legislature passed two bills last week to revise gun laws and weaken local
governments’ authority to implement municipal gun ordinances.
House Bill
325, which passed the Senate last week 29-20 after passing the House in
February 57-42, would prohibit local governments from regulating where people
can carry concealed weapons.
Rep. Matt
Regier, R-Columbia Falls, introduced both HB 325 and House Bill 357, which are
essentially the same bill. If the governor vetoes HB 325, HB 357 would make the
policy a referendum for voters to decide on, which the governor cannot veto.
“We can’t
have a disarray of having a gun here and not having a gun there, because then
nobody knows what’s going on,” said Sen. Steve Hinebauch, R-Wibaux.
Hanna’s
Act, Focused on Missing Persons Cases, Revived
A bill
aimed at streamlining reports of missing persons was revived in the Senate last
week after it was voted down in committee.
House Bill
21, known as Hanna’s Act, passed the House 99-0 in February, but was tabled by
the Senate Judiciary Committee, which generally signifies a bill is dead. But
after more consideration and amendments, the committee voted to move the bill
to the full Senate for debate, where it passed 42-6.
However, it
was then referred to the Senate Finance and Claims Committee.
Hanna’s Act
is named after Hanna Harris, a young woman from Lame Deer who was killed in
2013 on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. The bill is in response to a high
number of missing and murdered indigenous women.
When the
bill was debated on the Senate floor, Sen. Susan Webber, D-Browning, spoke in
support and said native women are murdered at a rate 10 times the national
average.
Sen. Diane
Sands, D-Missoula said one of the biggest challenges of the missing and
murdered indigenous women issue is the slow response time. She said part of the
challenge is that tribal, state and federal law enforcement all have different
jurisdictions, and haven’t been communicating.
HB 21 would
create a specialized position in the Montana Department of Justice to
coordinate efforts on missing persons cases. Originally, the bill would have
mandated the position be created, but after amendments, now it makes it
optional for the DOJ. It was also stripped of state funding before it moved out
of the House.
Shaylee Ragar and Tim Pierce are reporters with the UM
Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of
Journalism, the Montana Newspaper Association, the Montana Broadcasters
Association and the Greater Montana Foundation. Shaylee can be reached at
shaylee.ragar@umontana.edu. Tim can be reached at tim.pierce@umontana.edu.
