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As the 2025 session of the Montana Legislature worked through its final week, rose during an April 24 debate on the floor of the House to deliver a zinger that cut to the heart of the politics that have swirled through the halls of the state Capitol this year.

Some of Fitzpatrick’s fellow Republicans had advanced urging the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the 1913 change that stripped state legislatures of the power to appoint U.S. senators, replacing it with the direct elections used today. Reverting back, proponents of the resolution maintained, would constrain federal overreach. Opponents countered that the federal amendment was adopted in part because a Montanan, Butte copper king William A. Clark, .

Fitzpatrick, though, wanted to make a point of his own.

“Let’s just reduce this resolution to brutal political reality,” he said. “We’re being asked to exchange our system of popularly electing the state’s U.S. senators for a legislative version of the popular television game ‘Deal or No Deal.’

“If the intent of the resolution was law today,” he continued, “our next U.S. senator would be picked by the representative from Conrad.”’

The representative from Conrad, close observers of the Capitol know well, is , the 11-term Republican who has for more than a decade ensconced himself as the central figure in the state’s budgeting process —&�Բ�����;and, by extension, almost any issue involving dollar signs —&�Բ�����;by force of reasoned argument, political savvy and apparently inexhaustible capacity for wrangling complex bills.

As the legislative session swung into its final days this year, Jones was riding high. Negotiating between Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, minority Democrats and a GOP majority fractured between centrist and hardline factions, he’d been able to maneuver an astonishing array of high-dollar bills through the Legislature toward the governor’s desk.

Among the Jones personally sponsored this year are the state’s $16.6 billion budget, a separate funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into a “growth and opportunity” endowment, a and an implementation bill for the historic second-home tax he developed on the governor’s behalf in an effort to mitigate rising homeowner property taxes.

One of Jones’ legislative allies, , carried renewal of the state’s expanded Medicaid program, which provides health coverage to more than 75,000 low-income adults. Another, Fitzpatrick, carried to expand the state prison system.

All of those bills had their critics, most commonly hardline Republicans who repeatedly found themselves sidelined as Jones struck deals that had his faction of centrist GOP lawmakers voting with Democrats instead of their party’s right flank. By the closing days of the session, even Republicans with leadership titles could do little to resist Jones’ initiatives beyond impotently railing against them in floor debates.

A common refrain from those critics was the trademark complexity of bills Jones had a hand in drafting, many of which were reworked with sweeping amendments late in the session as he and his allies contorted them to squeeze around political obstacles. On the Senate floor April 23, for example, , complained that changes to one of Jones’ budget bills were so convoluted they were preventing meaningful debate.  

“There’s one person that was the architect of this thing, and that is pulling the strings on the whole works,” Glimm said. “It’s embarrassing. There’s 150 legislators in here, and we should understand what we’re voting on.”

As such, while Fitzpatrick’s remark on Jones’ dealmaking prowess drew peals of bipartisan laughter on the House floor the following day, some of it certainly came through clenched teeth. “Let the dealing begin,” Fitzpatrick continued, rubbing salt in a number of open political wounds.

A few minutes later, the resolution was voted down.

— Eric Dietrich

By the Numbers 🔢

That’s how many bills were introduced in this year’s 85-day Montana legislative session, a count nearly identical to 2023 and well above the roughly 1,300 introduced in 2019 and 2021. From Medicaid expansion and K-12 education funding to sweeping tax policy debates, committee hearings filled the Capitol’s rooms for months, and floor sessions often ran late into the night to allow debate on all the policies lawmakers proposed. Our team was in the Capitol every day to bring you the most consequential stories and a look at the Legislature’s inner workings. Still, with so many measures in play, we couldn’t cover every bill. For the full lineup — complete with vote records, amendment histories and committee actions — explore our .

—Jacob Olness

Say What? 🤔

Every day of the Legislature contains some number of record-scratch moments. A lawmaker will unexpectedly quote a cartoon show on the Senate floor, or someone will not-so-subtly threaten another lawmaker with an election challenge over a vote they didn’t like. But after all 85 days of this year’s session, there is one monologue that has remained lodged in my brain because it was just that unexpected: Freshman lawmaker , asking to table a restrictive abortion bill after citing the constitutional abortion rights amendment voters approved in November, CI-128. 

The bill in question was , which would have created a felony for anyone, including the pregnant person, guilty of “trafficking” a woman inside or outside Montana for the purpose of obtaining an illegal abortion. It wasn’t the only law seeking to curb abortion that the House Judiciary Committee had considered in the days surrounding Sharp’s comments. Here’s a segment of how it went:

“There is a reality of the fact that CI-128 passed. We don’t know what, how that’s gonna shake out. And I think we need to address abortion in a wide variety of means, hopefully to get at the very things that I want to get at, which is not making it a matter of convenience. But some of these bills that we’ve been bringing up here, I just have to admit, I’m really uncomfortable with. I think they tinker a bit around the edges, and they do so in light of the fact that we don’t know what’s really gonna come out of something that’s gonna be in our Constitution … I think we have to put a lot more forethought into some of these bills, and so with that, I’d like to move we table this.”

The explanation was unlike anything I remember a Republican lawmaker saying — at least on the record — in five years of covering Montana politics. Voting in favor of abortion regulations has long been a sure-fire way to display party loyalty and tout conservative bonafides, even if lawmakers don’t necessarily agree with the bill in front of them. 

But this session, Sharp’s comments displayed just how much the political landscape around abortion and reproductive rights has shifted. The old code was losing some of its binding power, allowing at least one lawmaker to speak more candidly. Even more surprisingly, seven other Republican lawmakers joined Sharp in voting against the bill.

�ԹϺ��� later reported that the sponsor of the bill supported that maneuver. She alleged that the bill’s intent had been warped by opponents during an intense public hearing. But a lawmaker on the committee, , later told us that the bloc of Republican dissenters “simply didn’t support the bill,” another comment I’ve never heard from GOP representatives about abortion legislation.

“The penalties on the mother were too egregious,” Mitchell said.

—Mara Silvers

The Gist 📌

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, some school officials expressed concern over the dramatic uptick in homeschool enrollment. A growing number of Montana families sought exemptions from mandatory public school attendance for a variety of reasons including frustration over masking protocols and fear of the virus’ spread. The situation brought heightened attention to the . Under current statute, oversight has largely fallen to county school superintendents, who once a year collect homeschool enrollment totals from families in their jurisdictions.

Lawmakers this session revisited the issue in an effort to clarify what’s expected in homeschool education, which has continued to prove a popular option for many parents. Specifically, sought to divorce homeschool reporting requirements from those applied to more institutionalized nonpublic schools; the two having been lumped together in Montana’s codebooks in the 1980s. Supporters of the proposal argued it would shield homeschool families from potential government intrusion in their homes under the guise of enforcing health and safety codes meant to apply to private school facilities. They also said it would free parents from a requirement to produce student immunization records if requested by county officials. 

HB 778 also makes clear the law’s requirement that homeschools provide a minimum aggregate number of hours of instruction and an organized course of study in the subjects required in public education. Public school advocates and members of the school choice movement testified in favor of the change, noting that it would refine the distinction between private school and homeschool requirements and resolve what Montana School Boards Association Executive Director Lance Melton told lawmakers in February was “an ambiguity that has sort of troubled us, gosh, as long as I can remember.” 

Montana’s latest homeschool totals put statewide enrollment at , a 9% increase over the previous year. HB 778 cleared both the House and Senate floors this spring on unanimous votes and is awaiting action from Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte.

—Alex Sakariassen

Next Steps 👣

In the wake of sine die, the motion that marks the procedural end of a legislative session, bills that lawmakers passed make their way to Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte. After the Legislature gavels out, bills most likely face one of three outcomes. 

1. ✅ A bill becomes law: To transform a bill into law, the governor can either sign the legislation or take no action for 10 days, at which point it becomes law automatically.
2. ❌ A bill does not become law: The governor has 10 days to veto a bill. After the session, the House and Senate can overrule a veto via a mailed poll only if the bill passed out of both chambers with a two-thirds majority.
3. ☑️ Some parts of a bill become law: Multi-section appropriation bills are subject to potential line-item vetoes, a process in which the governor vetoes specific sections within a bill while signing its other sections into law. After the session adjourns, the Legislature can override the line item vetoes via mail-in ballot only if the overall bill was passed by the two chambers via a two-thirds majority.

Some bills include language indicating when the legislation, if signed, would take effect. But , policy bills take effect Oct. 1, appropriation bills take effect July 1 and tax bills take effect Jan. 1, 2026. 

Even after a bill is passed by the Legislature and signed by the executive, the judicial branch can block the law if it is challenged and a judge finds it in violation of the Constitution. , a law allowing public and some private facilities to be sued if they don’t enforce strict sex segregation in bathrooms, locker rooms and sleeping areas, was temporarily blocked by a state direct court judge less than a week after Gianforte signed the legislation.

— Zeke Lloyd

Highlights ☀️

In other news this week —

• Lawmakers had a lot of big policy questions to answer in their 85-day session. Here’s what happened.
• Libraries across Montana are in wait-and-see mode over grant funding.
• It’s expected to be “a year of unknowns” for Montana tourism.

On Our Radar 

For this week’s picks, reporters share their favorite moments from the session.

Amanda — While I wasn’t surprised to see legislation seeking to reduce wolf numbers this session, I was surprised when a discussion on wolf management — which often elicits impassioned public testimony — garnered a veritable ripple of laughter in the House. During a on a proposal to lift wolf hunting quotas, , suggested that lawmakers’ efforts to bring wolf numbers down have more to do with the hunters pursuing them than the tools at their disposal. “I think we’ve got a problem here. I think our hunters suck,” he said, drawing a round of chuckles.

Alex — From session to session, I just always get a chuckle out of the stylish shades that pop up on the House floor, one of the surest signs of spring in Helena as the days get longer. One back row seems perpetually plagued by a ray of early afternoon sun coming in through one of the chamber’s windows, prompting the lawmakers assigned those seats to don sunglasses indoors. It tends to add a little comedic flair to even the most serious proceedings.

Tom — During one of the first late-night floor sessions in the Montana Senate, the chamber’s voting bloc of moderates began assigning House bills to committees, a job usually done by the Senate president. It was a huge flex by this group of moderate Republicans and Democrats, one that , could only watch from the dais. In the middle of the action, a giant tub of movie popcorn was delivered to . “The popcorn was Door Dashed to me on the Senate floor from Jenny Walsh Mayer, who serves on the Missoula County Board of Trustees,” Boldman later said. “The popcorn delivery seemed particularly appropriate because the entire night’s debate was unadulterated political theater!” 

Zeke —&�Բ�����; said he brought amending roadway law to give motorized scooterists the same rights as bicyclists because of a local adolescent who uses a “kind of magical” one-wheel scooter. While speaking on the House floor, Duram acknowledged that lawmaking is not a perfect science. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea or a bad idea to pass this law. That’s exactly why I brought this bill to the House Transportation Committee,” Duram said. Weeks later, the bill passed out of both chambers with bipartisan support.

Holly — Lawmakers say a lot during the session, some of it serious, some of it funny, and much of it into microphones that are recording. My favorite line of the session came from a on legislative families. , described why his wife is always proud of their son, , but frequently disappointed in her husband: “That’s understandable cuz he’s a blood relative, and I’m just a guy she met in a bar.”

Mara —&�Բ�����; With plenty of political nastiness to go around, it was a small dose of levity to see a real-life example of bipartisanship this week: A foot-injured , wheeling around the Capitol on the knee-scooter of , who had previously used it while recovering from a lower-limb surgery earlier in the session. The “horn” attached to the handlebars? A loudly squawking rubber chicken.

Kaiden — A revolving issue in the last several legislative sessions involves a dispute between Lake County and the state regarding Public Law 280, which dictates the jurisdiction of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. After doing research into tribal jurisdiction, I’ve gotten to the point where it is somewhat of a nerdy obsession. I recently had the opportunity to do an interview with , Bitterroot Salish and a former CSKT council member, about the issue. We talked about congressional acts such as the Tribal Law and Order Act and the Violence Against Women Act, which are niche topics, but ones that I find to be enthralling to discuss. 

Nora — One of my favorite moments this legislative session was watching Arlee High School students testify in support of establishing . Two non-Native students told lawmakers they appreciated learning about Native history and culture. And one Blackfeet senior said the holiday was a chance to celebrate Indigenous contributions. I was impressed when that student told me she wrote her remarks on the bus ride from Arlee to Helena that morning.

Eric — Two words: Money suit.

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