Legislature reaches its 2023 midpoint

Hundreds of proposed laws at the Montana Legislature officially landed in Capitol recycling bin Friday as they failed to clear the session’s March 3 transmittal deadline, the date most non-budget bills introduced this session were required to clear at least one legislative chamber.

The transmittal date, the halfway mark of the every-other-year legislative session, drove a pre-deadline crunch week as lawmakers scrambled to clear their dockets before the legislative calendar brought down the procedural guillotine.

Amid the rush, legislators debated 319 bills on the House and Senate floors in marathon sessions Wednesday and Thursday, forwarding measures that would, among other things, deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in tax rebates to Montana residents, ban drag shows in public spaces where minors are present and authorize the creation of charter schools. Lawmakers also voted down bills that would have, for example, enacted a work requirement for people on Montana’s expanded Medicaid program and provided for partisan judicial elections.