Republicans come up with separate infrastructure bills

HELENA — After two months of closed-door negotiations to resolve one of the top issues of the Montana legislative session, House and Senate Republicans have written separate bills that contain different plans on funding public works and building projects.

Both measures were drafted to replace Gov. Steve Bullock’s bill that would have funded about $150 million in infrastructure projects with state bonds, including renovation of Montana State University’s Romney Hall, a Montana Historical Society museum and a Butte veterans’ home.

The Senate bill, which has been drafted but has not yet been introduced, would scale down Bullock’s proposal to between $80 million and $90 million in bonds to pay for water, sewers, roads, bridges and most of the building projects that were in the governor’s plan.

The House version, which was introduced Wednesday, would authorize only $33 million in state debt, and strip out all of the large building projects. It would also fund just half of the public school repair projects in the bills by the Senate and the governor, and use cash instead of bonds to pay for them.

“The reason we got two different levels of bonding authority in those bills is because the House is far more tentative about the amount of bonding they’re willing to do,” said Senate Majority Leader Fred Thomas, R-Stevensville.

Democratic leaders said the House bill “gutted” a compromise that leaders from both chambers and parties have been working on for 60 days and pits the state’s urban and rural areas against each other. Most of the House bill’s projects are in rural areas, while the large building projects that were excluded are in the state’s urban centers.

“For the urban projects to be gutted out and only really focused now on rural projects, they don’t have the votes now,” said House Minority Leader Jenny Eck, D-Helena.

Republicans hold majorities in both the House and the Senate, allowing them to push through legislation without Democratic help in most cases. However, approval of a bonding bill requires a two-thirds vote of each chamber, meaning the Republicans need the minority party in order to pass the measure.

Eck and Senate Minority Leader Jon Sesso, D-Butte, said the Senate bill draft is more in line with what the negotiators had agreed to include in an infrastructure deal, and that’s where the Democrats will put their support if they can’t get their projects added into the House bill.

Rep. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, the sponsor of the House bill, called the measure a starting point and said changes will be considered, though many House Republicans did not consider large building projects infrastructure.

“The Republicans in the House have been saying since day one we’re interested in funding essential projects around the state,” Cuffe said. “This is the very basis of a real infrastructure bonding bill.”

Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, pointed out that about $213 million in other public works projects that would be paid for in cash are moving through the legislative process in separate bills, and the bonding bill is only one piece of the infrastructure package. He also denied Eck and Sesso’s assertion that House Republicans had reached a compromise an infrastructure package with Democrats.

Bullock said in a statement that the House bill falls short of needed community investment.

“Democrats and Republicans need to work together to pass a bipartisan solution that will reach my desk and fulfills that responsibility,” he said.