Montana lawmakers reject call for special session on taxes

A call for a special session of the Montana Legislature that would have addressed rising residential property taxes in the state has failed.

Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen released the results of a poll of Montana lawmakers on Friday night, and it showed that 55 members of the 150-member Legislature supported a special session, far short of the 76 votes needed for the lawmakers to call themselves back to the capitol in Helena.

The call for a special session was pushed by lawmakers identified as the Montana Freedom Caucus because of the public outrage over a jump in residential property taxes. Sticker shock came in the form of property tax assessments that many residents started to receive in the summer, after the 2023 Legislature had recessed.

The residential property tax issue was complicated by a rebate plan promoted by Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration to refund as much as $675 to individual property owners to help offset the increase. However, that measure was met with mixed results as critics spoke out about a cumbersome online process, and said the relief didn’t help renters whose rents were increased to offset the rise in taxes.

Though legislative Democrats had previously floated an unsuccessful proposal for a one-day special session of their own, it was defeated earlier in the year. Democrats voted against the idea of the most current special session being proposed by the Montana Freedom Caucus.

The issue was also addressed through the other two branches of Montana government as the Gianforte administration fought with counties about how much counties were required to charge residential property taxpayers, with the Montana Supreme Court siding with the administration, even though nearly all of the state’s 56 counties had tried to lower the tax rate.

The special session would have begun at 10 a.m. Jan. 15.

Thirty-seven members of the Montana House voted to support a special session, including House Speaker Matt Regier and Majority Leader Sue Vinton. Forty-six members opposed the motion or didn’t return their ballots.

Eighteen members of the Montana Senate voted for the special session with Senate President Jason Ellsworth and Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick not returning ballots, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

The Montana Legislature has a supermajority of Republicans.

Democratic minority leader Rep. Kim Abbott did not return her ballot and Sen. Pat Flowers voted against the special session, according to the results.

“In the last legislative session, Montana Democrats offered long-term property tax solutions that were rejected by the Republican supermajority. As the property tax crisis worsened, Montana Senate Democrats proposed a special session for an easy fix to the devastating property tax spike by simply adjusting tax rates to fully offset the property value increase. Our request was ignored by the governor,” said Flowers of Belgrade.  “Instead, we got this failed call for a special session that was full of tax gimmicks that didn’t reduce property taxes or address the huge shift of property taxes from the rich and corporations onto the backs of working Montanans.”

Comments from the Republican leadership in the Montana Legislature weren’t available at press time.

The polling closed at 5 p.m., Friday, 30 days after the Secretary of State’s Office received the call from 21 members of the Legislature.