Democrats and GOP ‘Nine’ propel state budget bill through Senate debate

The $16.6 billion budget bill funding the operation of Montana’s state agencies for the next two years passed a key milestone Thursday in its journey through the state Legislature, clearing a preliminary floor vote in the state Senate with bipartisan support from Democrats and a group of Republican lawmakers who have repeatedly bucked the chamber’s GOP leadership this year.

The coalition of the Senate’s 18-member Democratic minority and nine Republicans repeatedly rejected amendment motions brought by GOP leaders, voting in near-lockstep over the course of the three-hour budget bill debate.

By the time debate on the agency budget bill, House Bill 2, concluded, the Senate’s frustrated Republican leaders were voting against passing it.

“I imagine that the governor is going to veto his way to a balanced budget — because he’ll have to. That’s the job that we’re supposed to do,” said Senate Finance and Claims Committee Chair Carl Glimm, R-Kila.

Glimm, who leads Senate-side budgeting efforts, was joined in his opposition by Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell and Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, R-Billings.

Across the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, expressed his support for the bill.

“I think it’s a good compromise budget,” Flowers said. “It meets the needs of Montanans in a fair and meaningful way.”

Some of the amendments proposed by Senate Republican leaders Thursday would have cut money from the budget and others would have added additional spending. Among their failed efforts were a push by Glimm to remove $1.8 million to cover a 14% increase to vocational rehabilitation provider rates. Regier also pushed to reduce funding for additional Fish, Wildlife and Parks game wardens and McGillvray pushed to add $500,000 a year to help the state utility regulation commission pay for lawyers if it is sued over its handling of climate change issues.

In one case, Democrats and their Republican allies held the line to vote down an amendment even after a Democratic senator said she’d support the spending in another measure.

That amendment, brought by Sen. John Esp, R-Big Timber, would have put $7.4 million toward court-ordered evaluations of mentally ill criminal defendants in county jails and detention centers. The proposal is part of a broader effort, championed by Esp, to decrease backlogs on the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs.

“I think this is actually a very thoughtful proposal and I know the sponsor has a real heart for this area of policy,” said Sen. Emma Kerr-Carpenter, R-Billings. “I will not be supporting this amendment today, but I hope we can talk about this in the context of some of the policy bills that are moving through the process right now.”

Democrats also brought two successful amendments opposed by the Senate’s leadership, one that cut $35 million for hiring traveling nurses at the state hospital and one that added roughly $870,000 a year for a pretrial diversion program requested by the state court system.

While the agency budget bill is the single largest spending measure the Legislature will consider this year, large swaths of the state’s budget for the two-year cycle that starts July 1 will be set by other bills, including income tax cut proposals and standalone appropriation measures that would in some cases authorize tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in spending.

Frustrated Senate Republican leaders said Thursday that the spending levels included in the agency budget bill means lawmakers — including the 18 Democrats and nine Republicans who whose combined votes produce a de facto working majority in the Senate with them boxed out —  will need to vote down other measures to balance the state’s overall financial position.

“I think you 27 who wanted this inflated budget now need to make the real tough decisions,” said House Taxation Chair Greg Hertz, R-Polson. “You’re going to have to start cutting — and you’re going to have to start cutting some programs that you may really like.”

A status report published by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Division on April 10 indicates the bills that were alive at that point in the session would — if all passed — put the state in the red by the 2026 fiscal year and set it on a path to an $689 million annual budget deficit by 2029. The Montana Constitution requires that the Legislature pass a balanced budget each session.

Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, has the power to veto spending approved by the Legislature, including portions of the agency budget bill.

The nine Republican Senators who repeatedly voted against budget amendments brought by GOP leadership Thursday were Sen. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton; Sen. Bruce Gillespie, R-Ethridge; Sen. Gregg Hunter, R-Glasgow; Sen. Gayle Lammers, R-Hardin; Sen. Denley Loge, R-St. Regis; Sen. Wendy McKamey, R-Great Falls; Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester; Sen. Shelley Vance, R-Belgrade and former Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton.

Those nine senators were censured by the Montana GOP earlier this month for previous votes aligned with Democrats, including voting against efforts to expel Ellsworth over ethics allegations. Some of the Republican senators have historically been part of the “Solutions Caucus” of comparatively moderate Republican legislators who have long been open to bucking the party’s hardline wing. At least one, Kassmier, has routinely carried bills in this and prior sessions on behalf of the Republican governor.

The overall budget bill passed its preliminary floor vote on a 27-23 margin, with opposition from Republican Senate leadership and support from eight of the nine breakaway Republicans. Ellsworth voted against the budget proposal on that vote while one Republican senator who had voted with his leadership on the amendments, Mike Cuffe of Eureka, supported it.

The Senate will hold a final vote on the budget bill, House Bill 2, in the coming days before sending it back to the House to give lawmakers there a chance to review the relatively minor changes made by the Senate. The House previously approved the budget on a 58-41 vote that split both Republican and Democratic caucuses.

Erich Dietrich is deputy editor of the Montana Free Press and can be reached at edietrich@montanafreepress.org.