Staying in the know this legislative session
During Montana’s legislative sessions — lasting for 90 days every other year — our elected representatives will pass many hundreds of bills, listen to thousands of Montanans on issues that impact our state, and write a multi-billion-dollar budget to fund the state for the coming years.
Most Montanans don’t have three months to spend tracking each and every bill, testimonial or budget line-item, but it’s worthwhile to stay updated on the legislation that may impact you and your community. There are accessible tools that will help you follow issues you care about.
Keeping track of bills: Thousands of bills (proposals for new laws or edits to old laws) are drafted each session, and more than a thousand are typically introduced for consideration. Each bill has a “sponsor” who leads the bill through the legislative process. The best place to find and read bills throughout the session is bills.mt.gov. You can search or filter bills at the top of that webpage, and by clicking on a bill you can read its text, its status, upcoming hearing or vote dates and more.
Session schedules: The session calendar is at legmt.gov/calendar/, and committee-specific schedules (and committee members and locations) are at legmt.gov/committees/. A bill’s individual page on bills.mt.gov has the upcoming schedule for that bill.
Watching (or attending) committee hearings and floor sessions: Committee hearings are public meetings where legislators learn about bills, hear from Montanans on those bills, and ultimately vote to advance those bills to the floor session. A floor session is where all representatives or senators discuss bills and vote on them. Both committees and floor sessions handle other business as well.
If you want to watch a committee hearing or floor session, go to legmt.gov/media/ and click “now streaming,” which will show all ongoing and future live streams. If you miss a live stream, after the hearing the bill’s webpage on bills.mt.gov will be updated with a recording of the live stream, typically more than a day afterward. In our experience, live streams of committee hearings are often hours long, so watching and waiting for your bill can take a while. Watching a recording afterward can save time.
If you want to attend a session in person at the Capitol, the committee room is available at legmt.gov/committees/.
Contacting your legislator: You can find your legislator on the interactive map at legmt.gov/districts/. Find your home address by zooming in or searching with the magnifying glass, then click the map. The page will show your state senator first, and a sideways arrow will scroll to your state representative. Contact information for your legislator is below their photo. Contact information for all legislators is also available on legmt.gov/legislators/.
Staying in the know: We also recommend following the session through your local journalists. Beyond the drama and partisan showmanship that often dominates the headlines, you will be able to read about the bills being considered and passed and how they will affect life in Montana.
Tracking a legislative session can be complicated, but our Montana Constitution depends on an informed citizenry activity participating in the lawmaking process. The tools above will keep you updated throughout the session, and we hope you can get involved in some way to make Montana the state you want it to be.
Visit our website at montanatransparencyproject.org. If you have questions, comments, column topics you’d like us to address, or if you want to submit your own information request, contact us at info@montanatransparencyproject.org and we would be happy to help.
Jacob Linfesty is president of Montana Transparency Project.