Montana News

One day after the Montana House voted down a bill that would criminalize doctor-assisted suicide, another bill was introduced with the same goal.

Libby Republican representative Jerry Bennett wants to change the current law against assisting a suicide, to allow doctors to be prosecuted.

The Montana House Wednesday approved a bill to let anyone carry a concealed weapon if they’re legally eligible to own a handgun. Gun owners would no longer need to get a concealed-carry permit.

Republican representative Bill Harris of Winnett said mass shootings, like the one in a Colorado theater in 2012, might not happen if more people carried concealed weapons.

Tuesday in Columbia Falls, Senator Steve Daines kicked off a series of three meetings in western Montana that he’s calling “Forest Management Reform Roundtables.”

Around the table were executives from three timber mills, county commissioners from Sanders, Lincoln and Mineral counties, and Montana leaders of The Wilderness Society, The Nature Conservancy,  and the National Parks Conservation Organization.

The Montana House narrowly defeated a bill that said doctors could face criminal charges for prescribing life-ending medications even if the patient made the request.

Wednesday at the Montana legislature, the Republicans lay out the start of their own version of Medicaid expansion. Republican Representative Nancy Ballance is carrying House Bill 455, which would extend state insurance coverage to people with disabilities, low-income parents and veterans.

She says this would only include about 10,000 of the approximate 70,000 Montanans without insurance, because she says many of those people are “working-age adults with no kids and no disabilities.”

Today at the Montana Capitol, legislators joined the national conversation about civil asset forfeiture, or, put simply, police taking money and property before they charge someone. The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Representative Kelly McCarthy, is teaming up with Republican Representative Daniel Zolnikov to promote House Bill 463, which he says would force police to prove that the assets they confiscate were used in a crime.

Billings Republican Daniel Zolnikov claims police are abusing laws that let them seize property from suspected drug offenders. He claims police seized $10,000 in cash from an out of state motorist pulled over for expired plates. Zolnikov says police took the money even though the man was never charged with a crime.

“This, mister chairman and members of the committee, is what I would consider literal highway robbery,” Zolnikov testified.

He says he can’t name the citizen, or the agency involved, because the case is still being litigated.

Democratic Senator Jon Tester has signed-on to a new bill that he says would bring badly-needed financial security to Montana's most rural and timber-dependent counties.

Senator Tester says the "Secure Rural Schools and Payment in Lieu of Taxes Repair Act" would annually reauthorize Montana's SRS payments for three years at $23 million, the level provided in 2011.

On the calendar it may have been Presidents Day, but for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monday was no holiday.

Monday, the Montana legislature will hear the bill to pass the Salish-Kootenai water compact, essentially mapping out water rights for the Flathead reservation and surrounding area. The bill’s sponsor is Republican Senator Chas Vincent of Libby, who was the compact’s opposition last session. He says, even amid death threats, he believes this year’s compact is better and absolutely necessary to ensure Montana keeps it’s water.