- [Jackie] Happening now on "The Rundown," the 67th legislative session is halfway through.

And to meet the transmittal deadline, legislators pull out all the stops.

- [Mr. Chairman] It's going to be a pretty tight day.

I'm going to try and give every hearing a fair hearing.

- I'm Jackie Coffin, and "The Rundown" Capital Report starts now.

"The Rundown" is made possible by the Greater Montana foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

The Rundown Capital Report takes place primarily in Helena, which is the original land of the Salish, Pondera, Blackfeet, Shoshone, Bannack, and Opelika people.

Welcome, and thank you for joining me again for another installment of The Rundown Capital Report.

We are halfway through the 67th legislative session, and this week hundreds, yes, I mean hundreds of bills were introduced in a last minute push before the transmittal deadline.

I'll touch on some of the big ones, as well as some of the frustration certain lawmakers are feeling with this last minute rush.

My special guest this week is one of the most important interviews I've conducted this year.

She's not in the Montana political scene.

She's a human rights defender in the country of Myanmar, which is undergoing serious political unrest following a coup on February 1st.

She once called Missoula home during the international fellowship, but is going to be viewed an insider account of what's happening in Myanmar right now, including totality, censorship, and human rights violations, and why the global community must pay attention.

I can't wait to share this interview with you, but first let's start in the Capitol.

Where it's a mad dash to the transmittal deadline.

- Committee members in favor of the motion, signify by voting aye.

Those opposed, vote no.

- [Jackie] The transmittal deadline is March 3rd, and that is when all bills must have made it through their original chamber and be ready to be sent over to the other side.

When I say all bills, this does not include bills regulating money like our state budget.

That deadline is further down the road.

It does mean bills concerning everything from wildlife to education to voting rights and so, so much more.

The process a bill needs to clear by Wednesday, March 3rd, is a first reading in its original chamber, a hearing in front of its assigned committee, second reading, and a third reading.

In the committee hearing, second reading, and third reading, the bill gets voted on.

The transmittal process is when all the bills that have passed one chamber get sent over to the other chamber.

Chambers meaning House and Senate.

If a bill fails to make it through committee or floor votes by the transmittal deadline, it's probably dead.

The legislature meets in odd number years for no more than 90 legislative days per our state constitution, and the only thing they have to do is pass a budget.

Of course we know they do so much more than that when it comes to drafting and passing new laws for our state.

And the mad rush of bills this week showed a wide variety of topics they are trying to address.

- [Committee Member] Trapping and snaring.

- Juvenile possession of marijuana.

- To a federal ban on guns.

- [Jackie] This week, there were 403 bills introduced in assigned to committees.

403.

In comparison, last week there were 180.

The 403 bills does not include how many bills were heard and voted on in the House and Senate floor sessions, and there were a lot.

- [Committee Member] 49 Senators having voted aye.

- We're trying to move things through a very busy week.

And I would say an unnecessarily busy week, honestly.

- [Jackie] For minority leader Representative Kim Abbott, a Democrat from Helena, there was frustration about this huge surge of bills.

- Committee assignment situation has been pretty badly mishandled the session.

You have judiciary dropping, you know, 20 hearings in a day when those bills could be in committees that don't have that kind of workload.

You know, we've had some conversations with Republican leadership about it and haven't gotten very far, but the judiciary does not have to look the way that it does this week.

And those hearings don't have to be crammed in the way that they are on legislation that's important, you know, that should be vetted.

And certainly we don't need to be giving 12 hours notice to the public on some of these important bills.

So I don't, I think that this could have been scheduled in a variety of ways that would have, it's always a busy week, right?

Like I'm not saying that the week before transmittal isn't always sort of a crush, but it's Tuesday, you know?

Like it, I think that, I think that Representative Usher has the Senate bill scheduled for Thursday.

That makes no sense.

So we're frustrated by it.

I don't think it's necessary, could have been handled better, but we'll do the best we can with the situation we're in.

- [Jackie] Representative Abbott says with this load of bills it is very difficult to properly inform the public in time for them to attend hearings and sign up to give testimony.

There's also concern there is not enough time for committee members to give the bill proper consideration and vetting before voting.

The House Judiciary Committee has been holding hearings from seven in the morning to late into the evening, rolling through dozens of bills and immediately taking executive action, AKA voting, right after the bills are heard.

- [Committee Member] Without objection, we'll go on to executive action on House bill 503.

- [Jackie] This committee, which is made up of 12 Republicans and seven Democrats, is also getting assigned a lot of bills that should be questionably sent to other places, like voting rights bills.

And there have been some tense moments like on Tuesday, in the House Judiciary Committee, during a hearing for a House joint resolution brought by Democrat Mary Ann Dunwell declaring neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups in Montana as domestic terrorists.

- [Committee Member] Follow up, please Mr.

Chair.

- [Chair] Mr.

Chair, Representative Dunwell, could you please name me one white supremist group in Montana?

- [Rep. Dunwell] Proud Boys, Mr.

Chair.

- [Chair] Follow up Mr.

Chair?

- [Committee Member] Follow up.

- Representative Dunwell, where are the Proud Boys headquartered in Montana?

- I can't specify.

I don't, I don't know exactly.

I would like to redirect - [Mr.

Chair] No thank you.

to an expert, Mr.

Chair.

- [Chair] Mr.Chair, no thanks.

- I'd like to redirect to Mr. McAdam, please.

- Again, representative Dunwell, that's the prerogative of the person asking a question.

They wanted your answer, not someone else's.

- [Rep. Dunwell] Mr., Mr.

Chair.

Point of personal privilege.

If the in- - I'm, I, whoa.

You can't.

- [Rep. Dunwell] If the intent of the, if the intent.

- Okay.

Now you're muted, and I will speak.

And if you continue, I'll just drop you off the call.

It's your choice.

Are you done?

- [Jackie] On the house floor, moving through hearings quickly has also caused issues between members.

- So I did have a piece to say on this, Mr. Chairman, and, and as rapid as you've been going through the whole agenda today, it kind of gives us a disadvantage to at least give that opportunity, Mr. Chairman.

- In general, a lot of legislation is going to make it in before the transmittal deadline.

One area I want to focus on right now is legislation affecting voting rights, especially for Native Americans.

There have been a lot of bills related to voting rights moving through this session impacting same day voter registration, the distribution of mail ballots, voter ID laws, and more.

A few that stick out include House bill 176 carried by Representative Sharon Greef, a Republican from Florence, closes voter registration on the Friday before elections.

While Greef's original bill proposed closing registration at noon on the day before elections, it was amended to be the Friday before elections.

This effectively ends same day voter registration in Montana.

Another, House bill 406 carried by Representative Mark Noland, a Republican from Big Fork, reinstates the Ballot Interference Prevention Act or BIPA, which prevents absentee ballot collection by a person or group.

- What is one of the most important and sacred privilege we have in this, the great United States of America and in the great state of Montana?

That's a rhetorical question, but it is that we have the privilege to vote and the responsibility to vote.

And in doing so, making sure that our ballots get collected appropriately.

That's what this bill does.

We are not trying to harm anyone.

We are not trying to shorten anybody having the ability to, not be able to get their vote turned in.

- This fall, a Billings judge declared BIPA as unconstitutional and struck it down.

Proponents say BIPA protects voter security and prevents election fraud.

Opponents say it disproportionately affects Native Americans and voting on reservations.

- Rural tribal communities work with Get Out the Vote organizations all across the state who collect and transport ballots to the election offices that would otherwise be inaccessible because of distance, lack of access to transportation, or other socioeconomic barriers.

This bill is ineffective, ends the legal practices of ballot collection, disenfranchises Native American voters in mass.

We should be working on expanding access to the ballot and not limiting it.

Please vote red.

- [Jackie] Another bill which could negatively impact voters is Senate bill 169 carried by Senator Mike Cuffe, a Republican from Eureka, which stiffens voter ID laws saying certain kinds of ID can be used and others can't.

- Nowhere in the bill are we indicating there's any, any claim of voter fraud, claim of wrongdoing.

This is simply trying to say we have a pretty doggone good system.

And our elections in Montana, I think do have integrity.

What we're looking at here is trying and attempting to improve on the system to make a good sense, process better.

- In a press conference Thursday with Western Native Vote, Representative Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, a Democrat from Crow Agency, says there is a targeted effort to disestablish Native American voters.

- And if you, you have to watch with the Republican party, you have to watch the trends that are going on at the national level, the national party dictates to a certain extent.

And if you look at all of the different, different states, if you've been tracking that, across the United States, there's been movement again for voter suppression.

This is, this is my, I'm going into 14 years here at the legislature.

This is, and one of the things is that we always have something to, to undercut the, the Native vote one way or the other.

And so I was not surprised, but I, I believed that we would probably be seeing more.

And some of these are just a boiler plate bills.

- [Jackie] Representative Stewart-Peregoy has a bill of her own protecting and expanding Native voting rights but also voting rights for all Montanans.

Representative Stewart-Peregoy's bill was heard in committee on Friday.

- Intent of the watering medicine is to make sure that there's access in a century located place for, for the people to to come and register, to cast their ballots, or to bring in their absentee ballots and drop them off.

And they have to have internet service.

It has to be secure.

It has to be ADA accessible.

- [Jackie] A bill that came back from the dead in a new form made it through the House before the transmittal deadline.

House bill 427 carried by Representative John Fuller, a Republican from Whitefish, bars transgender Montanans under the age of 18 from seeking sex altering healthcare and surgical procedures with the emphasis mostly on surgical procedures.

This bill continues the work of House bill 113, which Fuller introduced early in the session, but which died on the House floor weeks ago.

- This bill is designed to protect children from the imposition of surgical procedures while they are still a minor.

Causing, the purpose of these surgical procedures known as transition is to cause a child to physically appear more like a person at the opposite sex and less like his or her own sex or to conform to a gender identity incongruent with the child's sex.

Society has a vested interest in protecting children from potentially dangerous actions.

We have a wide variety of things that we, as a, as a society try to keep children from engaging in, and I don't need to go into all the details.

Saying that children should be able to make this choice is not a good policy.

Freedom to make decisions does not keep one free from the consequences of those decisions.

The consequences of those decisions occur regardless of the wishes and the likes and dislikes of the person making them.

I believe the children should be fooled from either parental peer or cultural pressure to deal with their gender confusion by starting down a one road, a one way road to a lifelong medical intervention.

- [Jackie] Representative Fuller drafted a new bill doing mostly the same thing, but the bill was deemed different enough by the Republican led Rules Committee that it could be brought back.

And it was pushed quickly through the process to beat the transmittal deadline.

- I think that the proponent testimony is pretty telling in terms of the motivation for the supporters of this bill.

Two proponents relied upon their religious beliefs for supporting this bill.

Another proponent said that trans people are mentally ill and generally being trans is not real.

And that implies to me that some proponents think that trans people should just not exist.

The problem with that is that we do exist.

Trans and non-binary people exist as your neighbors, probably as your family members who are too scared to tell you, and they exist in this building.

We talk to you everyday about policy.

We come to you during every single one of these hearings and ask you to just leave us alone.

And we're not mentally ill. We're people with jobs and families that we're trying to support.

We're people who pay our mortgages, pay our rents, and generally just try to go about our lives without being harassed, with trying to maintain our physical safety, and make Montana a better place to live for everybody.

We're part of that.

The intent of this bill, as far as I can tell from the supporters, is to push trans people out of this state.

We're not going anywhere, and we'd appreciate it if you left us alone.

- [Jackie] HB 427 passed through the House and will be transmitted to the Senate.

Not in danger of dying before the transmittal deadline is a pack of four controversial anti-abortion bills that I've been following this whole session as they've emerged as a top priority for the majority party and had support from the governor himself.