- [Jackie] Happening now on "The Rundown."

- This is the bill that everyone's been looking forward to, myself included.

- [Jackie] Week two of the 67th legislative session is over with the state budget and other bills being hammered out in committee and on the floor.

And much discussion still underway about COVID-19.

- The fact is we remain in the middle of a public health crisis and an economic crisis.

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

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

Thank you for joining me again in Helena, in this installment of "The Rundown," I talk to congressmen Matt Rosendale about insurrection and impeachment, breakdown bills, policies and new directives around COVID-19 and introduce you to the new director of the "Montana Department of Agriculture," and talk about his plans for the future of Montana's Ag industry.

So let's begin.

National tension still hangs over the Montana Capitol, following the takeover of the U.S Capitol building in D.C on January 6th.

This week, President Donald Trump was impeached by the house of representatives for the second time of his presidency.

A procedure voted against by Montana's lone Congressman, Republican Matt Rosendale.

I met with Congressman Rosendale on "Zoom," on Tuesday of this week to discuss his position.

And you have come out against the use of the "25th Amendment," to remove President Trump as well as any motions on impeachment.

Why not hold the president accountable for, you know urging a march on the Capitol, making some inflammatory statements and a result of some of the insurrection that occurred?

- So I think that the way that the speaker is approaching this is giving an ultimatum to the vice-president, which quite frankly, I think is ridiculous.

And I don't even think it's constitutional, while I would never profess to be a constitutional attorney but for her to give an ultimatum to the vice-president that he either exercises the use of the "25th Amendment," which quite frankly, in its most cursory reading wouldn't even come into play under these circumstances, or she's going to go ahead and begin the impeachment process again.

This is all theater.

This is all about fundraising.

And quite frankly, it's all disappointing.

I'm looking at January 21st.

I know that Joe Biden is going to be inaugurated as the 46th president on January the 20th.

And the people in Montana want me to get to work on January the 21st, on making sure that we have access to high quality affordable healthcare to cover preexisting conditions.

They want me to make sure that this surge that is, seems to be approaching our Southern border, that we can do something about that before it arrives in Montana and begins the human trafficking and drug trafficking problems that we were witnessing several years ago, when the problems were so bad on the Southern border.

They want me to make sure that we can reign in this spending and get this national debt under control.

And I'm ready to do those things.

- [Jackie] In the Capitol, there has been chatter over concerns related to an FBI bulletin warning of potentially violent protests at capitals in all 50 States.

As a reminder, the pro-Trump protests in the first week of session on the North lawn of the Capitol were peaceful.

- [Man] God bless America.

Woo.

(crowd cheering) - [Jackie] When asked about any planned protests, Governor Greg Gianforte said, "Montanans have the right to peacefully assemble, but condemns violence."

- We are getting briefings on potential threats.

And I just wanna assure Montanans that we'll be ready.

- [Jackie] Business in the capital went on this week as per usual.

Well, as usual as the unusual session can operate.

While the session is meeting in-person with no mask requirement, there is a remote option for attendance to all committees, the floor sessions and other meetings, for lawmakers and the public.

Out of the Governor's office this week, a big announcement on COVID-19 state mandates along with new executive orders from Gianforte.

- We've carefully reviewed the pages and pages of directives.

Before taking any action, we consulted with public health experts, healthcare providers and business leaders and emergency management professionals.

We took the time to get this right.

As a result of that deliberate review and consultation, today I'm issuing a new directive that removes or replaces the cumbersome layers of existing ones.

These new directives are clear.

They're practical.

They are common sense, and they're easy to understand.

Gone are the 25 pages of overlapping and confusing directives.

Our new directive is clear and it fits on three pages.

The directive I issue today, makes two significant improvements that will reduce the burden that small business owners have had to face all across the state, while still promoting health and safety of their employees and their customers.

One.

We are repealing existing directives that unduly restrict hours of operation for restaurants, bars, breweries, distilleries, and casinos.

Two.

We are repealing existing directives that impose arbitrary capacity limits.

We emphasize that businesses should follow industry best practices to prevent the spread of the virus.

Where industry best practices are not available, businesses should develop policies in accordance with federal state and local regulations and guidance.

We can reduce the burden on our small business owners while simultaneously protecting the health of Montana workers and customers.

- Some clarifying points.

The mask mandate is still in place.

Gianforte says he will rescind the mask mandate when there is liability protection for businesses and schools to not be sued for COVID-19 infections.

And there is wider spread vaccination for people the "Gianforte Administration," has deemed most vulnerable which includes people over the age of 70 and people with pre-existing conditions.

These executive orders remove capacity limitations for bars, breweries and other businesses, as well as the 10:00 pm curfew of operations.

The governor's order cannot by law, supersede local health board authority.

So health departments can still implement capacity limitations and curfews and down the road to keep local mask mandates.

Now, there are some bills going through the legislature seeking to change the authority, local health departments as well as the governor have when it comes to emergencies.

Some of these bills had hearings this week.

- Representative Beede.

- [Jackie] Two of the handful of bills doing this are carried by representative David Beede, a Republican from Hamilton.

One of Beede's bills, limits the power of the governor in declaring a state of emergency or state of disaster.

Saying that if it is to exceed 30 days, it needs approval from the "Montana Legislature," and a special session may be called.

- The authors of "Title 10" of the "Montana Code," rightly provided the governor extraordinary power to deal with time sensitive, immediate crises.

But they surely did not foresee the governor retaining such extraordinary powers and the legislative branch being sidelined, over an extended period such has been the case for the pandemic we are currently undergoing.

House Bill 122 seeks to restore the constitutional check on executive power or a constitutional check on executive power by expanding the legislature's role in managing crises lasting longer than 30 days.

- Masking and social distancing is not the answer to COVID.

- We have clearly seen what happens when a governor is made king.

- [Delila] In a traditional instancy with wildfire season, the emergency declaration would first be issued for about a 30 day period.

And what that does is really makes resources available to respond to the event.

The benefit of the disaster declaration, which is separate from directives issued from a governor, is to ensure that resources are able to respond to and be provided to local governments to deal with the situation at hand.

- [Woman] So she explained the context under which we are able to mobilize the national guard.

And I would just add from our "DNRC Forestry Division," perspective, that that is very beneficial to us during the wild land fire season.

And anything that we know about our wild land fire seasons is that they are getting a longer.

- [Jackie] Representative Beede is one of the two legislators who have confirmed positive cases of COVID-19.

Beede's positive diagnosis came four days into the session which he had been attending in-person and is now attending remotely.

The second case is from representative Fiona Nave, a Republican from Columbus who has not been to the Capitol in person, the entire session.

The legislative COVID-19 task force met again this week to continue discussion on what to do about COVID-19 at the Capitol.

Right now, legislators are covering a lot of ground on different issues.

The biggest bill, with the largest fiscal note, is the state budget.

The only thing the "Montana Legislature," has to do when it meets for 90 days in odd number years, is pass a budget.

Carried by representative Llew Jones of Conrad, the budget is being hammered out by various committees right now.

On January 7th, Governor Gianforte released his proposed budget for the biennium.

- It provides about $50 million in broad-based and targeted tax reductions.

- [Jackie] Gianforte's budget cuts income taxes for the top tier of Montana income taxpayers, which accounts for 54% of income tax payers.

- Cutting the income tax rate to 6.75% more than half of Montana taxpayers will see income tax cuts of almost $30 million per year.

This is just a first step.

- [Jackie] But it is up to the state legislature to pass Gianforte's budget, or an amended budget, before it can be signed into law.

One area that is causing tension between the parties is a big change in funding to the department of health and human services.

- The issue is a billion dollars cut in health and human services.

- [Jackie] Representative Mary Caferro, a Democrat from Helena compared it to getting a raise from your boss based on the salary you were making five years ago.

- When we talk about, is it a cut or is it just the starting point motion.

So I'll tell you, this is how I think of it.

If my boss came to me and said, today, you're gonna get a 5% raise.

However, it won't be based on the wage you earn today, it'll be based on the wage earned in the past five, six years ago.

Is that not a cut?

And so the real issue is how is the session going for Montanans, especially children who have disabilities, loved ones who suffer from Alzheimer's and dementia.

People who work and have disabilities and are counting on that worker to show up and help them get out of bed, get a bath and get to work, for those folks, Montanans, thousands and thousands of Montanans and the people who care for them will lose jobs under this.

It's kind of a bad session, as a matter of fact, it's a very bad session.

- The budget may be the biggest bill moving through Helena right now, but it is certainly not the only one.

A few other bills to spotlight this week, is the renewal of the state's missing indigenous persons task force, which was established in the 2019 session, but is set to expire in 2021.

This bill is carried by Senator Jason Small, a Republican from Busby.

- So up for your consideration today, I have Senate Bill 4, which is an act extending the termination of the missing persons task force, which was created by Senate Bill 3.12 in the 2019 session.

- Montana has the fifth highest incidents of missing and murdered indigenous women cases in the country.

An estimated 26% of missing persons in Montana are American Indian.

And this may be a low estimate as many go unreported and there's no centralized database.

We know that one is too many.

And each person who goes missing leaves behind loved ones and impacts an entire community.

Oftentimes families are left to pick up the slack of law enforcement and conduct their own searches, call and write to officials on all levels of government and implore them to care.

Each time a missing indigenous person's case is not investigated thoroughly or sometimes not even reported as missing, it is a reminder to indigenous peoples that in the eyes of state, local and federal governments, our lives are as not as important as the lives of other citizens.

Jurisdictional complexities are often cited to skirt around the responsibilities of an investigation.

Senate Bill 4, would work to address these issues and create intra-agency collaboration and accountability.

Again, I urge you to pass Senate Bill 4.

- [Jackie] A bill generating lots of discussion this week, is House Bill 102.

House Bill 102, expands places of concealed carry of firearms in Montana, including our college campuses.

- The purpose of the bill is very clear.

It's actually stated in section one, is to enhance the safety of people, by expanding their legal ability to provide for their own defense by reducing or eliminating government mandated places where only criminals are armed and where citizens are preventing from exercising their fundamental right to defend themselves and others.

- [Jackie] Currently, the "Montana University System," prohibits concealed carry on campuses.

HB 102, would supersede their authority to prohibit this.

- Concealed carry on campuses, where people meet the minimum safety standards as are outlined by the concealed carry statute.

- [Jackie] The bill carried by representative Seth Berglee, a Republican from Joliet, does not permit concealed carry on any K-12 campuses.

- It does not allow for concealed carry in a variety of federal government buildings.

For instance, detention and correction facility, beyond any (indistinct) checkpoint such as like the "TSA," if you went to an airport, if it's a public airport.

It doesn't allow for carrying in a secure treatment that's operated by the department of health and human services.

So the state hospital, mental health security facilities where somebody might be committed.

It doesn't allow for any buildings owned by the United States, which would be federal buildings.

The same with any of your Fort Harrison, military installations.

It also doesn't allow you to carry it anywhere, a private business owner does not want you.

So you have the ability under any of these businesses to prohibit firearms in your place.

And lastly, it does not allow you to carry in K-12 buildings.

I have not touched any of the code that deals with the ability to carry on school property or in school buildings.

So you'll notice if you look through the bill any rights that were afforded to the schools, the K-12 schools in any aspect, I haven't touched.

- [Jackie] House Bill 102 passed its second reading in the house on a mostly party line vote of 67 to 33, sending it over to the state Senate for a hearing.

I reached out to the "Montana University System," to comment on this bill.

And they told me they oppose it, have testified against it and are working with legislators on the bill.

- [Kevin] My name is Kevin McCray and my title is deputy commissioner of higher education.

The "Montana University System," does oppose House Bill 102.

We did appear as opponents in the "House Judiciary Committee," hearing when we had the opportunity to provide public comment and we have three primary concerns with the bill.

The first concern is a matter of general safety and student safety.

According to the best available data that we've looked at, in states that are experimenting with guns on campus, there have been substantially more instances of accidental shootings, accidental misfires and other dangerous mishaps with guns than there have been instances with guns being the solution to any problem.

The second reason for our opposition is a matter of facility management, crowd management at large events, any Montanan who has attended the "Cat Griz" football game or something similar can kinda conceive of the new complication of what introducing, you know, people carrying firearms into the stadium or into a large event venue would mean.

And that's a new security risk that doesn't seem carefully thought out.

The third and the final reason that we oppose the bill is a matter of student wellness, health and wellness.

We believe that the Montana experience reflects national data that proves that our campuses are very safe places.

Statistically, your odds of being the victim of a crime, go down when you set foot on a college or a university campus in your community, generally nationally.

And we believe that Montana is similar there.

- [Jackie] Right now, Kevin McCray says it is too early for "MUS," to consider litigation.

I also asked McCray if this bill could put liability on the university system if a shooting were to occur on campus.

And that is something that "MUS," lawyers are examining.

- [Kevin] We do speak for a public university system here that houses thousands of young Montanans in college dormitories, that right now are very safe places.

And we'd like to keep them that way.

- One of the goals of this show, is to help you get to know your state leaders in a variety of different agencies.

This week, I spoke with Mike Foster, the new director of the "Montana Department of Agriculture."

Foster is a Townsend native and was appointed to this position last month by Governor Gianforte.

Over "Zoom," we talked about the challenges and opportunities currently present in Montana's Ag industry.

- My name is Mike Foster, I'm the new director of the "Montana Department of Agriculture," a position that I'm very honored to hold.

And I'm very excited about doing this.

I think it is, you know, a lot of fun and to explore here for this new adventure.

It's great I was actually born and raised in Townsend which is, just South of Helena Southeast.

And, I grew up there greatly enjoying the advantages of a rural AG centered community.

Professionally, I've gotten to do kind of a wide variety of things.

But when I served in the legislature in both the House and the Senate, I really enjoyed working with the AG groups that were prevalent throughout my district and the farmers and ranchers there because that's really, I mean that's kinda my roots of it wasn't that my family were farmers or ranchers but it was a big part of our life.

My most recent job was the head of the farm service agency under the big umbrella of the "U.S Department of Agriculture."

And so once again, I got to connect very closely with the AG groups, farmers and ranchers with the whole idea of being to find ways to try to help them and under sometimes very difficult situations with all the disasters and the trade barriers and the pandemic.

So it was a, you know, a pretty smooth transition as far as professionally to go from the head of "FSA," in Montana to the director of "Montana Department of Agriculture."

And I just wanna give a shout out, thank you to Governor Gianforte to putting his faith in me, to do a good job with this department and the work that we plan to do to help the economy.

And, you know, he's on track.

- Thank you for that.

I would like to kinda segue right now into your coming into the agriculture, your position in amidst challenging global times.

(chuckles) And what are some of the challenges you see for Montana's agriculture industry, short-term and long-term?

- Well, one factor we never have any control over, is mother nature.

Agriculture, I mean, clearly if the weather cooperates it really helps us to have great crops and healthy herds, but, you know, with prices sometimes being way too low and the market's not being as available to us as we would like, those are challenges that are important for us to try to address.

- And I wanna talk about, you know we're coming out of a couple of years of a tariff dispute with China and the fallout of that.

And there's been a lot of federal subsidies awarded to crop and stock producers based on the results of the loss of the Chinese market and other markets related to it.

How are Montana AG producers recovering out of that?

How are they doing based on the fallout of the terror (indistinct) - And you're right, it was called the "MFP Program," the "Market Facilitation Program," that helped try to give some aid to the farmers and ranchers under those circumstances.

You know, one of the surprising things in that China deal and it's called the phase one of that agreement is that agriculture actually did better than expected considering the friction that existed between the countries.

And so we were able, as a country, to sell some, a lot of agricultural products and it varied by different crop and type of livestock and that sort of thing.

But, at least there was some progress made in being successful of selling our products.

And that's something that we will work hard to expand and not just China but there are many parts of the world where if they can learn about what Montana has to offer, I think there'll be pretty excited about purchasing Montana AG.

It's great.

- And what are some other opportunities you see with Montana's agricultural industry in the short and longterm future?

- Well, for one thing, you know, I think we need to look at our transportation system and if there are ways that we can improve just our roads our bridges and try to work with the railroad companies to see if there are ways that we can make it easier to get to the market at a lower cost because if the prices aren't real good, if you can at least cut your costs then it gives our farmers and ranchers and the allied businesses a chance to succeed.

So I do look forward to those discussions.

I do wanna say that I'm very excited about this and I really hope that people will see our efforts in trying to help the agricultural community as a whole succeed in Montana.

And I'm trying to hit the ground running and I definitely look forward to visiting with all the many players in agriculture in Montana.

And thank you for this opportunity to visit about that.

- That's all the time we have today.

Thank you again for joining me on "The Rundown Capitol Report," a weekly series devoted to keeping you up to date with what's happening in your state government.

I'll see you next week here on Montana PBS.

You can also email me at jackie@montanapbs.org.

See you next Sunday.

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