- [Narrator] Happening now on The Rundown.

A hard week in Helena, as controversial issues are taken up by legislators bringing emotion from all sides.

- For trans youth, sports may be the only thing they have to look forward to.

Please don't take that away from them.

- 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.

The Rundown Capitol Report is based primarily in Helena, which is the original land of the Salish, Penderle, Black Feet, Shoshone, Bannock and Abselica people.

(suspenseful music) Thanks for joining me again in Helena.

This week, I break down bills on some hot button issues that drew very personal testimony from both sides.

I'll take a look at bills regulating abortion, the rights of transgender Montanans, guns, and the missing and murdered indigenous peoples crisis.

This episode gets pretty heavy, so I'll also bring you some lighter news about fishing.

My special guest this week is state auditor Troy Downing.

There's a lot to talk about, so let's begin.

A quick note on some national news, both Montana senators, Jon Tester and Steve Daines, attended the inauguration and congratulated President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, pledging to work with them.

Security at Montana's capitol in Helena was increased Wednesday, in anticipation of protests, but there were none.

And the lone person who came with a sign was John Vore of Helena, who had a simple message: - Trump lost, Biden won, we have a new president, let's move on, let's start having some sanity in our world again.

- [Jackie] But inside the capitol, some hot button issues showed Montanans at odds.

- [Judge] Good morning.

(gavel striking) The Judiciary Committee will come to order.

- A lot of attention was paid this week to the House Judiciary Committee, which meets here in this room on the first floor of the capitol.

In-person and remote attendance is allowed for lawmakers and the public, this session, but, in tighter quarters like this, in-person attendance is fairly limited.

To stay socially distanced and safe, but also follow along, a great resource I'm using is the Montana Public Affairs Network.

MPAN is a partner of Montana PBS, and broadcasts hearings on air and online.

I use a lot of MPAN's video to stay socially distanced, safe, but keep everyone informed.

- There's gonna be a lot of feelings, there's gonna be a lot of tension.

- [Jackie] Six controversial bills came in front of the House Judiciary Committee this week.

Two limiting the rights of transgender Montanans, the other four would affect and limit access to abortions.

Weakening abortion rights in Montana is something republican candidates pledged to do on the campaign trail.

And, once elected, was yet again a priority mentioned during the Montana republican house caucus.

- As republicans, our job is to hold the line on spending.

To bring accountability to state bureaucracy.

To protect the right of life.

To protect constitutional rights, like the Second Amendment.

- [Jackie] There are currently 18 bills related to abortion, filed with legislative services, overwhelmingly related to restricting abortion rights.

Abortion was made legal in 1973 by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade.

In Roe v. Wade, the court ruled that a state law that banned abortions, except to save the life of the mother, was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.

But there are different ways states can limit access, add other restrictions and deterrents, and just make it a harder service for a pregnant person to seek.

The four bills heard this week do this in different ways.

In front of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday was House Bill 136 and House Bill 171.

- I believe any legal restriction could, and should be used to circumvent an abortion.

- [Jackie] House bill 136 adopts the Montana Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would prevent abortions after 20 weeks.

Unless it is a medical emergency for the life of the mother, in which case the doctor would have to try to perform the abortion in a way that gives the unborn child the best chance of survival.

The bills says a medical emergency of the mother is defined by risk of death or physical impairment, psychological or emotion impairment does not count.

The penalty for violating this law would be a felony.

- I quote from the Montana College of Pediatricians: "Immature human beings, 20 weeks and older in gestation, "are not only pain-capable, "they have an increased sensitivity, "which makes them more vulnerable "to noxious sensory stimuli effects than adults."

Medicine's double standard of acknowledging pain capability for wanted premature babies, which we heard in testimony, we're now resuscitating babies from 22 to 24 weeks in gestation.

While we refuse to acknowledge pain capable, unwanted babies of the same gestation age, is inconceivable to me.

It is unethical to intentionally harm an innocent, immature human being.

- The Catholic Church teaches that the intentional taking of innocent human life is always wrong, and we believe that when a woman undergoes an abortion, lives are drastically and tragically altered, and none more so than the unborn child.

We hold to that women who choose abortion do not surrender the inherent dignity with which they and every human person have been endowed by God.

Concern for their well-being cannot be an afterthought, and cannot be in contingent on the choices they make, regarding their unborn child.

- Plain and simple, laws that ban abortion pre-viability are Viability cannot be set by the legislature at a particular gestational age.

Rather, U.S. Supreme Court precedents have affirmed, time and time again, viability varies with every pregnancy, and must be determined by the patient's medical provider.

HB 136 chooses an arbitrary gestational point at 20 weeks.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been very clear that a legislature cannot use any one element, including gestational age, as the determinant of viability.

Each pregnancy is unique, and the government cannot make blanket determinations about viability.

Again, that must be done by a healthcare professional, and on a case-by-case basis.

- As a representative authority of Jewish religion, I have an approach that I think is critical for this committee to take into account, in voting down this legislation.

I oppose HB 136, because it denies religious freedom to every Jewish woman in the state of Montana, by favoring only one religious interpretation of the status of the fetus.

Judaism does not hold to the notion of ensoulment in utero.

The Hebrew Bible, in Exodus chapter 21, the only mention of a loss of pregnancy in a Bible, in this case, unintentional loss, is caused by accidental harm to the woman.

Damages are paid, but there is no indication that her fruit, as it is referred to in the Bible, that is the fetus, is considered fully human.

And the various streams of Judaism, Orthodoxy, Conservative, Reform, Renewal, Reconstructionist, all agree that the woman's needs are paramount, and all accept abortion as a necessary option in case of harm to the mother.

- [Jackie] Right after the hearing of House Bill 136 was House Bill 171.

HB 171 puts limitations on access to, and administration of, a drug that induces abortion.

The bill says that doctors must administer it in-person, it cannot be distributed on college campuses, and records must be kept of patients who take it.

Wednesday, hearings continued with two more bills challenging access to abortion.

House Bill 140, which requires physicians to offer a pregnant person the option of seeing ultrasounds and hearing the fetal heartbeat.

House Bill 140 is carried by representative Amy Regier, a republican from Kalispell.

Right after was House Bill 167, carried by her brother Matt Regier, republican representing Columbia Falls.

- For you today is House Bill 167, it protects those infants that are born alive.

The title really says it all.

- The MMA serves as the voice for over 1400 physician members and their patients.

We rise today in opposition of HB 171.

The MMA generally doesn't weigh in on abortion bills, it's a divisive issue; however, we often do oppose bills that either legislate the practice of medicine, or criminalize the practice of medicine, and both of those concerns are implicated here.

- [Jackie] Ultimately, all four bills passed the House Judiciary Committee, and so too did two bills affecting the rights of transgender Montanans.

The two bills heard Monday were introduced by representative John Fuller, republican from the Flathead.

House Bill 112 requires trans athletes to compete with the sex they were assigned at birth, from elementary school all the way through collegiate sports.

- Allowing males to compete in female sports denies women fair play and bodily privacy.

It undermines the sole purpose of Title Nine, it is unethical, unfair, unnecessary, unscientific and unsound.

If we continue to allow males to compete in women's sporting events, there will be men's sports, there will be co-ed sports, but there will no longer be women's sports.

Please protect sex-separated opportunities, support HB 112, set the precedent to - Chairmen usher members of the committee, my name is Revered Laura Jean Allen.

Allen is spelled A-L-L-E-N.

I am the senior minister at First Christian Church here in Helena, and, with your permission, I would like to share an open letter that's signed by 43 faith leaders from across the state, who oppose HB 112.

Research from the CDC found that two percent of youth, nearly two percent, 1.8 percent of youth, identify as transgender.

Transgender youth reported significantly increased rates of depression, suicidality, victimization, compared to the cisgender peers.

They also found that one in three transgender youth reported attempted suicide, and almost one third reported being a victim of sexual violence.

It's my belief that these shared experiences occur, not because trans people are inherently broken or damaged inside, but as a result of the way in which society perceives and reacts to their identity.

For trans youth, sports may be the only thing they have to look forward to.

Please don't take that away from them.

When I was ordained, I took a vow to love, protect and care for my congregation, to the best of my abilities.

I made this commitment not only to the people who look and believe as I do, but to every person in my congregation.

When you assumed your role, you too agreed to work on behalf of all Montanans, ensuring that all of us have equal rights under the law.

I urge you today to vote 'no' on HB 112, thank you.

- [Jackie] Currently, republicans have in both the Montana state house and senate.

the House Judiciary Committee is made up of 12 republicans and seven democrats.

The controversial bills passed committee completely on party lines.

- [Female] Motion passes 12 to seven.

- [Jackie] During their weekly press briefing, democrats said they still have cards left in their hand in challenging the bills.

- Our goal is to work with our colleagues across the aisle, to get to 50 in the House.

I would hope that these wouldn't come out of committee, but if they do, our goal is to try to stop it by getting at least us and 17 republicans.

And I hope that we're able to do that, I think that hearing from people in home communities is incredibly helpful.

I agree, it's an uphill battle.

The majorities are big.

But I think that we've shown in the past that we've been able to work with people across the aisle, both to move things, when it seemed unlikely, and to defeat things, when it seemed unlikely, and so I have a lot of hope that we can change people's minds and move people with personal stories and compelling testimony and interactions, and so that's what we'll set out to do.

- [Jackie] Montana is making real progress on combating the epidemic of violence against, and disappearances of, Native Americans, especially native women and girls.

That's the good news.

But lawmakers and advocates say there is still so much work to be done.

And despite the progress, the situation may be getting worse.

- The office has done a tremendous job.

We just now opened the door, so to speak, in this process.

It's not going away.

And in fact, it's getting worse.

Why?

Because, as the governor has opened up and has prioritized looking at the drug trafficking that is within Montana, and it's there, I've worked within our communities to know it's there.

We have the east, west, we have the north, south.

Drug trafficking.

Along with drug trafficking comes addictions.

With addictions, then we have human trafficking.

- [Jackie] In front of legislators this week was a package of bills addressing missing and murdered indigenous people.

In the House Judiciary Committee, three bills from representative Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, a democrat from Crow Agency.

Montana is fifth in the nation for the disappearances and murders of indigenous people.

Advocates fought hard in the 66th legislative session in 2019, for the state to take up this issue and effect meaningful change.

- We've just now opened the door with these set of bills.

And we have things moving forward.

But there's only a two-year extension, to 2023.

We'll get our foot in the door, but we need to get into the room.

- [Jackie] In the senate, a bill from Senator Jason Small, a republican from Busby, extends the MMIW task force, which was formed in the 2019 session, but would expire this year.

- Senate Bill four was a act extending the termination of the missing indigenous person's task force that was created under Senate Bill 12 in the 2019 session, also known as the Link Act.

This bill is also just a little bit of a change up, it requires the task force to work towards identifying causes contributing to missing and murdered indigenous people also.

As many of you know, in the 2019 session, we made a lot of attempts to help rectify and help and address and correct the missing, murdered indigenous persons issues within the state, and this is one of the pieces of the puzzle.

- I do wanna attract your attention to the fiscal note.

It's $10 thousand a year.

Now, I don't know about all of you, but, if could put a price tag on my granddaughters life, I think we could fund this thing for 10 years and it still wouldn't be an issue.

If you start lookin' at $10 thousand a year and you say, 'If we fund this for 10 years 'and it saves one individual', in my book, that's money well spent.

- [Jackie] Senator Small's bill passed its second and third readings in the senate, sending it over to the House.

To touch on some lighter bills moving through this session, on the floor this week was a bill requiring all Montana statutes to be updated to reflect the federal recognition of the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe.

This may seem procedural, but it is historic for the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe, whose long fight for federal recognition was finally successful in December 2019.

- Again, I appreciate your green vote on this, because this has been a long time coming, thank you.

- [Jackie] And good news from the senate floor is the almost unanimous passage of a bill that would allow free fishing on Mother's Day.

This bill, carried by Senator Pat Flowers, a democrat from Belgrade, is meant to send a thank you to Montana moms.

- 10 years ago, the legislature created the opportunity for a free fishing weekend on Father's Day.

This bill simply adds Mother's Day as another free fishing weekend.

This bill really just encourages families to get outside together, experience fishing as a family, which I think we all know is a great thing.

In my opinion, this bill's clearly overdue and I hope we can all honor our mothers today by passing this bill.

- The free fishing on Mother's Day bill will now move on to the house.

A goal of this show is to help you get to know your state government.

This week, I sat down with state auditor Troy Downing, a republican from Big Sky, to learn about his priorities for this multifaceted position.

- I'm Troy Downing, I am the commissioner of securities and insurance, also known as the Montana state auditor.

- All right, Troy, so, this might seem like a very basic question, but what is this job, what does a state auditor do?

- It's interesting, the state auditor is probably one of the most difficult offices to run for, because you always have to describe what it does.

The state auditor is the commissioner of securities, the commissioner of insurance, and it's also one of the five land board seats that manages the state trust lands.

Really simply, we regulate two of the largest, most complicated industries in the state; your auto insurance, your home insurance, your health insurance, and also financial services through the securities.

I saw an incredible opportunity in this office, because I have experience in the securities industry.

And I care deeply about how we manage our state trust lands, our Montana public lands.

This opportunity came up and I looked at that, and I'm thinkin', 'When has there been somebody that actually understands,' let's say, on the security side.

If you've been in that industry, you've seen how bad actors act, how they can take advantage of consumers, so I've seen that part.

I've also seen how heavy-handed regulation can make it hard to do a business, and run a business.

And so having that fine line of consumer protection and allowing industry to thrive was very exciting to me.

And then on the insurance side, the same thing.

I've built a nationwide insurance company from the ground up.

I'm not gonna say I know everything about insurance, but I've got a background there, with the same things of understanding how to protect the consumers against bad actors, and how to allow industry to thrive because, in my opinion, that is consumer advocacy, and I think there's a lot of good work we can do that affects everybody in the state.

A lot of people don't realize the effect that this office has on everybody in the state, and I take that very seriously and I'm excited about doin' some good here.

We have a legislative agenda that I'm pretty excited about.

Some of these things are already making it through the legislature, and we're gettin' a really good response on that.

One of those things that we're working on is expanding telemedicine.

Just to talk a little bit about how I'm approaching this administration and approaching this process, early on, well we saw, first of all, the opportunities in that space under the emergency orders with the COVID-19 pandemic, and we saw an expansion there.

It works.

Especially in rural communities, when it's hard to travel, or we've seen an incredible amount of good work on the mental health side of this, of being able to use alternatives so you don't have to actually travel every time, to your doctor.

We had a bill that we were bringing forth, and there were some other stakeholders that also had competing bills.

So early on, you'll find this theme in my administration, it's very much about communication and bringing all stakeholders into a room.

Early on, we got all of the stakeholders in, from the doctors, the hospitals, insurers, we got everybody into a room and we said, "How can we all get together behind one bill?"

'Cause everybody has different interests in this telehealth expansion.

It was a lively conversation, but a respectful conversation, and we got to the point of refining it down to a bill that everybody could live with.

And so, having that introduced to the legislature, where you've already got all the stakeholders behind it, I think there's a very high probability of that passing, and we're very excited about that.

- And now, moving to the land board.

The first land board meeting was this week?

- [Troy] Yes it was, yeah.

- Tuesday, yeah.

How was that experience for you?

- Well this was a softball, it was an easy one, we were just approving some things that have already come before the land board.

I think one of the things that came out in this land board meeting is you have two members that have a lot of business experience, myself and the governor.

And some of the questions that came up were about the processes; how do you come up with these values?

Really looking at it from a business side.

And I think you're gonna see that coming to play more and more as we get farther down the line with the land board.

The land board, as I mentioned earlier, it's important to me.

It's important that we're stewards, that we maintain these assets, that we have them forever, the whole ideas of multiple use and sustained yield, multiple use means multiple use, let's figure out where it makes sense to graze, where it makes sense to do timber extraction, where it makes sense to do all the things that we do with our land.

But sustained yield means have a long horizon on there, make sure you can do it forever, do it in a way that you truly are stewards.

The main point that we can't lose track of is, the board of land commissioners was set to manage these state trust lands, to raise money for public education.

Some of the concerns that I've had is seeing, year over year, we saw about a five million dollar drop in the money that went to our K-12 program, so let's understand that.

And when somebody is putting something in front of me saying that we're now making five percent on these parcels, and we're expecting to make three, of course I'm gonna ask why.

(chuckles) - So not every Montanan defines public lands the same way.

It's all about equal use, but, anglers, back country hunters, some people don't wanna see timber sales and mineral extraction, - [Troy] Right.

- Or oil or gas extraction, or grazing on public lands.

How do you balance the desires of different Montanans, in the interests of different Montanans, in making these decisions?

- That's a great question, that's been a big part of my campaign and what I plan on doin' in office as well, is making sure that everybody, like I was talking about the telehealth bill, everybody has a seat at the table.

I've been slowly puttin' together a group of interested parties.

From the farming and ranching communities, about ag and grazing leases, to the timber community, to natural resources, to outfitters and guides, to private property owners that have easement issues, to these folks building trails on public lands for mountain bikes.

I'm gettin' everybody in, so that they can opine on what is reasonable.

And understand, we're not always gonna agree on everything, but everybody's got a seat at the table, it's gonna be listen to and considered respectfully, as we refine all these different interests, into something that's actionable.

And sometimes, going back to the whole idea of multiple use, sometimes you can figure that out.

Does it make sense to graze part of this?

Do you have some opportunity for some timber extraction?

Do you have opportunity to put hiking or horse or mountain bike trails, or whatever that interest is?

And really looking at this holistically, as what are all the options and what are the best practices?

One thing that I wanna make clear is this office and I personally represent Montana, and everybody has a seat at the table.

And again, I encourage that conversation of reaching out, lemme know what your ideas are, what's working, what's not, because that is part of the conversation.

We're past the campaign cycle, and now we're administrating this office, for the benefit of all Montanans, no matter where you come from, what your political background is, anything.

And I really encourage respectful dialogue, so that we can solve problems together.

- That's all the time we have this week, thanks for joining me for another installment of The Rundown Capitol Report.

If you'd like to get in touch with me about any questions, comments or concerns, my email is jackie@montanapbs.org, I'd love to hear from you.

See you next week in Helena.

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