Montana Legislature

House Rejects Health Funding Bill For 3rd Time After Nasty Debate

By Dan Testa, 3-21-07

	Rep. Art Noonan, D-Butte, and Rep. John Sinrud, R-Bozeman, spar on the House floor over the GOP's budget bill for the Department of Public Health and Human Services. Photo by Dan Testa.

At times Wednesday, the Montana House seemed more like the bleachers of a 1970s hockey game than a deliberative body: The jeers, the catcalls, everyone threateningly rising to their feet after certain remarks.

The only difference is that it’s hard to tell whose winning and whose losing.

“It fairly well signals the beginning of the end of working together,” Majority Leader Michael Lange, R-Billings, said after the session.

Upon hearing of Lange’s comment, Senate President Mike Cooney, D-Helena, chuckled and replied, “If this is the end of it, I’m not sure I’ve seen the beginning.”

Lawmakers’ responses came on the heels of one of the nastiest debates of the session, with Republicans unable to pass the budget bill funding the Department of Public Health and Human Services (PDF) for the third time.

All 49 House Democrats continued to vote against the GOP’s public health bill, as they have opposed all of the GOP budget bills and amendments since Republicans killed Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s single, comprehensive budget proposal bill in favor of six, then eight, separate funding bills.

Fiscally conservative Republicans, including House Speaker Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, also opposed the Public Health bill and it failed on a 56 to 44 vote.

So, with seven of the eight Republican bills in the Senate, and the public health bill stalled in the House, what happens now?

Senate Minority Leader Corey Stapleton, R-Billings, said Republicans are giving up on trying to move the public health bill through the House. Now, the Senate will add provisions to fund public health programs to bills that have already passed from the House to the Senate.

“Why keep beating your head against the wall?” Stapleton asked. “Everybody’s painted into a corner. Both sides.”

But Lange maintains the House Republicans may try to bring the public health bill down to a level where it can gain enough votes to pass it on to the Senate.

Rep. Art Noonan, D-Butte, said abandoning the public health budget bill sets a dangerous precedent.

“I think from a policy angle the House is about to make a terrible, terrible decision,” Noonan said. “We’re about to say, ‘Look, the House doesn’t have to pass a whole budget.’”

But, wait, if you thought the political maneuvering couldn’t get any more confusing, read on.

Rep. Bill Glaser, R-Huntley, introduced an amendment called a “contingency voidness clause” to a bill on community college funding.

Glaser’s amendment ties the community college bill to the entire higher education budget bill now in the Senate. If the Senate tries to kill the higher ed budget bill and re-combine everything into one budget bill, the community college bill dies along with the education budget.

Glaser said he is prepared to offer similar amendments to the more-than one hundred spending bills the House still has before it, thus ensuring the Senate can’t kill the GOP budget bills.

Glaser’s move comes at a time when both parties in the House are basically throwing up their hands and acknowledging little cooperation, if any, is possible for the final 30 days of the session.

The debate on the public health bill was a replay of the last several weeks, with Republicans imploring Democrats to participate in the voting process on the bills, and Democrats calling the bills unconstitutional.

“I ask, from the bottom of my heart, not to continue to make this bill a political football on the backs of the people in our state who need it the most,” said the sponsor Rep. Penny Morgan, R-Billings. “You want to play political football? Pick a different bill.”

But Democrats stood firm against the eight budget bills in their entirety.

“It’s unconstitutional, legally risky, and politically unsound,” Noonan said. “Now we’re being accused of being political on this?”

“The only bipartisan thing that has happened on a bill is the killing of this bill,” Noonan added. “It’s your process, you own it.”

Depending on whether the House passes a public health bill, it falls on the Senate to assemble a budget, whether in eight sections or one.

Stapleton concedes he underestimated the capacity of the House Democrats to continue to vote as a block against the GOP Budget bills. But he maintains the House Republicans flexing their muscle will help achieve a property tax cut when negotiations in the Senate begin in earnest.

“All we care about is permanent property tax relief above all else,” Stapleton said. “Our Alamo isn’t about the budget, our Alamo is about permanent property tax relief.”

Cooney said Senate Republicans have told him they planned to work together to figure out a budget.

“We’ve got to play the cards that are dealt us and we haven’t gotten all the cards,” Cooney said. “This is just a sad time for Montana.”

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