 Senate Republicans September 2023
- October 1st (now October 2nd) is the deadline to claim your property tax rebate. Go to getmyrebate.mt.gov to claim yours if you're not one of the 200,000 resident property owners who've done so already.
- Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, recently penned an op-ed reminding Montanans to claim their rebates.
- And speaking of property taxes, last month we highlighted Butte and Missoula as examples of how local government budgeting has the biggest impact on property taxes. Now, thanks to conservative budgeting, Flathead County is proposing a property tax decrease.
- October 1st is when many new laws go into effect. Senate President Pro Tempore Ken Bogner, R-Miles City, recently joined Aaron Flint on the radio to discuss a few of those new laws that he passed, including banning foreign adversaries from owning Montana land and expanding medical freedom and patients' rights.
- District courts blocked new laws requiring abortion clinics to be licensed and prohibiting transgender surgeries and hormone treatments on Montana kids under the age of 18. Litigation over both laws will continue.
- Many of the Legislature's Interim Committees got up and running in September. President Ellsworth wrote a column explaining that policymaking for the next session (2025) begins now, and that right now is the best time for Montanans to start making their voices heard on the next round of policy reforms that they'd like to see.
- This month we're featuring two Policy Spotlights: Education and Technology Privacy, which together are about creating a better future for Montana. Read on to learn about big developments in both topics.
Closing the digital divide in Montana
Both the 2021 and 2023 legislatures put in a lot of time and effort on deploying federal resources into a generational expansion of broadband internet, an investment that's been compared to rural electrification in terms of scope and impact. President Ellsworth sponsored the key legislation that got the ball rolling in the 2021 session. A recent report from the Montana Television Network highlights some of the projects that are now being built.
More impact from housing legislation
The Flathead Beacon reported how Sen. Forrest Mandeville's (R-Columbus) Land Use and Planning Act (SB 382) continues to move Whitefish toward being more open to affordable, attainable housing.
New laws already having a big impact
From combatting human trafficking, to improving public safety, to housing, to grizzly bears, brand-new laws passed by the 2023 Legislature are already having a noticeable impact in the Treasure State. Read President Ellsworth's column here for more details.
Policy Spotlight💡
Education
Senators Jason Ellsworth and Dan Salomon
 Senate President Jason Ellsworth and Senator Dan Salomon, R-Ronan, who chairs the Senate's Education Committee, wrote an op-ed outlining the Legislature's approach to improving Montana's education system and summarizing several of the key reforms passed this year.
How We're Improving Montana's Education System
State legislators have recognized that, for Montana and its upcoming generations to have a bright future in a rapidly-changing world, our education system needs to adapt and evolve. The Legislature passed a slew of reforms aimed at better preparing students for work, providing more educational options for families, and shoring up the public school system.
Four bills passed into law in the 2023 legislative session collectively work to better prepare students for their future careers...
Five additional new laws are aimed at increasing the options available for parents to ensure their children get an education that works for them...
In addition to funding schools and providing inflationary increases to help districts make ends meet, the 2023 Legislature also passed four significant bills to help schools meet their staffing and budget needs.
Read about all of those reforms in the senators' full column, available here.
Education Reforms in the News
- Several education reforms were targeted at increasing internship and work-based learning opportunities. This Daily Inter Lake story and this Flathead Beacon story discuss how education officials in the Flathead Valley are celebrating those efforts.
- The Montana Free Press published a great article explaining how legislative reforms are promoting trades education in the Last Best Place.
- The Community Choice School Commission was formed at the end of August. Senate President Ellsworth appointed Dee Brown, a former state senator from Hungry Horse, to the commission.
- A district court judge temporarily blocked the commission from approving any charter schools in the state while litigation proceeds.
- Individuals looking to form new specialty schools, including one aiming to include tribal culture and language in education on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, recently joined the lawsuit, encouraging the judge to let Montana students have more freedom and options to pursue their education.
- The Daily Inter Lake published an editorial endorsing the Legislature's work on school choice.
- Kendall Cotton, CEO of the Frontier Institute, penned a column explaining how the Choice Schools authorized under Montana's new charter school laws are about expanding opportunities within the public education system.
- The Daily Inter Lake reported more about the Flathead Valley members of the commission.
- A bill designed to increase early childhood literacy is going into effect. The Montana Television Network reported on the details and Governor Gianforte promoted the new law at a Helena elementary school.
- The 2021 and 2023 Legislatures passed legislation to increase starting pay for new teachers. Governor Gianforte held an event at Lockwood High School to discuss the effort.
- The governor also visited DeSmet to highlight the Legislature increasing public school funding.
- "It's worth pointing out that legislative Republicans and the Republican legislative supermajority delivered yet another increase in entry level teacher pay, something that had largely been ignored under 16 years of Democrat governors..." -Montana Talks radio host Aaron Flint
- A former UM provost and Missoula school board trustee wrote a column encouraging Montanans to donate to public schools under a program established by the 2021 Legislature.
- "While the 2023 Legislature may have produced a series of bipartisan reforms to Montana’s public school system, state lawmakers signaled this week that their efforts to reshape education and address critical issues impacting teachers and students are far from over." That's the beginning of this Montana Free Press story about how the Legislature's work on improving our education system will continue into the 2025 session.
Policy Spotlight💡
Tech Privacy
Senator Daniel Zolnikov
 Sen. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, wrote a column describing how Montana's work on tech privacy over the past 10 years has made our state a national leader on the issue.
Montana Leads the Nation on Digital and Biometric Privacy
Montana is again being recognized as a leader on protecting our citizens’ privacy in the age of technology...
SB 351, the Genetic Information Privacy Act, creates comprehensive requirements for companies to be transparent and get consent for using Montanans’ genetic data, gives individuals the right to delete their data, and mandates consent from the individual to share your DNA information. It’s the first law passed in the United States that contains these protections...
I first tried to pass a comprehensive digital data law in 2013. It took until this year to get that accomplished when I also passed SB 384, the Consumer Data Privacy Act. That bill gives Montanans control over how online companies use our digital data, including the power to opt out of being tracked online, and even that data be deleted.
These two new laws, in addition to bills passed by Senator Ken Bogner and Representative Katie Zolnikov that restrict government’s use of facial recognition technology and give parents more rights over newborn genetic screening data, continue to make Montana a national leader on these topics.
Read Sen. Zolnikov's full op-ed here.
Senator Ken Bogner
 Senate President Pro Tempore Ken Bogner passed Montana's most recent constitutional amendment to protect digital privacy in the 2021 legislative session. He followed that up in 2023 by passing the state's first restrictions on government's use of facial recognition technology.
Protecting Montanans from Government Surveillance
We scored a big win for Montanans’ privacy and against invasive surveillance technology during this year’s legislative session. My Senate Bill 397 severely restricts government’s use of facial recognition technology and is now law in the Last Best Place...
SB 397 completely bans continuous facial surveillance. It’s now flat-out illegal for state and local governments to implement any kind of mass surveillance network using facial recognition technology. It also prevents the government from contracting with private businesses to implement surveillance, preventing loopholes in the law...
Other young lawmakers and I have demonstrated for years now at the state level that we can embrace new technology to improve our lives without having to sacrifice our rights to privacy and due process along the way.
Thanks to our work, Montana is leading the way on these issues. The biggest technological threats to our rights now come from a federal government run by lifelong politicians who don’t understand technology and let the federal bureaucracy deep state run amok on surveillance. Congress needs to get its act together, learn from what we’ve done in Montana, and protect Americans from their own government abusing surveillance technology.
Read Sen. Bogner's full column here.
Tech Privacy in the News
- Sen. Zolnikov did an in-depth interview with Big Sky Chat House about his tech privacy legislation. You can read it here.
- Sen. Zolnikov had to overcome opposition from national lobbyists representing major tech companies in order to pass his Consumer Data Privacy Act. The national publication Politico has the inside scoop on that story: "How Montana passed the strongest privacy law among red states"
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation highlighted Zolnikov's Genetic Information Privacy Act and 10 years of work on privacy legislation.
- Lee Newspapers published an in-depth article looking at one of the next frontiers on facial recognition technology: its use in Montana's schools. Sen. Bogner is encouraging a legislative interim committee to work on that issue ahead of the 2025 session, as his recent bill was focused on government agencies' use of the technology.
- Sens. Zolnikov and Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, wrote a bipartisan op-ed back in May highlighting their work to make Montana a cryptocurrency-friendly state.
Nice work, senator!
 Senator Barry Usher recently completed the National Conference of State Legislatures’ (NCSL) Legislator Police Academy, a new yearlong peer-training opportunity designed to support state legislators interested in policy topics related to law enforcement. Read the full press release on our Facebook page.
This newsletter is from Senate Republicans in the Montana Legislature. Please encourage your friends and colleagues to sign up for this newsletter and follow our caucus on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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