Marathon evening floor session confirms continued Senate GOP fracture
The Montana Senate is seen during the Wednesday, February 12, 2025 session. (Nathaniel Bailey for the Daily Montanan)
With a frigid snowstorm outside, and bowls of popcorn Doordashed from Cinemark and mounting tensions inside, the Montana Senate held a late-night floor session on Monday, renewing the power struggles within the chamber.
Convening after sunset, a coalition of nine Republicans and the Senate's 18 Democrats flexed its 'working majority' muscles to run the floor for more than three hours.
The group rearranged committee assignments and moved 20 House bills from the Senate President's desk into committee — allowable actions, but ones normally undertaken by leadership.
'Absolutely ridiculous. It's absurd,' Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, said. 'In 20 years, we've never seen this kind of antics.'
The actions on the floor, led by Sen. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, represented the latest show of power for the coalition government that formed on the first day of the session when minority leader Sen. Pat Flowers led a vote not to adopt rules and committee assignments decided by GOP leadership.
Since then, accusations of politicking, stalled Senate actions and an ethical and criminal investigation into one of the nine Republican senators have heightened tensions and deepened the political divides in the upper chamber.
'I think the goal is to make it look like there's been nefarious deeds done with House bills, by leadership, to try to discredit leadership and then make a further decision to get rid of leadership.' said Sen. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings.
After the committee assignments changed, Kassmier announced he had more than 20 additional motions to make, including referring a series of House bills transmitted to the Senate to a committee.
Kassmier said there were dozens of bills sitting on the Senate President's desk waiting to be referred to committee, many which were transmitted weeks ago.
'I don't know why we'd hold bills,' Kassmier said. 'I would think we should get them out to committee and get them scheduled for hearings and not be holding up any House bills so they don't hold up our Senate bills.'
While in the lower chamber, House rules require the Speaker refer bills to committee within two days of transmission from the Senate, but no similar rule exists for the Senate.
According to Senate Republicans, there were between 45 and 70 House bills waiting for referral earlier this week, depending on the day, with around 10 to 15 bills coming from the House each day, and around the same number getting referred to committee each day.
Ellsworth urged members to support all 20 motions to refer bills, saying that if a committee has a bill in hand, they can choose when to schedule it based on workload.
'This is what we do. We schedule bills,' Ellsworth said. 'This is the process.'
Ellsworth's continued alignment with Democrats and 'The Nine' has furthered the rift in the Senate following a report that he'd procured a $170,100 contract with a business associate late last year.
The Legislative Audit Division released findings that the contract flouted state procurement laws and Ellsworth had abused his former role as Senate president, wasting state resources. The Senate convened its Ethics Committee to look into the issue, but later referred the investigation to the Montana Department of Justice.
As the floor session continued into the night, pizza showed up outside the Senate doors, sending members back and forth for a bite to eat. During one break when the Senate stood at ease, Sen. Ellie Boldman, a Missoula Democrat, doled out handfuls of the popcorn she'd ordered.
Throughout Monday night's debate, several Republicans, including Zolnikov, said that the priority has to be on Senate bills, as the deadline for moving legislation between chambers approaches and the workload will continue to ramp up as legislators' final bill drafts get delivered.
Almost all of the 20 motions to refer bills — two had already been referred to committee — were debated on the floor, with several senators rising on every single bill to reiterate their same points and stretch the session longer.
Sen. Jeremy Trebas, R-Great Falls, repeatedly questioned why they would rush House bills through the Senate before the transmittal break, why the regular process was being subverted, and mentioned the ongoing snowstorm outside the Capitol windows as a reason to delay bill hearings that could bring members of the public out in bad weather.
'I'm going to wonder on these bills, if the sponsors of the bills are worried about the political fallout that could come from this odd process to refer bills,' Trebas mused. 'Or maybe, on these bills, the votes are already wrapped up.'
Zolnikov added that some of the bills appeared to be directed to improper committees, and that the bills needed to be read through in order to make an educated decision on where to send them — he proceeded to read the short titles of several bills into the record to try and gain clarity.
While the Republicans in the functional minority continued to decry the actions as arbitrary and obstructive, the working majority claimed they were just trying to do the work they were sent to Helena to do.
'These motions were very simple motions to get bills moving. Had these bills not been sitting for the last six weeks, we would not be here tonight,' said Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester, another member of 'The Nine,' who expressed his disappointment with the ongoing debates. 'We can play this game all night if you want, but these were simple motions to get these bills moving, and if you want to mess with it, fine.'
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Senate President Regier criticized the Democrats and 'solution caucus Republicans' for running the Senate floor.
'To me, it was just an embarrassment, obviously a political play one way or another,' Regier said. 'It was nothing to do with logistics.'
Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, said that he agreed with the tactics Kassmier took during the floor session and wanted to help jump start the referral process so the Senate could 'get moving.'
'(Kassmier) made the choice to kind of force this, and we supported him on it,' Flowers said. 'I don't know how much more clear I can be that that should be a priority for the President to get those scheduled… He knows that's part of his responsibility, and hopefully he'll start getting that done.'
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