Monday, Jan. 6 marked the first day of the Montana Legislature’s 2025 session. Already, Helena’s finest are giving their best: emotionally charged hearings on controversial legislation, possible cronyism, internecine parliamentary squabbles that halted committee work, numerous attempts to reshape the judiciary according to a Republican vision — a fixture of the last several sessions — and vocal criticism from Democrats, whose substantial minority in the Capitol often limits their role to passionate floor speeches and occasional coalition building with factions in the fractious GOP. (In fairness, a majority of the Legislature also seems more-or-less united behind general ambitions, if not specific plans, to boost teacher pay and to reduce property taxes on primary Montana residents.)

I’ve written previously here about my several years covering politics in Montana, including two legislative sessions and more elections at various levels of government across the state than I care to remember. I’m quite happy not diving back into the Capitol pool — readers should look to Montana Free Press, the Lee Enterprises State News Bureau, Helena’s KTVH or elsewhere for that kind of depth — but I figure I can use my experience and dip a toe in, with special attention to Missoula issues and legislators. I plan to maintain this as a regular fixture of the newsletter throughout the 90-day duration of the legislative session.

There’s good reason to care. Not only do the Legislature’s actions reverberate across the state — lawmakers this year will, for example, decide whether to renew Medicaid expansion in Montana — the city and county of Missoula have their own priorities in Helena, which I wrote about for The Pulp earlier this week. The Missoula delegation also makes up a large chunk of the Democratic caucus and features some prominent members, like House Minority Leader Katie Sullivan — who replaced the term-limited long-time leader Kim Abbott of Helena — and Rep. Zooey Zephyr, an activist and the first transgender woman elected to the Montana Legislature. Zephyr was re-elected in November after lawmakers barred her from the House floor following her protest against legislation that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth during the 2023 session. (That story is told in a New Yorker-produced documentary on this year’s Oscars shortlist. Montana filmmaker Kimberly Reed directs).

Zephyr, like any politician, no doubt knows how to leverage the public’s attention. But that issues surrounding LGBTQ+ rights and access to healthcare seem to so often appear in press coverage of the Legislature is no incident, even if some Republicans have lamented to me in the past that they wish the news spent more time covering tax legislation and good governance.

In 2023, the Legislature passed the bill banning gender-affirming medical care for minors, though a court later overturned the law — a frequent fate for the most extreme of recent Republican social issue legislation. This year, in his state of the state speech, Gov. Greg Gianforte told lawmakers he would welcome yet another similarly minded bill to his desk: House Bill 121, which proposes restricting the use of bathrooms and dormitories on the basis of sex as defined by a person’s chromosomes and their production of eggs or sperm. The bill, which has gained notoriety as the country’s first state-level bathroom ban this year, says that anyone who “encounters another individual of the opposite sex in the restroom or changing room” can sue the facility.

Lawmakers in the House gave preliminary approval to that bill this week on party lines.

The sponsor, Billings Republican Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, and other supporters have said the bill is intended to protect women from predatory men.

“Because of the destruction of societal customs, any predator or person with malicious intent can more easily invade private female spaces without calling attention to themselves,” said Rep. Fiona Nave, a Columbus Republican, in a recent floor hearing.

But the proposal seems an extension of recent legislative efforts to reduce the access LGBTQ+ have to healthcare and certain public and private spaces.

“Love thy neighbor, mind thy business.”

Opponents of the legislation pointed to the obvious challenges of enforceability and the potential cost to local governments. Missoula Democratic Rep. S.J. Howell said this week that it departs from Montana’s supposed ethos of “love thy neighbor, mind thy business.” These are frequent lines of criticism from Democratic lawmakers and other opponents of the conservative social agenda. They figure, probably correctly, that they won’t convince Republican lawmakers to change their views of sex and gender, at least publicly, when the risk of primaries on these lines runs so high. But the opponents might peel off some Republican legislators by appealing to concerns of government administration, overreach and spending that can be more easily explained to fired up constituents and pressure groups.

Zephyr, though, made the bill’s relevance to the lives of transgender Montanans clear in her comments on the House floor this week.

“To me, this bill clearly targets trans people. It is laid out to make it more difficult for trans Montanans to exist peacefully in everyday life,” she said.

“Trans people walk through the state of Montana afraid enough already and we want to be able to live our lives in peace.”

Zephyr additionally noted that domestic violence shelters and other institutions subject to the bill’s provisions did not report any of the kind of issues that Seekins-Crowe said she wants to address.

The city of Missoula is not officially opposed to or supportive of the bill, according to its public bill tracker, which assigns the proposed legislation a “Watch” label.

In other Missoula Capitol news, Democratic Rep. Jonathan Karlen is working with Great Falls Republican George Nikolakakos on legislation that offers certain tenant protections to residents of mobile home parks. The bill is in part a response to the recent sale of Missoula’s Katoonah Lodges, an ages 55+ mobile home park, to a Texas real estate investment firm. Residents told the Missoulian in January they were shocked when they discovered the land underneath their homes was being sold, potentially jeopardizing their ability to stay in place.

“We can’t prevent a park owner from selling to whomever they want, but we can require them to tell residents,” Karlen said in a recent Montana Free Press story.

The Legislature has instructions for members of the public who wish to testify or otherwise participate in the session here.

Downtown infrastructure overhaul goes forward

The Missoula City Council this week approved an almost $250,000 contract for an engineering firm to complete a preliminary plan for a substantial renovation of downtown infrastructure and trails.

The 8-1 vote awarded the contract to DJ&A Engineering, which will draft plans for an overhaul designed to improve safety and multi-modal connectivity in the downtown area and generally modernize street infrastructure. In 2023, the city received a $24.5 million federal grant for the project, which also includes reducing Higgins Avenue to three lanes of traffic, adding a second lane to Front and Main Streets, which will feature two-way traffic, new streetlights, and trail widening.

“This is a really big and exciting project,” City Council President Amber Sherrill said.

Council member Bob Campbell voted against the contract award, arguing that downtown businesses have told him they oppose the project because of potential disruption to commerce. Dozens of downtown businesses and property owners wrote a letter expressing their concerns to interim mayor Jordan Hess in 2023.

“They didn’t want this to begin with,” Campbell said. “The business community has been against this.”

The ledger #️⃣

10,000

New jobs Missoula County netted over the past three years, according to the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana. BBER recently announced county-by-county jobs numbers in the run-up to its upcoming Economic Outlook Seminar Series that begins in late January.

The week ahead 🗓️

The Missoula Board of County Commissioners’ Lands and Communities committee meets Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 8:30 a.m. to discuss open space bonds for three city projects.

Applications for a high school trustee vacancy on the Missoula County Public Schools Board of Trustees are due to the superintendent’s office by noon on Jan. 22. Applicants must live in Election District C.

The neighborhood councils of Missoula are holding a community forum on Thursday, Jan. 25 at 6 p.m. in the city council chambers. The meeting features an opportunity for public comment as well as an update from county fairground officials.

Find a list of all upcoming city meetings here and county meetings here.