Bill to restrict bathroom use passes Montana House floor
By Keila Szpaller for the Daily Montanan
A bill to restrict bathroom use and define sex as strictly male and female passed the House floor on Wednesday on party lines despite concerns about legal enforceability and costs — including possible increases in property taxes.
A couple of Republicans said they hope House Bill 121 can be improved in the Senate, but Democrats said it isn’t needed at all and runs contrary to Montana values.
Opposing the bill, Representative SJ Howell, D-Missoula, said it shows the body has strayed from the state’s uncomplicated, apolitical values.
“Love thy neighbor. Mind thy business,” Howell said.
But sponsor and Representative Kerri Seekins-Crowe, R-Billings, said it’s needed to protect women and children, and it would put “common sense boundaries” in place, a refrain from proponents.
“Girls should not feel uncomfortable or afraid to use a restroom or locker room at school,” Seekins-Crowe said.
If passed, the bill would define sex, require public restrooms for males or females, and ensure people use restrooms “designated for their sex” and “external genitalia present at birth.”
House Minority Leader Katie Sullivan, D-Missoula, rose a couple of times during the debate to request decorum be followed and legislators speak only to the bill. Speaker Pro Tempore Katie Zolnikov, R-Billings, cautioned legislators to do so.
Representative Brad Barker, R-Red Lodge, said he supports the idea to keep women and children safe, but he raised concerns about legal enforceability and cost, criticisms opponents of the bill also aired in committee meetings.
The bill, which passed on a 58-42 vote, would cover bathrooms and changing rooms in correctional centers, juvenile detention facilities, local domestic violence programs, public buildings, public schools, and other places.
A fiscal note said “immediate costs” are expected to be minimal, and able to be absorbed within agency budgets. However, a similar failed bill from a previous session identified nearly $1.8 billion in costs.
The fiscal note, an analysis of impacts by legislative staff, also points to a possible price tag for other jurisdictions and agencies, and opponents have said the local costs would translate into even higher property taxes.
“This bill could cause significant local fiscal impact in school districts where facility renovations are required,” said the fiscal note. “The (Office of Public Instruction) does not have data available to determine local impact.”
The fiscal note identified technical concerns for other state agencies, such as the Department of Public Health and Human Services.
It said the health department probably wouldn’t have to pay a lot more to designate restrooms as being for “single sex use,” but the bill raises legal and financial exposure.
The analysis said the Department of Corrections could face allegations of legal noncompliance based on federal law, such as the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which requires prisons to assign transgender and intersex inmates on an individualized basis. It said costs of such legal challenges are unknown.
One Democrat and former lawyer, Representative Ed Stafman, read a fictional dialogue between a lawyer for an agency covered by the bill and a local official wanting to comply with the law.
“What are reasonable steps?” Stafman said the local official would ask.
“Well, the bill doesn’t say,” he said the lawyer would answer, even though the sponsor was asked repeatedly in committee meetings and wouldn’t say.
Representative Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, said in other states, similar bills have put the lives of transgender people in danger simply for walking into the bathroom. She said people who testified made it clear that bathrooms were not a problem for cities or the Montana University System.
Zephyr defended transgender people on the House floor in 2023 in a speech that led to a fight over decorum with Republicans and drew international attention.
“I would ask you to leave trans people alone,” Zephyr said Wednesday. “Let me be the woman I am happy to be.”
In support of the bill, Representative Kathy Love, R-Hamilton, said many women are assault survivors, and it would be traumatic for them to share a bathroom or locker room with a biological male.
“Where is our safe space?” Love said.
A similar bill from 2023 that aims to define sex was found to be unconstitutional based on its title. A separate judge temporarily blocked it in a separate case because it affects transgender and cisgender people unequally.
In a statement after the hearing, Speaker of the Montana House of Representatives Brandon Ler, R-Savage, praised the vote by Republicans.
“HB 121 reflects the values that define Montana—respect for individual dignity and a firm commitment to safety. I am confident that the Montana Senate and Governor Greg Gianforte will recognize the importance of this legislation and will move quickly to sign it into law,” Ler said.
Monday in his State of the State address, Gianforte said he would welcome such legislation on his desk.
Montana Independent News Note:
A roster of all Montana state legislators and their contact information can be found HERE.
With all the really important issues facing Montanans why are Republicans obsessed with bathrooms? Weird.