Senate President Has ‘Big Concerns’ Over Battle to Unite Caucus
Senate President Matt Regier has been unable keep his majority party in line the first week of the 69th Montana Legislature as nine Republicans have sided with Democrats on the chamber’s first vote
By Micah Drew and Keila Szpaller for the Daily Montanan
Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, said Thursday night that he has “big concerns” about the remaining 86 days of the 69th Legislature after his fractured Republican majority failed to coalesce around leadership’s preference for the chamber’s rules.
“When you have, at the very beginning of session like this, a group that says, ‘Hey, we’re not going to affirm the majority’s decisions, the voters’ decision that the majority Republicans made back in November,’ it strains things,” Regier told reporters following a failed vote to take up a resolution on rules governing the body. “I mean the vote’s right there — going to the Democrats to buck the majority.”
The vote on the fourth evening of the Legislature was to adopt comprehensive rules governing the operations, decorum, and committee functions within the chamber, which became controversial.
On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, made a successful bid to change the rules Republican leadership wanted.
The change called for limiting a new Executive Review Committee in order to redistribute the small number of minority party members to other committees.
Nine Republican lawmakers, including former Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, joined the Democrats to pass those rules.
Republican leadership tried this week to revert to their initial plan, but failed Thursday night, as the same nine Republicans and all Democrats voted down an amended proposal from leadership.
Republican leaders stressed the amendment included concessions to the nine defectors.
“At some point you just say, ‘We’re going to move on with business, and I guess if you guys and the Democrats want to control the floor, that’s your prerogative,’” Regier said to the nine.
“I mean, we’ll be back. We’ll have permanent rules, we got to keep moving and get this squared away,” he added. “But in the meantime, there’s going to be committee meetings happening and we’ll get things ramped up here.”
Senate Stalemate
On Monday, the Senate approved temporary rules in order to begin functioning, and the Senate will continue to operate under them and may do so indefinitely.
Because of the dispute, Senate work has stalled during the first week of the session.
Throughout the day Thursday, members of the Republican caucus were in discussions over how to come together to govern with their majority, and Thursday afternoon, Regier urged members of his caucus to support an effort to revert to the plan leadership wanted.
Senators on different sides of the issue were emotional — and pointed — about their stances, with Regier and other leaders calling on their members to take the authority the voters had given them in November.
In response to Republicans who didn’t like the way committees were set up, Senator Sue Vinton, R-Billings, said she didn’t get her way on the Senate either on some things, but she supported leadership.
“I didn’t get to be a chair or vice chair … like some other freshman. I’m OK with that,” Vinton said. “I’m here to serve, to serve the people in my district and the people in Montana.”
But Ellsworth, who had made an unsuccessful bid for president of the Senate, said he would sleep well at night with his decision. He said problems had come up in the Senate, issues that excluded the people of Montana, and there was more work to be done.
Regier countered with a fiery call to come together and govern with the mandate the Republican majority was given and drew applause.
“Montanans did not send the Democrats to run the show, they sent us. And I will not move from that. I will never stop fighting for all 32 of you,” Regier said.
However, Regier’s overtures proved fruitless when the vote failed 27-23, the same count as Monday.
“What the hell just happened,” Senator Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, asked as he left the floor.
At the end of the day, Regier said the continued Republican defection, even after removing the Executive Review Committee from the rules, “leaves the question mark.”
“I would love it if those nine would join the caucus that they ran on, that they won on, and stop this procedure,” Regier said. But, “I’m going to keep pushing forward with what Montanans have sent us here to do.”
Sorry, Reiger, that not all Republicans will mindless rubber-stamp your far-right agenda.