By Blair Miller of the Daily Montanan
Legislators overrode a second veto by the governor. Greg Gianforte, (R), vetoed a bill last week that included a mechanism for sending marijuana tax money into a habitat-improvement program via another vetted bill.
Last week, representatives of the Montana Association of Counties (MAC), Wild Montana and the Montana Wildlife Federation praised the legislators who overrode Gianforte’s veto of House bill 868.
The three groups have sued Gianforte, and the secretary state, over the governor vetoing Senate Bill 442, a widely supported bill which redistributes Montana marijuana tax revenues and puts them towards Habitat Montana, Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program and county road funding among other things. It also tweaks the structure that lawmakers decided upon in the 2021 legislative session.
Eric Bryson, Executive Director of MACO, said: “This is a significant step. The Governor stated that he vetoed SB 442, in part, because there was no funding.” Then he vetoed HB868, which was the appropriation. These were decisions made by the Governor, which went against the wishes of the Legislature. We are grateful that the Legislature was able to reverse this action.
Gianforte stated in his SB 442, which was released just around the time that the Senate voted on May 2 to adjourn legislative session, that the bill “glaringly fails to fund itself.”
He wrote: “Without appropriation, this bill is worthless.”
The bill’s sponsors, and others who supported it had argued both on the day of veto as well as in the weeks that followed.
The Governor’s Office of Budget and Program Planning conducted a fiscal analysis of the Bill. It found that the bill did indeed contain an appropriation to SB 442, however, the inclusion of this and coordinating words for the Bill “appears outside the title of bill…and therefore it appears the amendments to SB442 and the statutory allocation appear invalid.”
Since weeks, sponsor Sen. Mike Lang’s (R) and groups who worked on the SB 442 bill have argued that Gianforte veto was unjust because it wasn’t read out across the Senate rostrum when the chamber voted for adjournment. They also argued that lawmakers should try to override Gianforte veto by using a poll — the mechanism used to override vetos of bills after the session is adjourned.
MACO filed a lawsuit against Gianforte on June 7 and the Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen. They asked a judge to either allow the legislature to vote to override a ballot or declare SB 442 as law, because they claim Gianforte didn’t follow proper procedure.
Wild Montana and Montana Wildlife Federation sued Gianforte on the same day. They asked a judge to order Gianforte to return the veto back to Jacobsen to allow her to mail out a poll for a veto-override to legislators.
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No date has been set for either lawsuit. According to court records, plaintiffs’ lawyers in both cases have requested subpoenas for Gianforte or Jacobsen.
The three groups were happy with the override by the legislature of HB 868. The poll that was used to determine the override of Gianforte’s veto received 72 votes in House and 35 votes in Senate. This met the two-thirds requirement in both chambers. This was the fourth veto that lawmakers overrode since the end session.
Noah Marion, Wild Montana’s state policy director, said that the override was a “clear sign” of the commitment by the legislature to see SB 442 passed. Montana Wildlife Federation Executive director Frank Szollosi commended the successful override.
Szollosi stated in a press release that “this vote is a resounding testimony that it’s now time to stop bickering about the allocation of marijuana taxes and focus instead on the will thousands of Montanans have loudly championed policy provisions of SB 442. We look forward to seeing a similar outcome when the secretary sends out a poll on SB 442.
This article was originally published by Daily Montanan.
Photo by Philip Steffan.
The post Montana lawmakers override governor’s veto of bill to distribute marijuana tax revenue to Habitat Improvement Program first appeared on Marijuana moment.
