Reorganizing and getting back to work

HELENA - The Legislative Session is up and running here in Helena. The first week is usually fairly calm as all of the individual committees organize themselves and legislators begin putting text to their bills and start getting them scheduled for committee hearings. One of the first things we did was pass our rules under which we will operate during the session.

You have probably heard a lot of the back and forth in the media when it comes to the rules, but that happens every session. In the end, we came up with a set of rules that everyone agreed on. We also elected our leadership for the session. Greg Hertz from Polson was elected Speaker of the House. Greg is a good man and he will do a great job keeping everyone on track as the session moves forward. Our very own Brad Tschida from Missoula was elected House Majority Leader, which is really important for Republicans in Missoula who feel like our voices are drowned out at the state level.

I have the pleasure of serving you on the House Appropriations Committee where we will be putting together the state budget in the coming weeks and we have been getting updates on revenue and going through the budget proposed by the Governor. The good news is that revenue has been tracking really closely with what we estimated it would be during the 2017 session. This shouldn’t be confused with the revenue estimate the Governor came up with to call the special session. Everyone, including the Democrats, in Helena now agree that estimate was faulty.

With revenue tracking right where we anticipated it, we seem to be in a good position to repair the damage from the special session and create a solid budget that takes care of our essential services without requiring any tax increases.

I will also be serving as the Chairman of the state infrastructure committee. Our meetings begin here in the second week of the session as people begin to travel from all over the state to tell us about potential projects in their areas. We have a real opportunity here to deliver on real infrastructure that moves the state forward in a planned, thoughtful way for the second legislative session in a row and I look forward to shepherding the state infrastructure bills through the process.

You can always watch any of the legislatures committee meetings, and the House and Senate floor sessions by visiting https://leg.mt.gov/ and clicking on the blue button that says “Streaming for today” towards the bottom of the page.

In the coming weeks I will have a lot more to report on the work of the state budget, our infrastructure bills and the various pieces of legislation that will be making their way through the legislature.

It’s an honor to serve you in the Legislature. If you every have any questions or thoughts or just want to get in touch, you can always reach me by phone/text at (406) 531-1775, by email at Mike.Hopkins@mtleg.gov and on both Facebook and Twitter.