Efforts to boost money for CHIP, K-12 schools rejected in Senate

HELENA – State senators approved a state budget of nearly $8 billion last week, with Democrats trying and failing to insert more money for schools and for children's health insurance.

Democrats brought amendments to boost state funding in the two largest sections of House Bill 2 – health and human services and education.

Senate Minority Leader Carol Williams, D-Missoula, brought the first attempt to fully fund the Healthy Montana Kids Plan. The voter-approved children's health insurance program expansion was reduced by Republicans who insisted on reaching 'structural balance," meaning the state should not spend more money than it earns in revenue during the next two years.

"I would like to just submit that the kids of Montana are getting sacrificed on the altar of structural balance," Williams said. "We're about to say on partisan vote, we don't care what the voters said."

Williams also said fully funding the program would provide coverage for 30,000 uninsured children. The GOP plan would cut that number in half.

But Republicans defended their position, saying they are expanding health care coverage for uninsured children from low- and moderate-income families, though not to the threshold the voters approved.

"We are not turning our back on the needy in our state," said Sen. Dave Lewis, R-Helena. "We're adding 15,000 children."

The amendment failed mostly on party lines, 24-26. Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, was the only Republican to vote for the full expansion.

In education, Sen. Bob Hawks, D-Bozeman, proposed raising K-12 funding to offer a 3 percent increase in schools' base budgets and a 3 percent increase in per-student support. The Senate's budget committee voted earlier to limit state funding to 1 percent for each, and to use federal stimulus funds to make up the difference.

Democrats argued that the reduction would be permanent in the next biennium because stimulus dollars are one-time-only funds. Republicans said the school system needs to tighten its belt along with all other state agencies. The amendment failed 23-27.

Lawmakers approve gun 'brandishing' bill

The state House and Senate gave final approval last week to a compromise bill that seeks to expand Montanans' gun rights.

House Bill 228, sponsored by Rep. Krayton Kerns, R-Laurel, asserts that Montanans have the right to defend themselves if threatened instead of retreating or calling the police. They would also have the right to brandish a weapon to ward off a potential assault.

The bill also says landlords or hotel owners cannot curb tenants' gun rights, and it puts the burden of proof in self-defense shootings on the state instead of the shooter.

House and Senate members in a conference committee worked out their differences on the bill after the House rejected the Senate's amendments last week.

The original bill gave all Montanans, with the exception of felons or those guilty of violent crimes, the right to carry a concealed weapon in towns without a permit. The Senate removed that section of the bill, but compromised to allow concealed weapons in medical facilities.

The bill also says concealed weapons can not be worn in state or local government buildings, banks or their drive-up windows, or anywhere alcohol is served.

House backs bill to require coverage of autism treatments

The state House gave its initial approval last week to a bill that would require insurance companies to cover a variety of childhood autism treatments. The vote was 77-23.

Senate Bill 234, carried by Rep. Kendall Van Dyk, D-Billings, would compel insurance providers to fund treatments that have been shown to improve the quality of life for autistic children.

"I stand here, as sure as I ever was, that we're going to do the right thing by Montana families," Van Dyk said.

The House Appropriations Committee originally placed a two-year sunset provision on the bill, meaning the mandated insurance coverage would end in 2011 if the next Legislature decides not to renew it. Rep. Walter McNutt, R-Sidney, said the sunset was not meant punitively, but as a safety valve in case insurance rates rise too high as a result of the mandated coverage.

"We don't really know what this is going to do to insurance premiums," McNutt said. "We just wanted to say we better take another look."

But supporters of the bill said the sunset would prevent many families from getting benefits from their insurance companies because the bill would not take affect until 2010. In the end, the House voted 58-42 to strike the sunset provision.

Lawmakers put 'animal hoarding' bill to sleep

The sponsor of a bill to ban "companion animal hoarding" under Montana's animal cruelty laws says he's disappointed that the measure has been tabled.

Sen. Mitch Tropila, D-Great Falls, sponsored Senate Bill 221, which was tabled last week in the House Judiciary Committee. "I was pretty disappointed because I worked hard on the bill," he said.

The bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 33-17, would have considered companion animal hoarding as possessing 20 or more pets and failing to provide necessary care for those animals in a severely crowded environment.

But it also would have required anyone convicted of the crime to undergo psychological examination and treatment, at the person's expense. That provision led to the bill's death, Tropila said.

"The mental health community was worried that the bill would be making criminals out of people with mental disabilities," Tropila said.