Meyers, Windy Boy spar over infrastructure bill votes

State Rep. Bruce Meyers, R-Box Elder, said in an email Thursday that comments made by state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, about Meyers' vote on a key infrastructure bill during the last legislative session are "plainly false."

The pushback was sparked by comments Windy Boy made May 24 at a fundraiser hosted by the Hill County Democratic Party.

Windy Boy is ineligible to run for re-election to the state Senate due to terms limits. He is instead making a bid for the House seat now held by Meyers. Meyers has opted not to seek a second term to the House and instead has decided to run for the Senate seat now occupied by Windy Boy.

"Last week of the session, when

there was an infrastructure bill on the floor, if he (Meyers) would have voted yes, that would have brought economic development into our part of the state," Windy Boy said.

Windy Boy said he had gone to the House chamber to persuade Meyers to vote for the bill, but by the time Meyers switched his vote, other Republicans voted against it, thereby defeating the bill.

In the end, the proposed $150 million infrastructure bill failed April 27 by a vote of 66-33.

The bill which would have funded infrastructure projects across the state, would have used some bonding to pay for the projects and therefore required a supermajority of 67 votes to pass.

Meyers disputed Windy Boy's characterization of the vote, saying he voted for several incarnations of the bill, including the version that failed by a single vote.

"This statement implies that I voted against the state infrastructure bill," Meyers said. "This is plainly false. I supported SB 416 more than once. His statement is not true."

Meyers said he could not recall Windy Boy talking to him about how to vote on the bill.

The voting record on the state legislative record shows Meyers did back the last three versions of the bill, including the final 66-33 vote. He reinforced that support by a second vote on the bill later that day, and another vote the next day.

Meyers did however oppose earlier versions of the legislation. He said his initial opposition was due to the inclusion of what he deemed "pet projects" in the bill, such as funding for the reconstruction of Montana State University's Romney Hall.

He said he did not see how those projects "focused on fixing the infrastructural needs of communities."

Though provisions that would fund many of the projects Meyers had objected to remained in the bill in those later versions, he said he did vote for it, reasoning that the funding that would go to infrastructure projects in and around his legislative district outweighed previous doubts about the bill.