Only legislator at videoconference appears in person

A series of House floor votes kept some lawmakers in Helena from attending Tuesday's legislative videoconference in the Hill County Electric Hospitality Room, although a senator home during transmittal break attended in person.

Havre High School juniors with the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce's Leadership High School program attended the meeting, as did state Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester.

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Debbie Vandeberg said  before the meeting that she was told by Rep. Jacob Bachmeier D-Havre, a former member of Leadership High, that he would take part, but moments before the conference however, Bachmeier called and said that he would  be late due to several votes taking place on the House floor. He did not make it to the conference.

North Central Montana's other two Representatives Jim O'Hara, R-Fort Benton, and Casey Knudsen, R-Malta, did not attend. Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, has said the time of the videoconference conflicts with the meeting of the Native American Caucus and rarely attends.

Tempel, who was selected in December after Sen. Kris Hansen, R-Havre, resigned to take a job as chief legal counsel with the Montana Auditor's Office, briefly spoke to the audience. Tempel told them about the senate's passage of a mail ballot bill in the senate earlier in the week.

Tempel said the bill would allow counties to conduct the special election for Montana's only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives entirely by mail ballot. He said that following the death of Libertarian congressional candidate Mike Fellows last year, the state had to reprint all its ballots which cost counties a large amount of money.

Tempel, a former three-term Liberty County commissioner, said that if approved by the Montana House, the bill would save counties $500,000 or more. He said it would only apply to the election to fill the seat that was held by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who was confirmed this morning to his new post and will be resigning his seat in the House.

The Senate bill, sponsored by a Republican lawmaker, has divided Republican lawmakers who have said they worry about election fraud.