Tempel reflects on 2023 Legislative Session

Editor's note: Watch for stories on other local legislator's thoughts on the 2023 legislative session in upcoming editions of Havre Daily News.

Montana Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester, said the 2023 Legislative Session brought a lot of benefits to his district and the state but was not without its disappointments.

Tempel said one of the primary goals of his and his fellow Republicans going into the Legislature was to give part of the state's surplus back to the people of Montana and provide relief from burdensome property and income taxes, and that the session was successful in that.

He said there were also a number of good funding bills that have made it to the governor's desk including one of his bills, SB60, which would create a fund for a state reference network for the Montana State Library.

This network would provide real-time geospatial location data from any location within the network and the state library is permitted to enter into contracts with other agencies and the private sector to carry out the provisions of the state reference network.

Tempel said he's also happy that SB144, which eliminated helmet requirements for fully enclosed autocycles, went through as well.

He said he was also encouraged to see HB5, a significant funding bill make it to the governor's desk, one that includes a lot of funding for projects at Montana State University-Northern including their Aurora Complex.

He said he's glad that Northern will be getting that funding for these important projects.

However, Tempel said, the session was not without disappointments.

He said by far the worst of them was the recent veto of HB442, which would have divided tax revenues levied on recreational marijuana sales between the state's general fund; county road construction and maintenance; conservation and recreation programs; addiction treatment, and veterans services.

The bill received support from the majority of legislative Democrats and Republicans and its veto, which occurred a day after it cleared its last legislative hurdle, passing the Senate with a 48-1, has sparked outrage from both sides of the aisle as well as on the local level.

Two competing bills would have allocated the money primarily into the general fund, or law enforcement, the latter of which Gianforte has voiced his support for.

"I was very disappointed by that," Tempel said.

He said he was a Liberty County Commissioner for years before joining the Legislature and he knows how badly county roads are hurting.

He said more and more people want to experience the state's natural beauty and having this bill vetoed has been the worst thing about this session for him.

Another, much smaller disappointment, he said, was the failure of SB129, which he sponsored.

The bill would have required parents and guardians responsible for the care of any child enrolled in a public school to ensure they attend the school for the term prescribed by the trustees of the district.

Outside of that, there weren't any other huge failures, he said, however there were a number of bills that he's glad didn't make it to the governor.

In particular, he said SB235 would have banned the teaching of scientific theories, instead requiring the teaching of only facts.

In science a theory is defined as a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts. This would include the theory of gravity, relativity, cell theory and evolution.

Tempel said there were quite a few bills like this, that maybe sounded good on paper, but would have been completely impractical, and he's glad the vast majority didn't make it out of committee.

"It wasn't well thought out, and there were a number of those," he said,

He also said there were a number of bills that attempted to have the state take power away from cities, counties and school districts, which he said he was disappointed to see brought up, especially when it comes to zoning and housing.

"It was disappointing to me that they thought they should be able to micromanage cities, counties, libraries and schools," he said.

Among the bills Tempel criticized was HB234, which allows public school employees to be criminally charged for disseminating "obscene" materials, which was signed into law last week.

He also said SB99 which effectively bans gender affirming care for minors also goes overboard.

Tempel voted for the bill, saying he thinks it will do more good than harm, but he still thinks it goes too far.

SB99 was also the subject of an intense debate that saw transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr banned from the floor of the Legislature for saying that those who voted for the bill would knowingly cause the already staggering rate to suicided for young trans people to rise in the absence of life-saving treatment.