It's Going To Get Fast & Furious

Hello to everyone in my massive BIG Senate district that goes from the North Dakota border to north of Hingham. I have 285 miles of the 545 miles of the U.S./Canadian border, and it equates to 52 percent of the border.

We are now at the start of the third week of the session, and the bills and meetings will come to us in a fast and furious way.

Please give me a call if you come up to Helena. I especially like to have school and other related groups come and visit me so they may be introduced to the Senate.

The Governor has put forth a grand scheme in his Big bill of some $390 million for everything from soup to nuts for public works! It would include bonding for over $210 million for infrastructure. The bonding bill would include about $10.5 million for land purchases, $12 million for sage grouse habitat, another $15 million for other fish and wildlife programs and this does not include the $6 million for land purchases in the Fish, Wildlife & Parks budget plus a $6 million increase in FWP licenses!

This is almost $50 million and he calls this infrastructure! In the 2013 session he vetoed a bill that would have given $35 million to impacted resource counties and that bill passed 142 to 8!! Some of us Republicans are working on our own infrastructure bill and I have one in the works. More on these as they are drafted.

I have a bill in the hopper that the county commissioners would have to okay any Yellowstone bison translocation to their county. Local control is very important. Another bill I have today is the one requiring Supreme Court Justices and District Court Justices to do the same reporting to the commissioner of political practices as we legislators do.

The potential listing of the sage grouse by the federal government is nothing but blackmail by the feds and a taking of private property rights! I have a bill that would ban sage grouse hunting in Montana if that might stop a listing. There is no shortage of this tough bird in Montana and to start a listing the feds do not even count birds of prey and small four legged animals as being a detriment to the species. Will the federal government come to its senses?

All for now and more next week. My email is [email protected]. Thank you and have a great week.