$80 Million Infrastructure Bill Fails in Montana

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana lawmakers adjourned the 2017 legislative session Friday just like they did two years ago — failing to authorize bonds to pay for state infrastructure projects after negotiations collapsed and threats failed to sway intransigent legislators.

The Montana House tried twice to push through the $80 million package but came up three votes short each time of the two-thirds supermajority required to pass the bill.

In all, the House rejected versions of the infrastructure bill six times before giving up and voting to end the session.

The Senate, which had been waiting for the House’s action, then voted to adjourn after legislative leaders made farewell speeches

The day did not start out well Friday with House and Senate Republican leaders emerging from House Speaker Austin Knudsen’s office with grim faces. Knudsen hurried by on the way to the House floor, pausing only to say that a deal had not been reached.

Moments later, the House rejected the bill that would have paid for a public works and building projects by issuing bonds. It was the fifth time the House had rejected an infrastructure bonding bill this session. The vote was three shy of the 67-vote supermajority.

Representatives then decided to try another vote later Friday morning, with Democratic lawmakers threatening to sink a separate bill to fund rural water system projects if the larger bonding bill was not passed.

That bill, favored by Republicans in rural districts, required Democratic help to reach the 75 of 100 votes needed. House Minority Leader Jenny Eck made it clear that Democrats would not vote for the rural water bill unless the $80 million bonding package including large building projects for urban areas also passed.

“We want to make sure we’re not pitting communities against each other, rural and urban,” said Eck, D-Helena.

Gov. Steve Bullock, lawmakers and lobbyists had scrambled in a bid to secure votes for passage since Thursday, when the House last rejected the bill.

They targeted about a dozen lawmakers, including some who had voted against the bill and others thought to be wavering in their support, said Darryl James, executive director of the Infrastructure Coalition, a nonprofit group that advocates for public works projects and represents construction companies, local chambers of commerce and others.

“You sense a lot of frustration — they come off the (House) floor ready to give up,” James said. “But when they sit down and talk about what it really means, they really want to see something done. They know that’s real money for their communities.”

In the end, those efforts failed — and they lost one lawmaker’s vote, compared to Thursday’s vote.

Some conservative representatives rejected outright the idea of putting the state into debt for 20 years to pay for any type of infrastructure.

Others were fine with using bonds to pay for water, sewer and road projects, but drew a line at using debt to construct buildings they labeled as projects aimed at representing the districts of specific lawmakers.

The building projects included $22 million in renovations for Montana State University’s Romney Hall, $10 million for a new veterans’ home in Butte, $5.4 million for a dental hygiene building at the Great Falls College of Technology and $5 million for a technology building addition at Montana State University-Billings.

Republican House leaders tried to wrest concessions from Bullock, a Democrat, in exchange for passing the bonding bill, such as guarantees that he would not veto anti-abortion legislation or a charter school bill. But Knudsen, the house speaker, said he and Bullock came to an impasse.

A similar bonding bill with many of the same building projects also failed on the final day of the 2015 legislative session. Bullock vetoed a 2013 infrastructure bill that arrived at his desk after lawmakers had already adjourned.

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