{"id":16616,"date":"2017-03-13T16:35:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T22:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=16616"},"modified":"2017-03-13T16:36:04","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T22:36:04","slug":"legislative-update-monday-march-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/03\/legislative-update-monday-march-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Update: Monday, March 13"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_16617\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 140px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-16617 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Scott-Sales.png\" alt=\"SS\" width=\"140\" height=\"206\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scott Sales<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>Senate blocks bicycle-friendly bill<\/h4>\n<h6>By Freddy Monares<\/h6>\n<p>The Montana Senate blocked a bill that would have required vehicles going 35 mph to give cyclists three feet when passing, and five feet if traveling faster than 35 mph.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/laws.leg.mt.gov\/legprd\/LAW0203W$BSRV.ActionQuery?P_SESS=20171&amp;P_BLTP_BILL_TYP_CD=HB&amp;P_BILL_NO=267&amp;P_BILL_DFT_NO=&amp;P_CHPT_NO=&amp;Z_ACTION=Find&amp;P_ENTY_ID_SEQ2=&amp;P_SBJT_SBJ_CD=&amp;P_ENTY_ID_SEQ=\">House Bill 267<\/a> failed on a 24-to-26 vote.<\/p>\n<p>Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, opposed the bill. He says he does not want any more cyclists in the state and thinks there are too many of them as it is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re some of the rudest people I\u2019ve ever\u2014I hate to say it, but I\u2019m just going to be bold\u2014they\u2019re some of the most self-centered people navigating on highways, or on county roads I\u2019ve ever seen. They won\u2019t move over. You can honk at them; they think they own the highway,\u201d Sales said.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Jen Gross, D-Billings, was carrying the bill in the Senate for Rep. Frank Garner, R-Kalispell.<\/p>\n<p><b><\/b>\u201cI\u2019ll just say that we can\u2019t kick bicyclists off the roads any more than we can ban pedestrians,\u201d Gross said.<\/p>\n<p>A motion by Majority Leader Fred Thomas, R-Stevensville, to kill the bill indefinitely passed on a vote of 29 to 21.<\/p>\n<h4><i><\/i>Property tax bill gets hearing<\/h4>\n<p>Also on Monday, supporters of a bill aimed at reducing property taxes in Montana say the agricultural industry needs help because of dropping commodity prices.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/laws.leg.mt.gov\/legprd\/LAW0203W$BSRV.ActionQuery?P_SESS=20171&amp;P_BLTP_BILL_TYP_CD=HB&amp;P_BILL_NO=558&amp;P_BILL_DFT_NO=&amp;P_CHPT_NO=&amp;Z_ACTION=Find&amp;P_ENTY_ID_SEQ2=&amp;P_SBJT_SBJ_CD=&amp;P_ENTY_ID_SEQ=\">House Bill 558<\/a> would reduce the amount of property taxes agricultural landowners and commercial properties pay in the state, reducing taxes on agricultural land by .15 percent, and commercial land by .11 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, the sponsor of the bill, said the current tax rate results in\u00a0an automatic increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s the result of being quiet and ignoring this? It\u2019s a $32 million property tax increase on the people of Montana,\u201d Hertz said.<\/p>\n<p>Eric Boyson, a lobbyist for the Montana Association of Counties, opposed the bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf this goes into effect it does shift the burden of that tax obligation within mills at the county level and we oppose this bill,\u201d Bryson said.<\/p>\n<p>This was the first time House Taxation heard testimony on the bill.<\/p>\n<p><i>Freddy Monares is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate blocks bicycle-friendly bill By Freddy Monares The Montana Senate blocked a bill that would have required vehicles going 35 mph to give cyclists three feet when passing, and five feet if traveling faster than 35 mph. House Bill 267 failed on a 24-to-26 vote. Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, opposed the bill. He says [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":16617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1122,2165],"class_list":["post-16616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-montana-legislature","tag-scott-sales","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16616"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16619,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16616\/revisions\/16619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}