House lawmakers on Wednesday voted to put a constitutional amendment before voters that would define “person” as “beginning at the stage of fertilization or conception.”

If passed in 2026, the proposal would likely conflict with CI-128, the constitutional abortion rights amendment approved in November. During a Tuesday debate on the measure, the sponsor of House Bill 316, Rep. Lee Deming, R-Laurel, said that he believed voters may have “some buyer’s remorse” about the recently passed measure. 

“To be honest with you, I’m not sure that the people who voted on CI-128 really understood what they were voting for,” Deming said. “I want to give these people of Montana another opportunity.”

CI-128, which bars state government from restricting pre-viability abortions, passed by a 16 percentage point margin.

Deming’s proposed amendment will advance to the Senate for consideration but is unlikely to pass out of the Legislature. Constitutional amendments introduced by lawmakers must have the support of two-thirds of the entire branch, or 100 votes from the two chambers combined. 

The House’s party-line vote Wednesday gave HB 316 the support of 58 Republican lawmakers. That number means that 42 out of 50 Senators would have to vote for the bill in order for it to pass, a high bar for a chamber with 18 Democrats.

The personhood amendment is one of the few abortion-related bills that have been introduced this session. Other efforts to curb medication abortion and prohibit abortion “trafficking” inside and outside of Montana’s borders failed to advance. 

Two of those proposals were tabled in committee, in part because of concerns from Republican lawmakers about conflicts with CI-128. A separate bill failed to pass a vote on the Senate floor. Another measure to allow for paternity testing and child support payments during pregnancy, which also included language about life beginning at conception, also failed to advance out of committee. 

Supporters of HB 316 have acknowledged that the measure runs counter to what voters expressed several months ago at the ballot box. But lawmakers who spoke in favor of the amendment on the House floor this week said it aligned with their deeply held beliefs about protecting fetal life. Several likened their commitment  to the issue to the long fight for the abolition of slavery in the United States.

“In a few years or decades, I believe we will look back on the error of not recognizing personhood for babies. Please join me in voting yes on this bill and may history look favorably upon your vote today,” said Rep. Greg Overstreet, R-Stevensville.

Multiple Democrats and one Republican spoke against the measure on the floor. Some raised concerns about who would be able to assert the rights of a fetus, and whether the will of the state, an abusive partner or potential grandparents could hamstring the medical decisions of the pregnant person. 

“I think that one of the serious unintended consequences of an initiative like this is that it creates a legal pathway for more of that sort of coercive control,” said Rep. SJ Howell, D-Missoula. “Control over a woman by somebody who does not have her best interests at heart.”

If it became part of the state Constitution, opponents said, the amendment could also interfere with the provision of birth control, miscarriage management and in vitro fertilization processes for people trying to become pregnant. 

Members of the public who testified against the bill during its first hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in early February raised similar points. During that discussion and the recent floor debate, Deming acknowledged that the proposal would impact IVF access in Montana, a fertility treatment he said he would otherwise support if not for the disposal of unused embryos. 

Proponents reiterated that the bill promoted more foundational values. 

“We’re ignoring a basic truth that nobody seems to — everybody wants to seem to step around it,” said Rep. Zack Wirth, R-Wolf Creek. “Women give life. Men protect life. There’s no other truth more basic.”

Other opponents rebuked lawmakers for, in their eyes, disregarding what Montana voters decided in November. 

“The voters have weighed this issue. They have voted. You didn’t like what they did, so now you, as the Legislature, are deciding you’re going to override their vote,” said Rep. Pete Elverum, D-Helena. “Just stop.”

Rep. Sherry Essmann, R-Billings, was the only Republican to vote against the measure Tuesday, citing her reluctance to further change the Montana Constitution with a contradictory amendment.

“We’re doing nothing but confusing our voters. We asked them last time if they were for or against abortion, and now we’re gonna give them even more confusing language that makes them wonder, ‘Well, now what does this mean?’”

During her questioning about the bill’s intent, Essmann asked Deming whether he thought Montana voters were not smart enough to understand what they were voting on last year. Deming said he thought the electorate was “plenty smart enough,” but suggested that voters may have been misled by some of the messaging by CI-128 proponents.

Essmann’s opposition did not hold for the bill’s final House vote. The measure passed on Wednesday 58-41. It has not yet been scheduled for a hearing in the Senate.

Click play to listen to this article.

Months after the nation’s highest court declined to hear a Utah case about ownership of public lands, a Montana House committee will debate whether to support it.

The Committee on Energy, Technology and Federal Relations is scheduled to hear a resolution today about “supporting Utah” in its 2024 lawsuit against the United States.

Utah claimed it’s been deprived of “sovereign powers” because of the federal government’s “indefinite retention of unappropriated public lands” there.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in January, but the suit could be refiled.

Kearstyn Cook – program director with of Montana Conservation Voters – said that could set what she calls a “dangerous precedent.”

“The State of Montana showing support for such a motion,” said Cook, “is just a blatant slap in the face to public land owners and lovers.”

The federal government owns nearly 70 percent of the land within Utah’s borders, and 30 percent in Montana’s.

Still, 68 percent of Montana voters have said they oppose giving states control over national public lands, according to the latest poll.

Montana Conservation Voters collected over 1,000 signatures asking state lawmakers to denounce Utah’s efforts. Cook said people want to make their voices heard.

“People who use our public lands,” said Cook, “for recreation, hunting, fishing, hiking, for agriculture, for ranching – this in some way, shape or form would impact a majority of Montanans.”

The same committee on Tuesday will hear Senate Joint Resolution 14, which would release federal Wilderness Study Areas from their protected status – across more than 1 million acres of Montana public lands – opening them to “multiple uses” including agriculture, timber and mining.

On a tailwind of Republican support, the Montana Legislature has advanced a bill that would facilitate the sale of isolated sections of state trust land.

House Bill 676 is a sweeping 22-page bill sponsored by House Speaker Brandon Ler, R-Savage, that addresses multiple aspects of water rights and the administration of state trust lands. 

Although several components of the bill drew scrutiny during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, perhaps the most controversial aspect of HB 676 involves the potential for the noncompetitive sale of an estimated 1.5 million acres of isolated sections of state land. 

HB 676 would also close the Montana Water Court, a nearly 50-year-old court created to quantify and prioritize hundreds of thousands of water rights that predate Montana’s 1972 Constitution. If HB 676 passes, an existing law specifying that the court cannot alter tribal water compacts would be struck as well. Critics argue it could invite federal intervention in decisions nearing resolution after decades of negotiation and scrutiny. One such agreement is the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Compact, which is currently before the Montana Water Court.

In their comments to lawmakers, HB 676 proponents referenced a controversial decision the Montana Supreme Court issued last year. They described HB 676 as a private property rights protection measure that will prevent the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation from “stealing” private water rights by dictating that in order to claim ownership of a water right, the water right must be used and diverted on state lands.

At issue is the Schutter v. Montana Land Board ruling the Montana Supreme Court issued in late April 2024 siding with the Land Board. The Land Board, which oversees state trust lands and is comprised of the top elected officials serving in state government, had asserted ownership over a portion of a private water right Gallatin County potato farmers developed on their private land to irrigate both their property and a neighboring property they leased from the state.  

In an opinion siding with the Montana Water Court’s interpretation of the matter, Montana’s highest court argued that the state must exercise some ownership over the water right to act in accordance with its directive to “secure the largest measure of legitimate advantage” for state trust land beneficiaries — e.g., Montana’s public schools. State trust lands are sections of land the federal government turned over to the Montana government when it became a state.

The Schutter decision was vigorously opposed by the Senior Ag Water Rights Alliance, which described the DNRC’s stance as “government bureaucracy gone insane.”

Speaking as a member of the Senior Ag Water Rights Alliance on March 21, Jocelyn Cahill described HB 676 as a proposal to put “clarity and stability” into Montana law.

“Many ranchers are afraid to use their water on their state leases, fearing that DNRC will come after their right,” Cahill said. “This uncertainty discourages investment in the infrastructure needed to divert and deliver water. When ranchers stop improving their lease lands, the state leases — and the school trusts that rely on them — lose out on significant benefits.”

Cahill is steeped in water issues in other ways. She recently represented irrigation interests in a water policy stakeholder group that developed legislative proposals over the interim and her politically powerful family recently lost a legal dispute regarding the use of exempt wells to facilitate a Broadwater County development. 

Other HB 676  proponents included the Rocky Mountain Stockgrowers Association and the Rocky Fork Decreed Users of Carbon County.

HB 676 opponents argued that the bill is a raw deal for public land access, for Montanans in the midst of the water rights adjudication process, and for public K-12 schools reliant on state trust lands for a healthy and sustainable revenue source.

The Montana Stockgrowers Association, the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, the Montana Water Resources Association, the Montana Quality Education Coalition, the Senior Water Rights Coalition, the Montana Wildlife Federation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Property and Environment Research Center, the Public Land Water Access Association and the Montana chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers spoke in opposition to the measure, along with other groups and individuals. 

Matt Leow with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers acknowledged the access challenges posed by isolated sections of state land but argued that the solution is not to create a “fire sale of a state treasure” but rather to “figure out ways to open up public access to our public lands.”

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation lobbyist Charlie Booher echoed that assessment, arguing that facilitating “the non-competitive sale of state land” is the wrong way to address state land that public recreationists can’t access.

“Over the last six years, Montana [Fish, Wildlife and Parks] and DNRC have worked through the [Public Access Land Agreement] program, as well as through the Block Management program, to open up access to over 1 million acres of state land that is currently isolated,” he told committee members. “We are supportive of that work and wouldn’t want to see it diminished by this bill.”

Brian Thompson with the Senior Water Rights Coalition described the dissolution of the water court as “problematic.”

“The water court has a job to do, and ending somewhat arbitrarily in 2031 leaves a lot of people in a lurch,” Thompson said during a hearing on the measure. “This is a system and a process that we set in place many decades ago. A lot of people’s water rights are dependent upon this system … They’re counting on the system to continue and to work to protect their rights into the future.”

Opponents also argued that losing more than 1 million acres of state land will jeopardize between $5-7 million of revenue annually, much of which supports public schools. They also pushed back on the notion that the state is “stealing” water rights.

Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras, a former University of Montana law professor with extensive experience in water law, spoke most forcefully on the latter point.

“The state has never and does not assert an ownership of the water used on [private] land. It only asserts the interest on the state trust land, which it’s obligated to do under its fiduciary duty,” said Juras, who was testifying on behalf of Gov. Greg Gianforte in his capacity as chair of the Montana Land Board. “It is absolutely not correct that the state Land Board, acting through the Trust Land division of DNRC, is taking anybody’s private trust rights.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee has not yet taken executive action on HB 676.

HOUSE BILL 379

Just after the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony on HB 676, the House of Representatives voted to advance House Bill 379, a twice-tabled and later revived measure that sought to combine two existing tools to facilitate the sale of state trust lands to developers.

Lawmakers’ lifeline to HB 379 was short-lived, though. After passing an initial vote on March 21, the measure failed, 42-54, after 10 Republicans flipped their third-reading vote on Monday.

Rep. Larry Brewster, R-Billings, said he was approached by the Forestry and Trust Lands Division of the DNRC to sponsor HB 379. During a Feb. 6 House State Administration Committee hearing on the bill, Brewster described it as a straightforward measure — “nothing slim shady” — that would alleviate Montana’s housing affordability challenges. 

The sale of state lands that are “prime” for such residential development — those that communities have grown around, that have access to utilities and are no longer used for grazing, for example — would provide greater financial benefit to state trust beneficiaries like K-12 public schools if the state could enter into a commercial joint venture agreement with developers, Brewster told his colleagues.

Deidra Kloberdanz, who manages the Real Estate Bureau of the DNRC’s Forestry and Trust Lands Division, said HB 379 combines two existing programs under the DNRC’s umbrella — the commercial leasing program and the land banking program — to create a pathway for larger housing developments. The leasing program provides revenue to trust beneficiaries through commercial rent payments. The land banking program, which has been operational for 22 years, allows the DNRC to sell up to 250,000 acres of trust land in order to reinvest in other lands that will provide more financial benefit to trust beneficiaries. 

Kloberdanz said the measure would allow a developer to initiate the subdivision and platting process as a property lessee and establish a framework for the later sale of individual home sites through the land banking program. She added that Land Board oversight is baked into the proposal. 

“The idea is the state and the developer would be able to share in both the risk and the reward of the project,” Kloberdanz said.

Gale Heide with Habitat for Humanity of Gallatin Valley was HB 379’s other proponent during the committee hearing on the bill. He argued that HB 379 would make the development of state lands for affordable housing developments that groups like his have explored more financially feasible.

“Though I’m not encouraging the state to become real estate investors, you have proven the ability to use careful foresight in preserving your commitment to future generations and a growing education system,” Heide said. “Maybe some day there won’t be enough of Montana to go around, but for now, I think we can work together to create opportunities for working Montanans willing to bear the load with us.”

The measure drew no opponents during its hearing. 

Democratic members of the House spoke in opposition to the bill during floor debate last week, arguing that they have concerns about “uncertainty and ambiguity” in the bill, particularly around a transition away from a public auction process to an online sales platform.