For Republican-backed legislation that would raise the barriers of entry for third parties in Montana’s elections, the third time was almost the charm Thursday.
Thursday morning, Senate Bill 565 was revived and passed the House Administration Committee on a partisan, 10-8 vote, with only Republicans supporting it. By Thursday evening it failed to pass muster in the House on a 39-60 vote.
The bill initially failed to pass a committee last week. On Monday lawmakers met to reconsider their initial tabling of the bill, but chair Rep. Julie Dooling, R-Helena, ended that meeting after failing to come up with enough votes to revive it.
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Republicans hold 12 seats on the 18-person committee.
Third parties can currently qualify for the ballot in Montana in two ways. They must either have won enough votes equal to 5% of the winner in the previous election, or they must collect signatures from that many voters.
But by the time the bill reached the House floor hours later, Republicans and Democrats alike raised suspicions of the short timeframe of its revival. Rep. Denise Baum, D-Billings, said the committee had 45 minutes' notice that the committee was assembling Thursday morning before the bill was brought back from repeat failures.
"It's a bad bill, it flies in the face of fairness," Rep. George Nikolakakos, R-Great Falls, added.
SB 565 bill would ratchet that signature requirement up to 5% of the total number of votes cast in the state or district, depending on what type of office is being sought. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, has argued the current standards are too lax.
But Democrats have criticized the bill as being aimed at unseating the last statewide elected Democrat in Montana, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester. Tester is up for reelection in 2024, and his three successful Senate bids have each been decided by narrow margins. In two of those, enough votes to potentially swing the election were won by the Libertarian candidate, a third party often seen as drawing more votes away from Republicans than from Democrats.
“This bill is nothing but a blatant attempt to influence the next election for the United States Senate in Montana,” Rep. Ed Stafman, a Bozeman Democrat, said before the committee's vote.
He noted that another Hertz-sponsored bill, Senate Bill 566, appeared at the same time and also carried clear implications for Tester’s 2024 reelection bid. He also referred to a series of emails between Hertz, other lawmakers and former Republican staffer Charles Denowh that showed Denowh’s involvement in shaping that bill to more specifically affect the race with Tester. SB 566 would have created a “top two” primary, likely eliminating third parties from the general election ballot.
Changes to the top-two primary bill made by Denowh narrowed the focus from all statewide elections to just the U.S. Senate. And Denowh authored a change that added a 2025 sunset to the bill, meaning it would only apply to the race for Tester’s seat.
Denowh previously worked for Republican Matt Rosendale's unsuccessful 2018 campaign to unseat Tester. He’s also worked for U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, the Montana Republican now in charge of the Senate GOP's campaign arm. Reached by the Montana State News Bureau, Denowh previously declined to comment on his involvement with the bill.
No Republicans spoke in support of SB 565 before voting to send it to the full House. Two GOP lawmakers, Reps. Greg Frazer of Deer Lodge and Courtenay Sprunger of Kalispell, voted against the bill.
It passed the Senate three weeks ago on a 26-24 vote.
Sam Wilson
State Bureau Reporter
