Other bills to boost legislative oversight advanced Monday.
Wednesday is the deadline for general bills that don't deal with money to advance from the chamber they originated in.
Lawmakers resurrected a bill Monday to allow adult prison inmates in separate units at the youth correctional facility.
Attorneys and judges had urged lawmakers to consider the consequences of campaign donors having branded judges who succeed on the ballot.
This year, the volume of bills Montana lawmakers heard as they crashed against the midpoint time frame was tremendous.
The bill is effective immediately after the governor signs it.
Friday saw plenty of legislation advancing and dying in the Montana Legislature.
Sen. Jeff Welborn said he believed it was long overdue that the board of outfitters see the changes, which he characterized as “common-sense.”
Republicans advanced a pair of bills that would allow private payments to wolf trappers and hunters as well as directing the state to consider more aggressive means of taking the animals.
The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission should be expanded from five to seven members with four of the governor appointees required to be landowners working in agriculture, said Sen. Mike Lang, R-Malta, on Thursday.
The bill, brought by Republican Rep. Derek Skees, got its first hearing Thursday in the House State Administration Committee.
The bill cleared a second reading on a 31-19 party-line vote with Republican support and Democratic opposition.
Similar legislation has been vetoed in several previous sessions by Democratic governors, after being passed by Republican-dominated Legislatures.
Both bills are amalgamations of other legislation brought earlier in the session.
Committee chairman Sen. Keither Regier, R-Kalispell, said he believed the issue was limited geographically and the bill could set a poor precedent.
The bill ultimately failed to clear second reading in the House by a 44-56 vote.
The bill saw support from a number of parents but significant pushback from the medical community.
The legislation passed second reading votes on mostly party-line margins.
In the last two sessions, the same proposal — those iterations brought by Republican lawmakers — met the same fate.
Republican Rep. Brad Tschida’s House Bill 240 received initial approval last week on a vote of 52-48.
In a session that’s seen its fair share of hotly debated policy bills, Monday had its own decent load.
The bill is a re-attempt at House Bill 113, which the House voted down in January.
Bills to make trapper education mandatory have been debated for 14 years but never made it through the Legislature.
The bill would bar the state from selling any land transferred to it from the federal government.
Lawmakers aiming to shape wildlife management in Montana are advancing a number of bills this legislative session that some believe would be better debated by the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission.
