The Session Subscribe: Apple Podcast | Spotify The Session | Transmittal Interview 2 | Katie Sullivan EPISODE DESCRIPTIONThe 69th legislature is starting Week 11. Today, Democratic House Minority Leader Katie Sullivan joins the podcast to share her thoughts on the first half of the session, the p olicy advancing through the statehouse and what she expects in the second half.EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Shaylee Ragar: The 69th legislature is starting Week 11. Today, Democratic House Minority Leader Katie Sullivan joins the podcast. This is The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. I’m Shaylee Ragar with Montana Public Radio. The following interview took place before lawmakers left for transmittal break.Minority Leader Sullivan gives her thoughts on the first half of the session, the policy advancing through the state house and what she expects in the second half. Minority Leader Sullivan, thanks for coming in today. Katie Sullivan: Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here with you guys. Shaylee Ragar: Before we get to the second half of the session, how would you characterize the first half of the session? Katie Sullivan: It’s been going well, but I think overall we’ve had a really good position for the first half with 42 members in the House as Democrats, which means we have a lot of votes and we have been able to impact policy and so I am pleased in some ways and not so pleased in other ways. Shaylee Ragar: What are some policies you wish you’d been able to stop?Katie Sullivan: This session, there’s been a large number of what we’ll call the judiciary bills. So those are the bills that are being brought to what I’ll call politicize the courts or make the judges elections to be partisan. And a lot of these bills I was hoping to have killed have not, they have moved to the other chamber.They’re coming over from the Senate to the House and so I’m disappointed in some of those that have gone through. Shaylee Ragar: You mentioned having 42 seats in the House, so you added 10 Democrats to the House after redistricting after the election, you’re still in the minority, but less so than last session.So what kind of difference does that make in policymaking? Katie Sullivan: Yes, it makes a huge difference. Actually, it’s pretty amazing. Last session, when I was here, we were at 32. There is a huge difference in having 42. It is amazing, it is night and day. To get a bill through, you need a majority vote in the House to get 100.So if we can bring a bill as Democrats that we can get 10 or 11 Republicans to support, we’re gonna get it through and that’s a lot easier than 18, 19, or 20, right, to win over to support a bill or help kill a bill with us. So it does make a lot of difference. And I think this session too, with 42, we have more Republicans coming to us saying, Hey, what can we do to get your votes?Because they know we’re a large voting block on the floor and if they can get us, man, we’re putting 42 up for them. So it’s been a much better negotiation tactic for us this session.Shaylee Ragar: I do think we’re kind of seeing a stark difference in the work of the House and then how the work in the Senate is going. There’s been a lot of political infighting, there’s been a lot of holdups in the Senate. You’re in a different chamber, but I’m curious how what’s happening in the Senate impacts what’s happening in the House. Katie Sullivan: Yeah, the House and Senate chambers are pretty distinct from each other inside the same building, but we do operate kind of in silos, I would say.And so while the Senate has their situation, a lot of people are very intrigued about these nine Republican senators joining with Democrats to vote together on certain bills–that is very interesting and intriguing. The House is not doing that and that we’re very separate. We have 100 people over there. That’s a lot of people and so organizing something like that I would call it more challenging. And there’s a lot of different caucuses within caucuses within 100 people, and it depends on the issue. And so we find ourselves just operating in a different way than the Senate with coalitions forming with various groups over all kinds of different things.And so it’s just a different way of doing things in the House. Shaylee Ragar: Sure. Yeah, I do wonder, too, in the same vein, Democrats did have their biggest wins in the legislature. Republicans did sweep every other statewide office. Republicans do still have these majorities in the legislature. Do you feel like Democrats have had to moderate their approach?Katie Sullivan: I think that’s still to be determined and that’s a question a lot of us are asking is what do we need to do now? Now that we very obviously had trouble in the November elections and in terms of the statewides and the federal races, but we did pick up seats in the legislature. So that’s interesting, right?I think a lot of Democrats are asking themselves, what should our approach be going forward to try and win more seats back in the future? And I hear people ask, do we need to moderate? Some folks say, do we need to get more progressive? I don’t have the answers to those things, but it is something I hear and something we will have to grapple with, I think eventually.Shaylee Ragar: We are again seeing Republicans prioritize legislation related to LGBTQ rights and transgender rights and their ability to get social, medical, legal affirmation of transitioning. Republicans say they’re really concerned about safety and the validity of this medical care. I’m curious how you view this debate in the legislature and how it’s going?Katie Sullivan: Yeah, no, that’s a good question and what’s interesting just happened on the floor is that two bills that went after what we’ll call LGBTQ care and parent choice that died on the floor, two of them. And one of them was about drag shows and the other was about parents supporting their children, and they got killed, and it was a bipartisan kill.And I think what that could show and it’s a good sign is that maybe we have had enough of this conversation in the legislature. We have had, I don’t know how many bills at this point, more than 15, maybe even 20 that are in this subject matter. I expected a handful, but I did not expect that much.And I think both Democrats and Republicans are tired of these bills being brought over and over and over again and even someone on the floor got up and just said, we are here to talk about taxes and pocketbook issues–this is enough. Shaylee Ragar: I want to dig into property taxes more. I know it can be really difficult to talk about policy in kind of broad terms, but if we’re thinking about House Bill 155, which would create this tiered property tax structure and House Bill 154, which would create a tax credit based on homeowners and renters incomes, what’s the general philosophy behind how those bills work and what they do? Katie Sullivan: 155 Representative Mark Thane, his bill provides new and decreased rates for property taxes for different home valuations. And so basically what I’ll say is it has lower rates for your property taxes and he creates different tiers for those based on your home value.In a complementary way, 154, Representative Jonathan Carlin’s bill is what we call a circuit breaker, and the best way to describe it is we will make sure that your property taxes do not exceed the income that you are making. And so we tie them together in the background and you will get a credit back if your property taxes are going too high above your income levels.And it’s just a way of protecting people from having their home valuations, which they don’t have control over most of the time, outpace their income. So if you tie these two bills together, people are going to get relief. They’re going to get relief on their income tax and the property tax. And so that’s a nice thing and that’s why we propose that.Shaylee Ragar: House Bill 155 is in competition with House Bill 231 for Representative Jones backed by Governor Greg Gianforte. Like you were saying it kind of shifts who’s taxed where and how and by what rate. The bill would hand down lower taxes on primary residences, raising taxes on second homeowners and on short term rentals with those two bills being in competition. We saw House Bill 154 the tax credit backed by Democrats, tied to House Bill 231 talk to me about why you you do a move like that instead of tying 155 and 154 together.Katie SUllivan: There’s a lot of layers to that that went into that decision, but a couple things. One is that Representative Carlin’s 154, that circuit breaker, that tax credit concept, it does help renters and it does help people on limited incomes. And we wanted to make sure that that was part of the conversation going forward.So tying his bill to 231, Llew Jones’s bill, was a way for us to move both bills to the Senate so the conversation had to continue about limited income folks and renters. And that’s what we were doing with that. Shaylee Ragar: Yeah. It seems like you have to do some contingency planning in the legislature. Katie Sullivan: It’s like playing chess every day. Every day, you come in and play chess to try and do the best thing you can for the people of Montana. Shaylee Ragar: I know it’s too early to really get into the weeds on the budget yet, but what are you hoping to see with budget building in the second half? We do have another surplus this session. What do you hope to see happen? Katie Sullivan Yeah, that’s a great question. And the second half is very much going to be money. We’re going to be talking about money in the budget, which is what we need to do. And I’ve heard proposals for budget that we’re talking about things like a child care trust fund, housing and infrastructure trust funds, putting lots of money towards that, using portions of the budget for property tax relief, using portions of it for income tax cuts.And so we’re going to be balancing a lot of these large ticket items. What do we do with this surplus? How much do we want to have left over when we’re done? And how do we want to show our investments? And so I can just say as of right now, House Democrats are looking for things like child care, housing, infrastructure, mental health investments with this budget.And so we’re hoping that will go there and then not do anything that makes us so we’re in the red in the next couple of years. Shaylee Ragar: I don’t want to pass over something that was huge in the first half of the session that maybe got done quicker than we thought it was going to, which is Medicaid expansion.Talk to us about how that debate went in the house. Katie Sullivan: Yeah, I’m super pleased that that’s out of our hair. I think people thought that was going to be something that weighed us down and bogged us down the entire session and used a bargaining chip and just got politicized and made it icky.We knocked it out. It’s great. It’s done. I’m pleased that they could at least get, we could all get that done and out of the way. I would have liked to have seen some Democrat improvements to it. We can still get those bills through. But we have lifted the sunset and the program will continue. And that’s really good news.Shaylee Ragar: Talking about Medicaid does bring me though to the federal changes that we’re seeing. The Trump administration has a lot of plans and is taking a lot of actions that can be hard to track. There are talks about cuts to federal funding. So, Medicaid may not be done, but do you think the state is prepared for what’s coming?Katie Sullivan: So I’m just going to be a little bit mean here for a second, but I am exceedingly disappointed in how little we are talking about the cuts coming from the federal level. I am just so surprised we come in here each day and people are not talking about how we might have to adjust the budget, the taxes, the spending for schools, all these things with these cuts coming and I’m very surprised by that. If some of the cuts happen that we hear could; Department of Education, Forest Service, things like that, some of the stuff for universities, we’re gonna have to adjust. And so I’m still waiting. Shaylee Ragar: What do you hope to see in the second half of the legislative session?Katie Sullivan: I am hopeful that we’ll have good conversations about taxes and money. I know, bring it back to that again, but that’s one of the main reasons that I’m here. And I’m hopeful that we can come up with some good investments. There’s a 1.2 billion surplus, I think that’s what it’s at, that’s a nice chunk of money and we should spend it wisely, we should save it wisely. Let’s think about the things Montanans really need and are asking for. And I hope the budget reflects that in the end. And that’s where we’re going to put our votes. Shaylee Ragar: Well, I know you have to get back to the floor, so I will let you go, but thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Katie Sullivan: Anytime. Thanks.  Shaylee Ragar: This has been The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. We’ll be back next week with the latest coverage from the state capitol. Thanks for listening.The post The Session | Transmittal Interview 2 |  Katie Sullivan appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less