Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday. Sign up April 30, 2026 Organic farmers like Bob Quinn don’t win many farm bill battles, so Thursday’s U.S. House vote thwarting a proposed ban on state-issued cancer warnings on pesticides hit him like a surprise forecast for two weeks of rain. The Kamut farmer from Big Sandy in north-central Montana had expected the pesticide industry to prevail.  “They have so much power and influence,” Quinn told Capitolized. “I take my hat off to those representatives who stood up to that.” The bipartisan vote stripped from the 2026 farm bill language that would have barred states from requiring such labels. The vote to remove the prohibition, thus opening the door to state-level pesticide-warning requirements, passed 280-142, with 13 lawmakers not voting. Seventy-three Republicans voted to remove the prohibition, and six Democrats voted in line with most Republicans to bar states from requiring the labels — a good example of how complicated food politics can be. Big Sandy Kamut farmer Bob Quinn. Credit: Jason Thompson / MTFP Credit: Jason Thompson / MTFP No state currently applies pesticide warning labels, which are the realm of the EPA, but a lawsuit currently before the U.S. Supreme Court questions whether states should be able to require cancer-warning labels on pesticides when the EPA doesn’t. All six Democrats who voted to ban the labels — two from California, and one each from Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas — represent regions where fruit and vegetable or cotton and peanut crops are grown with high pesticide treatments. Three are members of the House Agriculture Committee responsible for the farm bill. One sits on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture. Montana’s U.S Reps. Ryan Zinke of the Western District and Troy Downing of the Eastern District, both Republicans, voted to ban state cancer warning labels on pesticide products. There hasn’t been a member of Montana’s delegation on the House Agriculture Committee since Steve Daines served on the committee in 2013. Former Democratic Sen. Max Baucus was the last Montanan on the Senate Agriculture Committee, in 2014. Zinke “believes the best chance of the [farm] bill’s passage came with including that provision [banning pesticide warnings] in the base text,” Zinke’s staff said in a statement issued Thursday. Downing’s office didn’t respond when asked to explain the representative’s vote. After the vote, representatives aligned with Health and Human Services Director Robert Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (aka MAHA) movement declared victory on social media. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida, who authored the amendment to remove the labeling ban language from the farm bill, said the unamended bill would have let pesticide companies off the hook for health problems.  “I do not support giving blanket immunity to corporations at the expense of American families,” Luna said on X. “Pesticides are linked to a 30% increase in childhood cancer and over 170 studies corroborate the evidence.” Montana is in the bottom half of states for pesticide use per cropland acre, according to U.S. Geological Survey data, in part because Montana farmers grow fewer crops genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, a widely used pesticide. The state ranks third nationally for wheat production at 4.85 million acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and no “Roundup Ready” wheat product is approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for commercial sale. The state’s largest crop with a Roundup Ready option is canola, at 190,000 acres. The farm bill is a long way from passage. The Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup of the bill is still unscheduled.  Quinn hopes the door remains open to state warnings on pesticides, and that they help lead to diminished pesticide usage.  “We have glyphosate in our rain, that is enough already,” Quinn said. After amendments, the House passed the farm bill 224-200. —Tom Lutey LANE MOVES CLOSER TO DISTRICT COURT CONFIRMATION Bozemanite Katie Lane edged closer to confirmation to a U.S. District Court judgeship Thursday with a partisan-line 12-10 vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee to forward her nomination to the Senate floor for a vote. Democrats continued to object to Lane’s nomination, citing her lack of trial experience and an American Bar Association evaluation of Lane as unqualified. Credit: photo courtesy Katie Lane “Not only has [Mrs.] Lane’s legal career been short, it’s been extremely, almost exclusively, partisan,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois. “She currently works for the Republican National Committee. She doesn’t try cases, but she works for the RNC. She has repeatedly chosen to litigate politically charged issues. The record shows she’s ideological and inexperienced. To think there’s 3,603 licensed attorneys in Montana, and this is the best we can get for a lifetime appointment.” Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, called the American Bar Association biased against Lane.  The next step for the nominee is a confirmation vote on the Senate floor.  —Tom Lutey LAWMAKER CALLS FOR REDRAWING OF MAJORITY-NATIVE LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS  Montana’s decades-long practice of drawing political districts capable of electing Indigenous legislators came under attack Thursday following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against considering the race of voters when drawing districts. State Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, called on Montana’s political districting commission to “review and redraw the racially gerrymandered legislative districts encompassing Native reservations.” Mitchell also said Districting Commission Chair Maylinn Smith, an attorney for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, should resign.  “These districts stretch unnatural distances to pack voters by race,” Mitchell said in a press release. “Senate District 8 stretches from Browning all the way to St. Ignatius. Does that genuinely keep communities of interest together?” Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, speaks in support of House Bill 359 on Feb. 23, 2023. Mitchell didn’t answer a call seeking comment Thursday.  Montana began creating majority-Native state legislative districts after Indigenous voters sued secretaries of state in the 1980s and 1990s alleging violations of the federal Voting Rights Act and arguing that Native populations in any given legislative district were kept artificially low. In response, the state’s bipartisan districting commission, which creates new federal and legislative districts after each U.S. census, began combining Indigenous communities to create districts with majority Indigenous populations. “This is nonsense,” state Sen. Susan Webber, D-Browning, told Capitolized in response to Mitchell’s demands. Webber represents Senate District 8, which includes both Blackfeet and Confederated Salish and Kootenai voters. “The Montana Legislature should look like Montana, and that means the largest minority population in the state, which is Indian, should have a seat at the table. We will fight this. This is bullshit.” Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down majority-Black U.S. congressional districts in Louisiana.  —Tom Lutey The post Could farm bill open door to pesticide warnings? appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less