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Montana House nixes resolution that would express support for Ukraine – Daily Montanan [1]

['Darrell Ehrlick', 'More From Author', '- February']

Date: 2023-02-09  

A resolution that was meant to support the fight for democracy in Ukraine ended abruptly in the Montana Legislature on Monday as the House Energy, Technology and Federal Relations Committee tabled it without explanation.

A majority of Republicans on the committee approved the motion to table the bill, although at the meeting, none of them explained their reasoning.

House Resolution 3, a three-page bill that expresses support for the Ukrainian effort against Russia, appeared to have bipartisan support – with more than 10 members of each political party signing on as cosponsors with Rep. Tom France, D-Missoula.

Most resolutions in the state are non-binding and are usually a statement of support for or against a policy or an event, such as the war in Ukraine.

However, when it came time for lawmakers on the committee to decide whether to pass the resolution to the entire Montana House of Representatives, Rep. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton, made a motion to table it.

According to the House Rules, the parliamentary “motion to table” a bill is not debatable, and required a vote. Eight members voted in favor of tabling the motion, and no discussion of the bill happened before or after the vote.

“I am angry because something as important like this gets tabled without a discussion occurring,” said Rep. Katie Sullivan, D-Missoula, after the meeting. Sullivan is the Democrat vice-chairwoman of the committee. “The way it was set up was in a way that so that there would be no debate, and I have a problem with that.”

Bill kill Here are the representatives who voted to table the resolution on Ukraine: Rep. Larry Brewster, R-Billings

Rep. Paul Fielder, R-Thompson Falls

Rep. Steve Galloway, R-Great Falls

Rep. Josh Kassmier, R-Fort Benton

Rep. Greg Kmetz, R-Miles City

Rep. Casey Knudsen, R-Malta

Rep. Bob Phalen, R-Lindsay

Rep. Katie Zolnikov, R-Billings These are the representatives who voted to support it: Rep. Laurie Bishop, D-Livingston

Rep. Paul Green, R-Hardin

Rep. Derek Harvey, D-Butte

Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman

Rep. Katie Sullivan, D-Missoula

Sullivan said when votes are taken on whether to send bills to the full House, it’s usually customary to let members comment, as a sort of way of reading their respective opinion into the record.

“While Putin and Zelenskyy aren’t going to make any determination based on what we do here, we want to send the message that we still stand with the people of Ukraine,” she said. “I don’t know why it was tabled, and that’s why I’m so surprised. Just because others don’t want to talk about it, it prevents me from talking about it.”

The Daily Montanan reached out to both Kassmier and committee Chairwoman Katie Zolnikov, R-Billings. Neither Kassmier nor Zolnikov responded.

The bill had drawn some odd comments from committee members last week, beginning when Rep. Bob Phalen, R-Lindsay, asked France why he seemed more concerned with Ukraine than what is happening on the United States’ southern border. France replied that he was concerned about both.

However, after that line of questioning, Rep. Greg Kmetz, R-Miles City, spoke in seeming opposition to the bill when he raised concerns that he said were brought to him by U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana. Kmetz said he was worried that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had taken $40 billion in U.S. funds and covered it to cryptocurrency, something Rosendale has denied saying.

Rosendale, though, took to the airwaves last week with conservative radio talk show host Vince Coglianese to offer a different, albeit new take on the Ukraine situation.

“Let me throw this at you, Vince,” Rosendale said. “Is this literally a shiny object up in the sky to keep our attention away from Ukraine as the United States’ military is poised to send additional tanks and aircraft and resources to Ukraine while everybody here is looking up?”

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