State Legislature 2020: Margie MacDonald

Early in my career  I  had worked around the  Montana  Legislature and thought it was the “beating heart” of Montana, where consequential decisions impacting our state and our local communities are made every single day. At the time  I  thought  I  would like to serve in that capacity. Decades later, when the opportunity to run for the  Legislature came,  I  ran and  I worked hard… and lost! I ran again in 2008 and won and am now serving. After  12 years  my reasoning for wanting to continue has evolved.  I  run now because  I  find myself more capable and able to get good things done.  I  have learned so much about the laws and issues,  and stand on a  solid foundation of understanding and experience.  In a  “citizens”  legislature that meets only for 90 days every two years Montana does not have what most would consider “professional” politicians. Since term limits were adopted, tenure is a  revolving door,  turnover is high, and that does not always serve the state well. I  appreciate new leaders,  but we make decisions with enormous consequences to  Montanans,  and freshman lawmakers don’t always fully comprehend all of the ramifications of their votes. They also tend to vote a  more partisan pattern, which lessens as their knowledge and familiarity with the issues matures.

I am strongly committed to attracting workforce. In recent years I have focused my efforts on creating tools to build workforce housing. We came very close to passing SB 18 out of the Senate in 2019 which would have leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars in financing for affordable housing, generated hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs, and helped to recruit new businesses and new workers to Montana. It also would give Montana economic development authorities a key ingredient for successfully recruiting new businesses that are emerging in the growing global digital economy. I am also deeply committed to repairing and building our infrastructure through a variety of tools, including issuing state bonds and protecting Tax Increment Financing Districts. Every year I see progress achieved by the South Billings Urban Renewal District which is transforming SD 26 in positive and promising ways. Another priority for me is criminal justice reinvestment and reforms that make sure we keep our jails and prisons for people who are dangerous to society, and figure out how to get people who struggle with mental illness, addiction, or co-occurring disorders the treatment and health care they need. These reforms help strengthen our families, make our neighborhoods much safer and help suppress illicit drug activities. And, finally, health care is a critical and primary economic driver in the Billings economy and I work hard to support that sector as well.

At the end of every session, the legislature has to present a balanced budget to the Governor. We cannot leave the Capital without passing a budget, and it must be balanced, according to our Montana Constitution. Therefore, I have five sessions under my belt having worked on that difficult balancing act. Within the budget are hundreds of policy choices and decisions. Much of it is building on what we know our constituents and communities rely upon – our schools, health care, justice system and corrections, public safety, senior services like meals on wheels, etc. Oftentimes, investing in prevention is by far the wisest and most economical choice – although the payoff may be years down the road (e.g. Pre-K) when we have a productive successful individual who is working, contributing to the community and perhaps raising the next generation; as opposed to someone who has dropped out of school and is dealing meth out of the house down the block. I have learned that the best solutions and answers are arrived at when we have legislators from both parties who develop sufficient trust to work together and find common ground. Often, it takes legislators a few sessions to mature past the partisan flag waving and build those relationships that serve in the best interests of all Montanans.

I am a trustee. Sitting through hours of hearings and debates on legislation and listening carefully to the citizens who come to testify, the people who know the issue most deeply and are most impacted, and my colleagues who bring their own history and life experience informs and shapes my vote on a bill. That listening is filtered through thousands of conversations I have had with my constituents over the past 12 years. I share my home phone with constituents, send mailings and newsletters during the session, monitor all of my incoming Capital switchboard messages (phone and email) daily during the session, and watch my email accounts as well. I hope to get better at using social media during the upcoming sessions to post timely updates.

I do. I have served in the minority caucus my entire time in the Legislature, so I have never passed anything without the support of both Republicans and Democrats. I worked with a Missoula Republican to shape the interim committee legislation that would add more affordable workforce housing for Montanans. Sentencing reform in the 2017 Legislature grew out of a bipartisan initiative in the Joint Budget Subcommittee Section D, seeing the need for dramatic change in. our criminal justice system. That bipartisan spirit carried it from the 2015 committee to the Sentencing Commission during the interim, to successful passage of a package of legislation in 2017, and ongoing monitoring and tweaks along the way. I worked closely with Rep. Daniel Zolnikov in the 2019 session to get a package of bills that will put tougher sanctions and stronger enforcement to eliminate human trafficking through both chambers of the Legislature. I collaborated with Rep. Vince Ricci to get a home inspector registry through the House in 2019. Those are just a couple of examples of many bipartisan collaborations during my tenure in the Legislature.

I am watching the interim study bills to investigate Montana’s revenue system closely. Our current system is antiquated and designed for more of a 19th Century economy than a 21st Century economy. I worry about the residential property tax burden and am interested in circuit breakers for the most economically vulnerable. In the 2019 legislature, I successfully carried a bill that removed over 22,000 manufactured homes from the personal property tax rolls beginning in 2020. Counties were evicting families that owed less than $100 on their home because the law did not allow them discretion to NOT act. On business equipment tax and local option taxes, as well as property assessments, I look at each bill individually and judge it on fairness, balance, and fiscal impacts, particularly to my constituents who are middle and lower income, and to the City of Billings which is the largest in the state with unique and critical needs.

I would have to look at the legislation. First and foremost, we have to make sure that we have strong viable workers compensation coverage that clearly includes Covid, which would alleviate pressure toward litigation.

I would roll back the so called work requirements, which have been shown to have the opposite effect – they reduce participation in the workforce. The best way to get people back to work is to make sure they have access to health care, especially addiction treatment or mental health care. Creating a bureaucratic maze of qualifying steps and paperwork has been shown to be (a) extremely costly to administer; and (b) ineffective and counterproductive, resulting in the loss of coverage by thousands of people most in need of health care. Full funding for Medicaid is a no brainer, as it means Montana has more dollars for our health care and a stronger, healthier workforce; it creates thousands of high quality jobs, and has saved our rural hospitals, which in most rural towns is a key economic driver. During the Covid crisis, Montana’s expanded Medicaid brought in an additional $58 million to help the state address health needs in a pandemic and keep the health care sector whole.

[T]he state budget cuts in 2017 undercut local mental health and addiction treatment. I have consistently supported Billings Community Crisis Center and have consistently advocated for it. I also have supported efforts to create more tools to incentivize and channel Billings homeless and addicted population into treatment. I also have carried and support establishing legal handles to address these issues, like treatment courts. In 2019 we passed funds to stabilize and increase these highly effective interventions. These are multi-faceted and challenging issues to which I have devoted years of learning and work and will continue to prioritize and advocate for.

I was a co-sponsor of SB 340, the 406 Impact District legislation, and continue to believe we need tools that enable and foster public-private partnerships to create new economic development.  We came close with the 406 Impact Districts, but the final language of the bill came fairly late in the session, especially for such a novel concept with a significant fiscal component. The key for success will be to get the legislation written and educate Montanans on the mechanisms it enacts well in advance of the 2021 session. We will need to broaden the base of support by enlisting partners from across the state, so it doesn’t look like it will only apply to Billings’ economic development needs. We also need full-throated bipartisan support from most, if not all, of the Yellowstone County delegation and unified, clear support coming from Yellowstone County and Billings elected officials. We can point to the success of TIF districts historically to help lawmakers understand the concept.