State Legislature 2020: Terrill Moore

I have extensive business experience and have had a lifetime of opportunities in a variety of leadership positions. My ‘why’ is to leverage my experiences and skills into the legislative arena using common sense and listening to my constituents to bring about a  better  Montana.  I  am not a politician and I’m not willing to play politics.  I  was able to work across the aisle on several bills to do what was right for Montanan’s in the last session. I will rise above the typical political wrangling, ask quest ion s, learn, respect my fellow legislators and move forward with legislation that reinforces our constitutional freedoms, promotes smaller government, less regulation, lower taxes and empowered citizen s. We need to make sure the policies we create through legislation promote healthy families, including exceptional education of our children. We should set a goal to have the best-educated kids in the country. Too many bills simply look at the short term, when it is actually more important to look long term.  Here’s  an  old  Greek proverb to be followed: ‘A society grows  great  when  old  men  plant  trees  whose  shade  they know they shall never sit in.’

First, we need to protect and honor our freedoms. Without freedoms, concerning ourselves about various other issues will be futile. Our freedoms of religion, speech, press, petition and assembly are under attack. I will stand up to protect these foundational and core freedoms. We cannot succumb to a cancel culture and media that snuffs out rigorous debate, constructive thinking and is intolerant. Freedom is not free. We need to fight for our freedoms rather than lay down and watch our freedoms taken away. This is not about Republican or Democrat, but rather about what causes people to be motivated to rise up to their unique and individual capacity, making our society and neighborhoods better. We do not need a bigger government, but a government that serves the people.

Second, and related to our freedoms, is public safety. We must ensure that all Montanan’s are not living in fear but are confident that law enforcement is available and adequate to provide public safety.

Third, it’s time to focus on decreasing bureaucracy, seeking increased efficiencies so that the government is serving the people. We don’t need higher taxes but rather a more efficient government. Ronald Reagan shared in his 1988 farewell address that “There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”

This is not an issue of ‘balancing’ or looking at this being ‘either/or’, but rather both. We must address short term decisions with a generational view. We must first decide long-term objectives and then take the steps now to attain these objectives. Being short sighted results in never attaining long-term objectives. We have all too often attempted to legislate ‘fixes’ to current problems rather than looking at the root of problems. Much of our human services expenditures are a result of broken families. We need to be looking at how legislation and policy can be modified to encourage and equip families to be whole, functional and healthy.

Once again the question attempts to position a candidate as ‘either/or.’ I see myself as both a trustee and as a delegate. I’ve listened to my constituents as they’ve reached out to me (email, telephone, text, in-person) and as I’ve knocked doors. I have and will listen closely to constituents to understand the issues, doing my best to represent my constituents well. We don’t get to have constituents vote on the hundreds of bills that we’ll consider in the few short months while we’re in Helena, so clearly, judgement must be used. Using common sense and thinking critically about every legislative bill holds me accountable to my constituents as well.

Bi-partisan solutions are necessary to many challenges in our state. Although not every issue will yield to bipartisanship, I will seek opportunities to cross the aisle where we can agree. An example in the last legislature was that the governor had slashed the funding for disabled Montanan’s at the special session of December 2017. Although many other cuts were restored, the reimbursement to assist our most needy Montanan’s had not been restored. I sponsored a bill to restore these cuts, requested a Democrat to co-sponsor this with me, and it was passed overwhelmingly by both the House and Senate. It can be done.

All too often, the discussion around taxes is how to increase taxes. We should not support increasing taxes as the solution to problems. Far more energy needs to be placed on how tax dollars already being collected can be better deployed to serve our state well. A highly efficient government is the necessary starting point. That being said, we should not stick our heads in the sand believing the way we tax Montanan’s is the best it can be. To the extent there can be added fairness to how the state taxes, we ought to be highly engaged. Having property values and ultimately real estate taxes growing faster than inflation only robs our citizenry, especially seniors, from being able to afford their own homes.

Businesses, including nonprofit organizations, have been hard hit by being forced to close by mandates and executive orders. I will support reasonable liability protections for businesses from COV ID-19 risks to help support their recovery.

Medicaid expansion does not come up for consideration at the next legislative session as the sunset provision will occur in 2025. At the last session, I offered an amendment to increase the work requirement from 20 hours per week to 30 hours per week. It was defeated by this ‘bipartisan’ coalition. If we cannot expect work eligible citizens to be expected to work to receive taxpayer benefits, then they should not expect their benefits to continue indefinitely. It is great that our government is available to step in to help citizens when they are facing difficult financial times. However, we need to have a time limit for benefits with work eligible citizens similar to unemployment benefits.

Common sense needs to prevail as we evaluate where state expenses can be reduced so that our state lives within its means. We all know that the state will face reduced revenues due to COVID-19. It is highly disappointing that our governor did not choose to address this obvious fiscal crisis we are going to face. We shouldn’t burn through all the state’s reserves before beginning to take steps to do what can be done now. Unfortunately, the entire fiscal challenge will be faced by the next administration and legislature. Simply reducing a flat percentage to all programs would not be prudent. We’ll need to dig deep to identify those areas where the neediest citizens require assistance. There may well be areas where we need to spend more than we have in the past. We have largely been treating the symptoms of mental health and addiction without due consideration of the root of these challenges. Last session I introduced and passed with large bipartisan support to restore the funding to disabled Montanans that had been gutted at the special session of 2017.

SB 340 [the 406 Impact District bill] was not passed by the Senate at the last session and therefore was not considered by the House in the last session. To the extent I became familiar with the intent of the bill, the public portion of this partnership in that particular bill was weighted too heavily on the public. Partnerships can be challenging to negotiate up front and to manage through its life cycle of decades because they are not usually nimble and if one party defaults, it brings the entire project to its knees. Partnerships are not risk free. There may be a way to consider a bill similar to the bill brought the last legislature, but the public participation needs to be significantly smaller. There continue to be tax increment districts structures which are already statutorily available that are also a means to create a public private partnership to assist in stimulating private investment.