From the Billings Gazette:
Letter to the editor: SB 442 stands for Montana
Moments before the legislative session ended, Governor Gianforte vetoed the most popular bill of the session, SB 442, brought by Senator Mike Lang (R). This bill would have allocated recreational marijuana tax funding to so many programs, including county road maintenance, veterans services, conservation programs, and more. It had the support of over 93 groups, including agriculture, the oil and gas industry, landowners and conservationists alike. Rarely have we seen such a bipartisan coalition form, particularly in a session so otherwise lopsided.
I wrote the governor and asked him to support this bill, and I received a letter back saying he would “carefully consider every bill that reached his desk.” But in his veto letter, he mistakenly told the legislature that the bill failed to appropriate the funds, and he also called for them to enact a bill that was already dead. It’s clear he wrote his veto letter before ever stopping to think about this bill, and he failed to consider the Montanans who voted for him.
The governor would prefer to use the marijuana tax money to, ironically, fight against marijuana. As a criminal defense attorney, I can speak from experience: our police force is better off using their resources to fight fentanyl and alcohol related offenses, instead of wasting time on marijuana. We had an opportunity in SB 442 to do right by all Montanans, and our governor has failed us. He failed to stand with Montana. And voters won't forget.
Jake Schwaller
Billings
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