Rookie legislator Derek Skees’ performance on behalf of HB-245 earned a rare public rebuke from the House Judiciary Committee’s chair, fellow Republican Ken Peterson of Billings, for not doing his homework before introducing the bill, which the committee tabled on 21 January.
HB-245 would have shrunk Montana’s supreme court from seven to five members, ostensibly to save money. According to the bill’s opponents, which included the Montana Bar Association, Montana’s trial lawyers, county attorneys, and Attorney General, a reduction of two justices would greatly increase the caseloads of the remaining justices, resulting in delays in deciding cases.
Only one person testified in favor of HB-245: Rick Breckenridge, Skees’ first campaign treasurer and a Republican functionary in Lake County. Breckenridge told Republicans on the judiciary committee that if they cut two justices from the supreme court, the remaining justices would appoint more Republican-friendly members to Montana’s redistricting commission. I think this was the real reason Skees introduced the bill.
Draw your own conclusions. The legislature records hearings on video. Below, I’ve broken out Breckenridge’s testimony, and the rebuke of Skees and his closing remarks.
Peterson’s rebuke struck me as harsh, but Skees was not the first tyro to encounter rough going while presenting his first bill. I suspect he received Peterson’s message loud and clear, and that he’ll be much better prepared when he presents his next bill, HB-244, which would “…repeal the MT renewable power production and rural economic development act.” The hearing is at 1500 today.
Technical note. The video minutes are in Real Media’s dot-rm proprietary format. I recommend downloading the entire file, then watching using the free Real Media Player. The dot-rm format produces reasonable quality video, and probably was adopted because large organizations love turnkey solutions. But the state should replace the Real Media system with an open-source format.
Breaking out segments of the video requires converting from dot-rm to an editable format. Kigo offers a freeware converter for both Mac and PC. I used Kigo’s software to convert the dot-rm to dot-mp4, which I edited on my Macintosh using Quicktime 7 Pro. The imperfectly synched sound was present in the dot-rm original.