Montana Legislature 101

The purpose of the State of Montana’s legislative branch is to propose laws (called “bills”) and determine if they should become part of Montana state statute. Montana’s Legislature meets odd-numbered years from January to April. We are currently in the 2023 legislative session. The Legislature is made up of 100 representatives who serve two-year terms and 50 senators who serve four-year terms.

Each legislator serves on at least one committee during a session. Bills are assigned to committees based on subject matter – such as the State Administration and Veterans Affairs Committee or the Law and Justice Committee – and the chair of the committee schedules a public hearing on the bill. Members of the public are invited to testify for or against the bill or serve as an informational witness at those hearings. Committee members take that testimony into account before voting to recommend that the House or Senate pass the bill, kill the bill or amend the bill. If there is no recommendation, they may also table the bill. Oftentimes, tabling a bill eventually kills it.

If a committee recommends passing a bill, it moves onto a second reading, during which the entire chamber debates the bill during a floor session. If the House or Senate votes to pass the bill during the second reading, it is moves onto a third reading. This is where the final vote happens for the legislators.

If a bill is first introduced in the House of Representatives, it will go through this process first in the House, then the same process again in the Senate, and vice versa. If a bill passes through both the House and the Senate, it heads to the governor, who decides whether to sign the bill into law, recommend amendments to the bill, veto the bill or take no action. If the governor takes no action, the bill becomes law after 10 days.

If the governor returns a bill to the Legislature with suggested amendments and the Legislature rejects the governor’s suggestions, the governor may not return the bill with further amendments. The Legislature may also override a governor’s veto if two-thirds of the members of each chamber vote to do so.

After the governor signs a bill or the Legislature overrides the governor’s veto, it is incorporated into Montana Code Annotated (MCA), a compilation of all state laws currently in effect.

To learn more about the legislature, visit the state’s leg.mt.gov site