Montana Lawmakers To Study Yearly Legislative Sessions

Montana Public Radio | By Corin Cates-Carney

Published November 8, 2019 at 4:28 PM MST

The House chamber at the Montana Legislature.

Montana lawmakers are meeting for a week in January to study whether the State Legislature should meet every year.

Montana’s House and Senate currently meet for 90 days every other year. In 2019, the Legislature passed a bill to study meeting every year for 45 days.

Republican State Sen. Ryan Osmundson was the primary sponsor of the bill calling for the Legislature to study the issue.

"In today’s day and age we live in much more of an instantaneous world than we ever have," Osmundson says. "And so it seems odd to me that we can’t change something that you know to be wrong, or that maybe everybody wants changed but we’re not going to be in session for another 16 months. So it seems odd to me that we wouldn’t be a little more responsive than once every two years."

Lee Newspapers reports that legislators will still attend already scheduled interim committee meetings and training sessions from Jan. 13-17.

Montana and North Dakota are the only two states with a part-time legislature that meets every other year.