GOVERNOR VOWS MORE VETOES OF LEGISLATIVE BILLS, INCLUDING HB316

Gov. Brian Schweitzer appears to have traded his branding iron for a
pen. But the end result will be the same: vetoes. Lots of vetoes.

Schweitzer has been traveling the state since Friday, when the 2011
Legislature ended in a final burst of rancorous activity. Along the
way, he's scattered revelations as to what he'll sign, what he'll veto
and what he will - as he said Friday in Bozeman of a bill reforming
the state's citizen-approved medical marijuana law - "hold my nose and
allow this to become law."

The governor was in Missoula on Monday and dropped an announcement
about House Bill 316, which transfers another $9 million to the state
treasury, largely by redistributing tax revenue from sources such as
tourism bureaus and fisheries reclamation projects.

"In the coming days after I find a pen with enough ink in it, I will
veto 316 and the tourism money will be used for tourism promotion and
the trout habitat money will be used for trout," he said.

"I'm taking that whole bill, all of House Bill 316 from top to bottom,
and I'm giving it a big nope."

The governor said he'd take his pen to the state's budget bill, too,
sparing some lines and slashing through others, in a less inflammatory
version of the "branding party" he held in Helena last month when he
took his red-hot VETO branding iron to paper versions of several bills.

The governor also repeated a post-Legislature talking point: namely
that Republicans in the legislative majority unfairly penalized
Montanans by making unnecessary cuts. At session's end, Senate
Majority Leader Jeff Essmann, R-Billings, characterized the GOP's
approach as "prudent, patient and thoughtful."

When the session began in January, Schweitzer ordered state agencies
to find 5 percent in cuts; the Republican-approved budget sent to him
at the last minute represents 6 percent in cuts.

He particularly singled out the failure of a bonding bill that would
have provided $100 million for new buildings around the state,
including at the University of Montana College of Technology in Missoula.

Schweitzer said state fiscal analysts count $357 million in available
cash. "We could've written a check for $100 million (for the bonding
bill) and still had $257 million in the bank - and still had one of
the largest cash deposits in state history."

Although the governor said he spent most of the session watching
Republicans "take perfectly good bills and by the time they were done
turn them into perfectly bad bills," he counted a few successes.

He praised revisions to the state's workers' compensation plan that
would reduce rates.

"Mark that down as a win for the home team," he said.

But he blasted an eminent domain bill that would empower utility
companies as one "where we ought to be ashamed of ourselves." The bill
that was approved "is not the right one, but we will get it fixed next
session."

The same situation might apply to medical marijuana.

The governor extensively amended the bill passed by the Legislature,
which in turn axed some of his amendments.

The bill, which he said Monday he has yet to receive, would severely
curtail an industry that came into being after a citizens' initiative
legalized the medical use of marijuana in 2004.

It's among some 100 bills awaiting action - or inaction - by the
governor. The Legislature had 10 days after the session ended to send
them to his desk; he has another 10 days to sign them after their arrival.

"A lot of these bills are going to die," he said, "simply because
there was nobody to fix them at the end."