Brady's Bills in the 2005 Legislature
This is what I accomplished in the 2005 session.
I introduced 10 bills and passed 5 of them. Not a bad record for a rookie. You can see the whole list here.
HB 297
Title: Require use of paper ballots in all elections
Status: Signed into law
Synopsis: This law requires the use of paper ballots in all elections. In other words, we will never have touch-screen voting machines in Montana. Our elections will not be hacked, screwed up, lost, or stolen by technology that never should have seen the light of day.
This is the single most important thing I did in the Legislature.
I put my background as a software engineer to work to convince my fellow legislators that this was the right thing to do. I've had calls from legislators in Sacramento, St. Paul MN, and Annapolis MD, asking "How did you pull that off?" It was easy. Since Montana is such a small state, the voting-machine industry didn't show up to oppose it. With no opposition, we could tell our story without a bunch of corporate types muddying the water with disinformation.
HB 439
Title: Disallow double credit for foreign income tax payment
Status: Signed into law
Synopsis: This bill closes a small loophole in Montana tax law that allows taxpayers who pay foreign income tax to claim a tax credit (a refund) on both their Federal and their Montana tax returns. In other words, get the refund twice. Who pays foreign income taxes? A lot more people than you think, who have mutual funds with foreign stocks in them.
The legislative staff estimated that this will save the state about $370,000. Not a huge amount, but not chump change, either.
My accountant turned me on to this. It's been nagging him for years.
HB 440
Title: Require locks on anhydrous ammonia storage tanks
Status: Signed into law
Synopsis: I sponsored three bills to fight methamphetamine. This is the only one that passed. This bill appropriates $80,000 for the Department of Agriculture to buy heavy-duty locks for every tank of anhydrous ammonia in Montana. Anyhdrous is a principal ingredient in some of the more popular meth-cooking recipes. Meth cooks commonly steal it. The ag industry was very cooperative in getting this law passed.
HB 502
Title: Eliminate background check for off-premises beer and wine licenses
Status: Signed into law
Synopsis: This bill cuts down on silly paperwork. After all the Homeland Security hooraw in the 2003 session, it turned out that grocery store owners who were renewing their beer & wine license has to go through a full background check with fingerprints and other invasive ugliness. Which meant that local merchants who had been selling beer & wine for years were suddenly being treated like criminals. We put some disgression into the process so our hometown grocers could simply renew the licenses they've had for years, and the taxpayers wouldn't have to pay for pointless investigations.
This idea was brought to me by the guy who runs the Community Food Coop in Bozeman. Okay, that guy is my brother Kelly. It was fun to see him get all dressed up for the committee hearings.
HB 517
Title: Provide for issuance of a Montana distillery license
Status: Signed into law
Synopsis: This bill changes our tax laws so that small business folks can get into the business of distilling liquor. Before we got this done, the law assumed that any distillery in Montana would be a big operation, and charged hefty license fees for a distillery to be in business. But there were no distilleries in operation in Montana.
The result of passing this is that there is one new distillery in Billings and another on the way in Helena.
The idea was brought to me by my old pal George Ochinski, who you may recognize as a political columnist in the Missoula Independent and the Tributary here in Bozeman. George is a good-guy lobbyist represents the microbreweries in Montana. He thought it would take two sessions to get this done. To everyone's surprise, we passed it, but not without a run-in with the most powerful lobby in Helena, the Montana Tavern Association. Actual quote from a bar-owning legislator: "If you want to sell alcohol in Montana, you have to be a member of the team."