HELENA - After 23 legislators objected to 16 administrative rules proposed by the commissioner of political practices, the State Administration and Veterans’ Affairs Interim Committee was required by law to conduct a poll of the full Legislature. Presiding officer Sen. Dee Brown (R-Hungry Horse) and Vice Presiding Officer Rep. Bryce Bennett (D-Missoula) certified the poll’s results on Dec. 23.  The total votes by members of each house are provided in the accompanying table.

The poll asked legislators to vote on each of the 16 rules by identifying whether they considered the rule to be consistent with legislative intent or contrary to legislative intent. The text of each rule is available on a special web page created for the poll. Four senators and 15 representatives did not return a ballot.  A spreadsheet showing votes by individual legislators is available from the Legislative Services Division upon request.

The proposal notice for the COPP rules (which included more than the 16 rules on which the poll was conducted) was published in the Montana Administrative Register (MAR) on Aug. 13. After public comment and revisions, the rules were adopted on Nov. 24 when the COPP sent the final text of the rules to the secretary of state. The rules will become effective when the final rules are published in the MAR. The secretary of state is expected to publish the rules, along with the poll results on the 16 rules included in the poll, in the Jan. 8 issue of the MAR.