Democratic legislative leaders, Pat Flowers and Kim Abbott, describe how Democratic legislators are working on behalf of all Montanans in their recent editorial. Excellent, because Republican legislators are doing more harm than good this session.

Republicans tout rebates for property taxes in 2024 and 2025, but fail to propose permanent property tax relief for homeowners and renters, including not allowing municipalities to pass local option taxes to help fund schools and services. They also tout a tax refund of up to $2,500 for married couples. So what? I would rather see the $1 billion surplus spent on investing in affordable housing, Internet access, child care, paid medical and parental leave, and public education. It could be used to ensure that hospitals, clinics, health care providers, and rehab and long-term care facilities are able to pay staff living wages, and be reimbursed at full operating cost rates for Medicaid patients. Our state cannot afford to lose any more staff or facilities that care for our most vulnerable citizens.

Instead, the Republican supermajority has wasted taxpayer dollars and valuable time on far-right “Culture Wars” legislation targeting schools, libraries, and certain people, especially transgender people who will be denied gender-affirming health care and their identity, effectively rendered “non-persons,” if these bills become law. Republican legislators have proposed legislation to ban and criminalize all abortions, including procedures necessary to protect the life and health of a mother in pregnancy emergencies. Such legislation, irrelevant to Montana’s true needs, and harmful to those targeted, has been written by national far-right groups to be introduced by state legislators nationwide.