HELENA — Gov. Greg Gianforte’s office confirmed Tuesday that he vetoed another 22 bills last week, bringing his total number of vetoes from the 2025 legislative session to 28. That’s the most bills he’s rejected from a single session since becoming governor in 2021 – though it’s still less than in 2019, the last time Montana had a governor and a legislative majority of opposite parties.
(Watch the video for a breakdown of some of the vetoed bills.)
Two of the bills Gianforte vetoed were intended to require more transparency from branches of state government. House Bill 271, sponsored by Rep. Ed Stafman, D-Bozeman, would have revised the definition of “executive privilege,” by which the governor could prevent some communications and information from being released in response to public records requests. Senate Bill 40, from Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, would have required the Montana Supreme Court to record its deliberations and release the records to the public after the final appeal in any of their cases.
In his veto letters for both bills, Gianforte said they would discourage honest discussion within the affected branches, and that they would “upset the separation of powers” by limiting the executive and judiciary’s privilege, but not the Legislature’s.
Gianforte vetoed House Bill 605, from Rep. George Nikolakakos, R-Great Falls, which would have expanded when jails can conduct strip searches on suspects accused of misdemeanors. The bill’s language was weakened during the legislative process, and Gianforte said in his letter that law enforcement leaders no longer supported it.
He also vetoed Senate Bill 7, from Sen. Wendy McKamey, R-Great Falls, which would have reversed a 2023 law change and allowed Montana Highway Patrol troopers and sheriff’s deputies to start drawing their pensions earlier. He wrote the bill would have made public safety pension systems less sound.
Gianforte said in his initial round of vetoes that he would make some of his decisions based on budget considerations. He again cited costs in almost half of last week’s vetoes. They included House Bill 511, from Rep. Scott DeMarois, D-Anaconda, which would have put $5 million into a grant program for firefighter training facilities; House Bill 762, from Rep. Josh Seckinger, D-Bozeman, which would have assigned $2.6 million for a study of how many boats are using certain popular Montana rivers; House Bill 881, from Rep. Mary Caferro, D-Helena, which would have allowed children with disabilities to receive Medicaid coverage at a higher family income than currently allowed, at an annual estimated cost of $1.5 million to the state general fund; and Senate Bill 536, from Hertz, which would have provided an estimated $4 million annual tax benefit to contracting companies owned by their employees through a stock plan.
So far, the bills Gianforte has vetoed have included a total of more than $27 million in one-time spending, as well as millions more in estimated annual expenses.
Eight of the vetoed bills received support from more than two-thirds of both the House and the Senate – enough to overturn a veto. That means the Montana Secretary of State’s Office will poll lawmakers by mail on whether they want to enact the bills into law despite Gianforte’s veto. The first two of those override ballots are already on their way to lawmakers.
It takes 67 votes in the House and 34 in the Senate to successfully override a veto. Lawmakers must return their ballots within 30 days in order to be counted.
