Montana: Lawmaker Puts Brakes On His Own Voter ID Bill | MTPR
After contentious debate over a voter ID proposal, the Republican sponsor has put the brakes on his own legislation. In a move that caught Democrats by surprise, Rep. Derek Skees, a Republican from Kalispell, today asked the House State Administration committee to table his bill. “Thank you so much for hearing the bill, and its discussion,” says Skees. “And I got to say what I wanted to say.” Skees says he will continue to work at changing the problems he sees in the state’s election system but will move those efforts outside of the legislature and to what he calls ‘the folks on the ground, the warriors in the front and the electorate themselves.’ After the committee hearing, Skees said he didn’t want to table the bill and still thinks Montana should have a voter ID law. When asked if his bill was tabled due to lack of support from his own party, he declined to talk about it. Skees also declined to say if the GOP would support future attempts to pass a voter ID bill.