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Check Your Briefs

Kambich moving from MERDI to Airport

July 15, 2019
ButteNews.net
The CEO of the Montana Economic Revitalization and Development Institute is leaving MERDI and moving to a management position at the Bert Mooney Airport.
Jim Kambich confirmed that he's leaving his position with the development nonprofit and taking the job of assistant manager at Butte's airport. Kambich's departure was first reported by Mike Smith in the Montana Standard.

2020 Census will not have Trump's citizenship question

July 11, 2019
ButteNews.net
After conceding defeat in the battle to add a citizenship question to the next census, Trump announces new plan. He is ordering federal agencies to give the Commerce Department records on the numbers of citizens and non-citizens. These to include Homeland Security Department and the Social Security Administration, says The Washington Post.

EPA tells union to take a hike

June 26, 2019
ButteNews.net
In a flinty move, the Environmental Protection Agency has broken off negotiations with the agency's biggest union. The EPA is implementing a one-sided contract that reduces telework and evicts union reps from agency offices, Government Executive reports.

Nebraska suspect cuts own throat in courtroom

June 24, 2019
ButteNews.net
A Nebraska man cut his own throat during his murder trial today, shouting that his girlfriend was innocent. He and his girlfriend are accused of murdering a woman after contacting her on the Internet. Read all about it at the Daily Beast.

Opportunity case reaches SCOTUS

June 10, 2019
ButteNews.net
The US Supreme Court will hear an appeal from ARCO regarding arsenic cleanup in Opportunity and Crackerville. The communities want ARCO to do a more thorough cleanup of their communities, and the towns won a 2017 ruling on the matter by the Montana Supreme Court. ARCO, owned by British Petroleum, claims in its appeal that state court rulings can't interfere with a cleanup in progress, ABC News reports.

City Desk

Public comment open on MT medicaid expansion work requirements

Big Sky Connection

Click on the image for the audio.

Eric Tegethoff

HELENA, Mont. - The public has an opportunity to comment on changes to Medicaid expansion that allow Montana to implement work requirements for recipients.

The Montana Legislature agreed this session to allow expansion to continue, but followed states such as Arkansas and Indiana by requiring enrollees to do 80 hours per month of work or community engagement.

That includes approved activities like workforce training, vocational education or volunteering.

The state says the new rule will affect about 8,000 recipients, with about half potentially losing coverage.

But Heather O'Loughlin, co-director of the Montana Budget and Policy Center, notes that's just an estimate.

"We do anticipate that we would see some loss of coverage," she states. "Precisely how much and who? We don't know at this point until the requirements are fully implemented."

Medicaid expansion, which went into effect in 2016, covers about 96,000 Montanans.

In 2018, the Trump administration allowed states to apply for waivers to implement work requirements. The public can submit comments on this to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services through Aug. 21.

Public hearings on the waiver are scheduled for July 31 in Billings and Aug. 1 in Helena.

Medicaid expansion was hanging in the balance at the beginning of this legislative session and would have ended on June 30 if lawmakers hadn't acted.

While Democrats and Republicans initially disagreed on work requirements, O'Loughlin says a bipartisan group of lawmakers eventually made expansion the main priority.

"A lot of folks said throughout the legislative session, 'This is important to continue Medicaid expansion,'" she relates. "'We have some concerns about these changes, but our hope is that we can mitigate as much harm as possible so that those who truly need health coverage right now are not going to face a loss of coverage.'"

O'Loughlin says it could take six months to a year for the federal government to approve the waiver allowing implementation of work requirements.

Montanans join rallies to protest border detention conditions

Big Sky Connection

Click on the image to listen to the audio.

Eric Tegethoff

July 15, 2019

HELENA, Montana - Protests against conditions in detention centers at the U.S./Mexico border take place in Montana and across the nation today.

A steady stream of details from the border is mobilizing people to call for immigrant detention centers to be shut down in "Lights for Liberty" vigils. In June, a team of doctors and lawyers visited these facilities and reported such conditions as the lack of access to basic hygiene and nutrition.

Montana Human Rights Network co-director Rachel Carroll Rivas says her group has been receiving calls from folks who are upset and outraged, and have decided it's time to stand up for immigrants' rights.

"The imagery is just too shocking," says Rivas. "The stories are just too shocking. And people can't really just turn a blind eye to what we're hearing about the conditions in these immigration detention centers."

Vigils are scheduled in more than 600 cities, including seven in Montana. There are events in the Treasure State's big cities - like Billings, Helena and Missoula - as well as the smaller communities of Kalispell and Thompson Falls.

Lights for Liberty organizers describe their goal as to "end concentration camps," a controversial term Vice President Mike Pence and others believe is too extreme.

Carroll Rivas notes Congress could take action on these border facilities by focusing on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement budget.

"Montana is a strong place with a history of really powerful elected officials, in Congress and in our Senate," says Rivas. "And we have folks who really control the purse strings of this ICE machine - a very new agency that has a very bloated budget and is using it in very inhumane ways."

More than 52,000 immigrants were in federal custody as of May, and at least six children have died in custody, or shortly after their release, since September.