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June 27, 2024
U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale is waging war on federally funded in vitro fertilization at a time when his Republican caucus is steering clear of an issue that’s proving radioactive in reproductive politics.
On Thursday, Rosendale was papering the hallway outside his congressional office with posters claiming “IVF Destroys More Life than Planned Parenthood.” Earlier in June he proposed amendments to defense spending bills that would prohibit the federal government from paying for in vitro fertilization as a medical benefit. Rosendale’s amendments were rejected by the House Rules Committee.
Rosendale, who represents Montana’s eastern U.S. House district, is making his stand as fellow federal lawmakers try to avoid state-level opposition to IVF, which ignited in February when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled to recognize frozen fertilized embryos as living humans under state law.
“If you proclaim, which many, many people have, that life begins at conception, there is absolutely no way that they can reconcile supporting taxpayer dollars being utilized for IVF across the nation, which is estimated to destroy, to kill, roughly 700,000 babies every year, or freeze them or perform experiments on them,” Rosendale told Capitolized.
House Republicans, including Rosendale’s fellow members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, are pushing back during an election year in which abortion politics are already a challenge. Rosendale, however, isn’t seeking re-election.
“I’ll do everything in my power to protect IVF. Period. Full Stop. End of story,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, said on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Rosendale announcing his amendment to ban IVF spending from the Department of Defense budget.
Mace is attempting to limit Medicaid funding to states that ban in vitro fertilization.
Rep. Ryan Zinke, of Montana’s western congressional district, said on X in March, “IVF makes the miracle of parenthood possible for so many families, I unequivocally support continued access to the treatment.”
In the Senate, Democrats are using their narrow majority to advance IVF legislation, putting Republicans in a tough spot. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on June 13 called a vote on a bill to make IVF treatment a national right. All but two Senate Republicans — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted against the bill. Montana’s Democratic Sen. Jon Tester voted for the bill. Republican Sen. Steve Daines was opposed.
Daines supports IVF, spokesperson Rachel Dumke told Capitolized, as do the other Republicans who voted against the bill.
“He’s putting on these show votes to fear monger,” Dumke said of Schumer, a New York Democrat. “Daines supports IVF and he will continue to do so. And so do all of the Republicans in the Senate.”
—Tom Lutey
Keep the Tip?
Tips have been taxed by the federal government since 1963, and the state of Montana began doing the same at the start of 2024. Those taxation terms could change, however, after U.S. Senate Republicans, including Montana Sen. Steve Daines, introduced a bill on June 19 to stop the taxing of tips. If passed, the law would put an end to the federal government’s 8% tax on tip income greater than $20 a month.
The Montana rate is 5.9%. Revenue generated by the state won’t be known until next year, after workers report tip earnings on their state income taxes for 2024. The Department of Revenue told state legislators in 2020 that Montanans’ tip income reported as tax exempt in 2018 was $82 million.
If the feds stop taxing tips, so will Montana, said state Sen. Greg Hertz, a Republican from Polson who serves on the Legislature’s Interim Revenue Committee. Montana’s taxing of tips started because the 2021 Legislature voted to sync state income tax policy with federal policy. The tip tax didn’t come around until January 2024. The state will stop collecting the tax as soon as the federal government does, Hertz said, with no action needed from the Legislature.
As Daines noted in an interview with Fox News, making tips tax-exempt was proposed by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who had apparently recently discussed the issue with a waitress.
“I’m part of the finance committee, member of that committee, we have jurisdiction over taxation. I’ll be introducing this bill that would eliminate federal taxes on tips,” Daines told Fox reporter Maria Bartiromo. Daines didn’t respond in time to talk to Capitolized.
Not taxing tips would cut federal revenue by $150-$250 billion from fiscal years 2026 through 2035, according to estimates from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal hawk.
—Tom Lutey
Hold On
It’s been a month since Sen. Steve Daines issued a hold on the judicial nomination of Danna Jackson to the U.S. District Court of Montana. Jackson, a former U.S. district attorney and member of the Kootenai Tribe, is the first Native American nominated to the federal court.
This week, the publication Native News Online editorialized that Daines should resign from the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, given his opposition to not only Jackson, but also to the 2021 confirmation of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe in New Mexico.
Daines spokesperson Rachel Dumke told Capitolized today that appointments to the U.S. District Courts allow each senator to issue a “blue card,” approving of the nominee, or to withhold the card, signaling disapproval. Jackson’s nomination wasn’t as collaborative as Daines had wanted, Dumke said, leading to Daines’ withholding of his blue card.
—Tom Lutey
Programming Note
In what has quickly become one of our most beloved workplace traditions, Montana Free Press employees will be taking the week of July 1-5 off to celebrate summer and recharge our batteries for the rest of the year. Subscribers will note the absence of a Capitolized newsletter next Thursday, July 4. We’ll be back in your inbox with a brand-new Capitolized on Thursday, July 11.
On Background
Back in January, economy reporter Eric Dietrich flagged the state’s new taxation of tip income for Montana’s service workers.