Missoula Legislator Stands Against Majority Party Rules

Missoula Democratic legislator Kimberly Dudik helped to defeat a Republican plan to possibly overturn Governor Bullock’s emergency order during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Dudik said she was the only Democrat to attend a pre-legislative meeting in Helena on Monday.

“The people running the meeting decided to send out a poll where they wanted to change the rules, which was really a backdoor attempt to overturn the governor's emergency order,” said Dudik. The attempt of the poll that they sent out to all of these legislators, used state resources and it was something that was a complete waste of time and money. The poll was soundly defeated.”

I guess you could say it was like a mom catching boys smoking behind the garage,” she said. “But it was actually a mom catching a bunch of legislators wasting time and money when they should be responding to a pandemic.

Dudik said she challenged the Republican legislators and provided the Democratic Party’s response to the plan.

“So I walked into the meeting knowing that everything I said was going to be attacked, and that's exactly what happened,” she said. “There were personal attacks made against me and it's all part of being a representative. They attacked everything, and the end result was that we ended up where we were before all this started. Nothing got done and it was a waste of time and money.”

Dudik compared the confrontation to a mother catching boys smoking behind the barn.

“I guess you could say it was like a mom catching boys smoking behind the garage,” she said. “But it was actually a mom catching a bunch of legislators wasting time and money when they should be responding to a pandemic instead of trying to jump through little shenanigans where they're manipulating the rules. Our health shouldn't be made a political issue and considering we've had over 240 deaths from COVID in our state, I get a little tired of making this a political issue, when it's really a public health issue and that's what we should be focusing on.”

Dudik is in her eighth year of serving in the legislature and is also the vice-chair of the House rules committee.