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Resolution seeking federal balanced budget amendment fails • Daily Montanan [1]

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Date: 2025-04

Just three days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Montana urging lawmakers to pass a resolution asking for a Constitutional Convention in order to craft a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Montana Senators shot down the proposal.

Senate Joint Resolution 4 sought a convention of the states for the “sole purpose” of proposing the balanced budget amendment. The resolution saw a 5-4 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, but was indefinitely postponed on the Senate Floor on March 27 after failing to pass the chamber 23-27.

The Senate spent more than an hour debating the measure on the floor before voting it down.

“I rise in support of SJ 4 because it represents the only chance the Montana Legislature has to take action in the fight to prevent Congress from bankrupting America,” Sen. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, said, introducing the measure on the floor. “There are good people on both sides of this debate, but the other side offers no solution, only their opposition.”

Making an impassioned speech about the need to reign in Congressional spending and the national debt, Noland said it wouldn’t be long before the country’s “interest payments will spiral out of control, until we enter what we call a doom loop.”

Some opponents spoke about their worry that calling a convention of the states specifically to propose a single amendment wasn’t possible — it could open a can of worms and allow any proposed changes to the Constitution to be debated, including stripping out existing rights.

“We control our delegates, maybe, but we can’t control the delegates from the other 49 states,” Sen. Bob Phalen, R-Glendive, said. “There are too many enemies of our country, and of our Constitution, that would be the delegates. Their goal will not be the same as ours.”

But proponents pushed back by reminding lawmakers that any proposed changes to the Constitution would still have to be ratified by a super-majority of state legislatures.

“If they come in there and want to do a little monkey business and strip out the Second Amendment, or other amendments, it still needs 38 states to ratify what they’ve done,” Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, said. “And if they can, then our country is really, really in trouble if we got 38 states that really want to throw out most of our Constitution.”

Despite the impassioned pleas from many Republican legislators, proponents were unable to swing a majority of lawmakers in favor of the legislation.

DeSantis and Gov. Gianforte had held a lunchtime discussion with lawmakers and a joint press conference a few days before, touting the need to reign in spending in Washington, D.C., and pointing out that 49 of the 50 states are required to balance their budgets.

“In Washington, they’ve been spending like drunken sailors, and that’s not what our founding fathers envisioned,” Gianforte said during the press conference. “We need to change — and fast — to prevent our children and grandchildren from inheriting this mess that they’ve created. As you know, there is no constitutional limit on congressional borrowing. It’s up to Congress to police itself.”

DeSantis said that 27 states, including Florida, had already passed resolutions calling for a balanced budget amendment, with 34 needed to enact the convention.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/briefs/resolution-seeking-federal-balanced-budget-amendment-fails/

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