The Montana House on Monday took up two bills asserting states’ rights over the federal government, with a gun-rights bill moving forward to the Senate and a bill to give sheriffs a say over federal law offices killed after a lengthy floor debate.

Local and state law enforcement officials would be prohibited from enforcing new federal bans on firearms and magazines under House Bill 203, which passed the House on a 59-41 vote.

As initially written, the bill would also have taken enforcement actions against officers and county attorneys who violated the law. Rep. Art Wittich, R-Bozeman, the bill’s sponsor, noted that the section was taken out of the bill in committee, but representatives on the other side of the aisle disagreed on whether the proposed law would force officers to choose between legal violations at the state or federal level.

“It turns cops into criminals,” Rep. Nate McConnell, D-Missoula, said during the floor debate Saturday. “If you’re a law enforcement officer and you don’t follow this law, you’re a criminal.”

McConnell also objected to what he characterized as broad language in the bill, asking whether a public employee’s cooperation in enforcement of federal laws could be construed to apply to a 911 operator dispatching an officer.

Several other Democrats also spoke against the bill, including Rep. Virginia Court, D-Billings, who expressed concerns about the relationship of state and local officers who work with federal authorities such as the federal Border Patrol.

“Our law enforcement officers take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and the Montana Constitution, and to work in unison with each other,” Court said. “This is a hypothetical case. It’s about something that might not happen.”

The enforcement mechanism removed by the House Judiciary Committee had included an “official misconduct” charge for officers and county attorneys who fail to prosecute public employees breaking the law. However, language remains in the bill that would classify enforcement of new federal gun laws as “theft” of public resources.

“There is still other enforcement available,” Wittich said. “Citizens can file an administrative complaint against the officer.”

Wittich added that officers could still see disciplinary actions taken against them as with any other violation of state law.

Responding to McConnell’s assertion that the law would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which generally holds that federal laws trumps contradictory laws at the state level, Wittich quoted the clause and said such a federal ban would not be “pursuant” to the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. As such, it would not apply to the state’s prohibition of federal enforcement.

The Supremacy Clause also came up Monday as the House debated House Bill 203, which would prohibit federal law enforcement officials from making arrests, searches or seizures without the consent of the county sheriff where the action occurs. That measure failed to reach a final vote, failing 61-39 after the floor debate.

Rep. Gordon Pierson, D-Deer Lodge, referred to a legal note attached to the bill, which said the bill could prevent federal employees from complying with both federal and state law and said the Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted federal preemption over state statutes.

“The response [to the legal note] implied there is no Supremacy Clause problem here,” Pierson said, adding the response contained no legal citations. “There can’t be a legal citation to that argument because it’s not supported by any case law.”

Rep. Bill Harris, R-Winnett, contested Pierson’s argument, pointing to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management as problematic agencies that need a check on their power.

“[This bill] doesn’t have anything to do with the Supremacy Clause … it’s just to reign in the out-of-control agencies that kind of get their dander up ahead of the law,” Harris said.

The bill had narrowly passed the House Judiciary Committee after an amendment gave discretion to county sheriffs as to whether they needed to enforce the law.

However, Rep. Frank Garner, R-Kalispell, cited his decades spent in law enforcement and called the proposal unnecessary. Garner served eight years as Kalispell’s police chief.

“I worked with a sheriff named Jim Dupont that many people from the Flathead know,” Garner said. “We didn’t need a piece of paper to tell us what was the right thing to do. And nobody told Jim Dupont what to do. He didn’t take orders from federal officials and neither did I.”

The bill sponsor, Rep. Nancy Ballance, R-Hamilton, objected to the bill’s opponents who said 55 out of 56 Montana sheriffs opposed the bill, even after the amendment. She said that number was based on the presumption the sheriff’s lobbyists spoke for all sheriff’s offices across the state.

“The point of this bill is to give sheriffs, if they want it, when they need it, one more tool they can use to protect the citizens of their county,” she said.

She responded to the Supremacy Clause argument with a quote from Alexander Hamilton: “The laws of Congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding.”

Reporter Samuel Wilson may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.