On Thursday the state Senate’s final vote on the tribal water compact officially sent the bill to the House one day ahead of the Legislature’s transmittal deadline.

While both proponents and opponents have characterized the compact as transcending partisan lines, Democrats have largely supported the measure, with a majority of Republicans in opposition. 

In the Sena˜te’s final 31-19 vote on Senate Bill 262, which would ratify the compact at the state level, 11 Republicans joined all 20 Democrats to send the bill to the House. The only Democrat voting “nay” after Wednesday’s floor debate was Gene Vukovich of Anaconda.

The result of more a decade of negotiations among the state, the federal government and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the water compact would quantify the tribes’ water rights on and off the reservation. 

It is a negotiated settlement intended to head off the tribes’ stated intention to filed thousands of far-ranging water rights claims in state court.

The bill now heads to the House, where it is expected to face a more uphill battle. 

House Majority Leader Rep. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, has said he strongly opposes the revised compact, as he did a previous version that died in the House Judiciary Committee in 2013.

Gov. Steve Bullock has consistently voiced his support for the revised compact, calling it a “fair compromise.”

The bill’s passage through the Senate was far from smooth. After advancing from the judiciary committee, it was referred to the Senate’s finance committee, where two amendments proposed by Sen. Janna Taylor, R-Dayton, were added.

Sen. Chas Vincent, R-Libby, who sponsored the bill, said any amendments would effectively kill the measure, and convinced the committee to table it on Wednesday, clearing the way for his successful blast motion that brought the bill to the Senate floor amendment-free.

Similar maneuvers could be trickier in the House. Unlike the upper chamber, blast motions require a three-fifths vote of the House’s present-and-voting members. 

However, a deal struck between the two parties at the beginning of the session allows each caucus six “silver bullet” motions for which only a simple majority is needed to remove a committee-bound bill to the floor.

Last session, a blast motion on the compact failed to reach the House’s three-fifths threshold, but won a majority in a 51-47 vote.

The agreement commits the state to a $55 million appropriation to pay for costs associated with upgrades and water pumping for the Flathead Indian Irrigation project, along with other costs including bull trout habitat preservation.

Vincent and others are looking to get an $8 million appropriation this session, with the remaining $47 million on hold until Congress and the tribes also ratify the compact. That down payment would allow the state to begin work on the irrigation project ahead of the compact’s implementation.

The $8 million briefly appeared in House Bill 2, the general appropriations bill for this session, but has since been removed. The deadline for appropriations-related bills to pass at least one of the Legislature’s chambers is March 31.

The agreement isn’t necessarily doomed if the state fails to appropriate the money, however. A provision in the compact allows the parties to “meet and confer to consider adjustments to the funding structure” under that contingency.

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at [email protected]