Montana Cultural Advocacy

About MCA:
Montana Cultural Advocacy is the citizen voice for arts and culture at the Montana Legislature.

There are two priorities at each biennial legislative session:
1.) Advocating for the state agency Montana Arts Council budget.
2.) Advocating on behalf of the citizen panel’s recommendations for Montana Cultural Trust legislative grant awards.

By law, public funds cannot be used for lobbying expenses. Consequently, Montana Cultural Advocacy relies solely on private contributions to fund its lobbying activity and volunteers for its operation.

Lobbyists
Through May 15, 2007:
Chuck Hunter, Helena
Jacqueline Lenmark, Helena

Current Legislative Bills:
None tracked until January 2009.

Accomplishments:
Since 1978, during numerous legislative sessions, Montana Cultural Advocacy successfully prevented elimination of the state agency Montana Arts Council and kept arts and culture as an important part of state government services. In 1997 our lobbyist engineered the compromise that kept Montana’s Cultural Trust alive, lobbied each subsequent legislature to replace lost interest on this fund for legislative grants, and in 2005 saw the return of $4.5 million borrowed from the Cultural Trust. During the 2007 session $1 million was successfully added to Montana Cultural Trust assets and the additional interest earned on this now nearly $9 million fund will be added to legislative grants to arts and cultural projects.

Action Alerts:
None at present