HB 691 Montana House · 2025 Regular Session

Provide for legislative intent regarding the Montana criminal justice data warehouse

HB 691 clarifies the purpose and requirements for Montana's existing criminal justice data warehouse, which collects and stores information from state and local agencies. The bill specifies that the warehouse must include detailed offender data - such as complete criminal histories, sentencing timelines, drug involvement in offenses, and pretrial release outcomes - to help officials make data-driven decisions about the justice system. State agencies, courts, and other entities are required to contribute data to the warehouse while retaining ownership of their information, with strict confidentiality protections outlined. This bill directly affects law enforcement, courts, and correctional agencies by standardizing how they share and use criminal justice data.
Bill status died 3 of 5 stages cleared
Introduction
Feb 2025
Committee Review
Mar 2025
House Passage
Mar 2025
Senate Passage
Governor
Introduced Feb 24, 2025 Last action May 22, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

HB0691_1(6).pdf HB0691_2.pdf · 3 edits
MINOR
The bill text was renumbered and the header was updated to reflect a new version. A critical legal restriction was added to a data-sharing provision, limiting when agencies must contribute information to the criminal justice data warehouse. Additionally, the list of entities permitted to submit data was slightly reorganized.
Scope change
The scope of data contribution requirements was narrowed by adding a legal limitation.
REQUIREMENT

Added the phrase 'AS PERMITTED BY LAW' to a section requiring agencies to contribute data, meaning they are no longer automatically required to share data unless specific laws allow it.

TECHNICAL

Reordered the list of entities allowed to submit data, moving 'nongovernment entity' before 'tribal government' and removing the phrase 'local government entity' from the opening clause.

Updated the bill identifier from 'HB 691.1' to 'HB0691.2' and adjusted the page header formatting.

Floor votes · House Mar 7, 2025

How they voted

6039
Passed · 1 other
Total votes 100
Mar 7, 2025
D Democratic42
3 Yea 39 Nay
92% Nay
R Republican58
57 Yea 1
98% Yea
Vote distribution
All Yea All Nay Mixed No data
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
28
Key actions
3
Committee
4
Amendments
1
Mar 28, 2025
Amended
(S) Tabled in Committee - (S) Judiciary
upper
Mar 17, 2025
Committee
(S) Referred to Committee - (S) Judiciary
upper
Mar 7, 2025
House · Passed
House Vote: pass (60-39-1)
house
Mar 1, 2025
Lower · Passed
(H) Committee Report - (H) Judiciary
lower
Mar 1, 2025
Lower · Passed
(H) Committee Executive Action - (H) Judiciary
lower
Feb 24, 2025
Committee
(H) Referred to Committee - (H) Judiciary
lower
Feb 24, 2025
Introduced
(H) Introduced
lower
1 primary · 0 co-sponsors

Sponsors

Role
Legislator
Party
State
District
P
Photo of Bill Mercer
Bill Mercer
RRepublican
MT
52