Session Voices: Mary Collins - Legislature 101

Welcome to Session Voices, our special miniseries exploring the 2025 Montana legislative session. In this episode, Emily talks with Mary Collins, Project Director at the University of Montana’s Center for Children, Families, and Workforce Development. Mary walks us through some of the basics of how the legislature works, and the unexpected joys of watching the MT Legislative Session Livestream.

Host: Emily Freeman, HMHB Storytelling Coordinator
Music by Caroline Keys

Enjoying the podcast? We’d love your feedback and ideas for future episodes! Take our LIFTS Podcast Listener Survey at hmhb-mt.org/survey.

Connect with Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram 

For statewide resources to support Montana families in the 0-3 years of parenting, check out the LIFTS online resource guide at
https://hmhb-lifts.org/

Transcript

The Montana State Legislature meets every other year, gathering in Helena to craft bills, set budgets, and pass laws, all of which will hopefully reflect the needs and priorities of the people of our state. It's a tall order, and on Mother Love, we're diving in to learn more about how it all works and why it might be worth paying attention to. In short conversations, perfect for your morning commute, lunch break, power walk, or during a little one's nap time, we'll connect with experts, advocates, parents, lawmakers, and other champions of the good work being done to strengthen and support Montana families. I'm Emily Freeman, and you're listening to Session Voices, a special Mother Love series. In today's episode, we'll talk to Mary Collins, a guest who, like so many of us, wears a lot of hats. Her interest in the legislative session is informed both by her work supporting Montana's early childhood systems, as well as being a mom.

I'm Mary Collins, and I am a project director at the University of Montana Center for Children, Families, and Workforce Development. I provide technical assistance and capacity building support to folks working primarily in the early childhood space in Montana.

Is there anything in your own personal experience that led you to this career path or maybe didn't lead to it originally, but now informs or deepens your dedication to the work? I feel like some of us came to our work at a younger adulthood stage, and then we become parents, and it galvanizes your reason for being there, because it's now personal.

I was always interested in systems work, of how do we make systems work better for people, and actually create some broad societal change that helps folks, but have dabbled in different areas. I worked a lot in behavioral health, and then I found myself in early childhood, about two and a half, maybe three years ago. And then this past June, I had my daughter, and it certainly was like you said, galvanizing. That is a good word for it. I knew these issues. I knew what folks went through, sort of all theoretically, right? And I had friends and family and sisters who had gone through that experience, but going through it yourself, and she had quite a complicated arrival into the world. So it also is very illuminating for me, just the number of challenges that folks can face when they have kids and start to have a family. Having a child is hard in the best of circumstances. And I think our world and policies and things are not necessarily built to be well supportive of folks, regardless, even in the most ideal situation, folks with resources and folks who everything goes smoothly. It is still hard, and there are still so many challenges.

And then you add any other layer of challenge, and it just gets exponentially trickier.

Absolutely. Yep.

So you say the words legislative session to a lot of people, and their eyes kind of glaze over. But I don't think you're one of those people. I think you find it interesting. And I'm wondering, can you share what you find exciting or compelling about the Montana legislative session in general? Like, what is it that, I know that for you, it's, or I suspect that for you, it's beyond just that, you know, your work requires you to pay attention to it. Like, I think you maybe find it kind of geekily exciting. So can you talk about why?

Well, I mean, I do. I do. I do find myself just having hearings on in the background when I, it doesn't seem to deal with professional life. In Montana in particular, it is kind of, I know that the legislative session, people can say like, whoa, I have no idea how to even enter that world, but it is also so oddly accessible in this state. We have a citizen legislature that gathers every two years, and so these are folks who are not necessarily career politicians. They're coming from whatever their own regular life is, and are also figuring out how to go about this process. Every year, there are new legislators that are there for the first time, who are also learning, and you get to really see just politics at work. You get to watch people ask questions, and I think a lot of times, you can think that it's a really slick, suave, sort of intimidating space to step into. And then you watch a hearing, and you see how many legislators say, I don't know if this is a dumb question, but they are also just genuinely trying to understand, what are the issues? How do we approach these? And you can have remarkable access to those conversations in a lot of different ways. And folks who are engaged in the legislative session, I'm just always amazed at how much they can be engaged directly with elected officials here. In other states, it's just not like that.

Well, in some of it, I wonder, is it just a numbers thing, that we simply have fewer people here? And so a legislator that in a more densely populated state might have, I don't know, 5,000 constituents might have 500. Or, you know, is there something to that?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, people, I say Montana, it's like one big, small town. You know, it's, everybody knows somebody. And so your ability to connect on an interpersonal level with elected officials, I think, is really different in this state. Folks are coming from small communities. Like, if you're an elected official from Shelby or wherever it is in Montana, it's your neighbors who elected you. You know, you don't have big swaths of constituents that you would never come across.

Well, and even if your neighbors did not elect you, perhaps they chose the competition. But these are people that, if you're from a small community, you likely know them in some capacity. You know, maybe your kids both play little league or you go to church with them. You know, like we wear so many different hats simultaneously in small towns in Montana, at least in Beaverhead County, where I am. You know, there's two grocery stores. You're all just kind of in the same spaces. And then also to your point about, you know, it's just when you watch a legislative hearing, which I would encourage anyone to do if you haven't, it sounds like such an odd thing to seek out, but it is one of the ways that you can truly understand just how accessible this whole process is because they're just people. Like you said, they're just folks, just people. And go to the site where they're live streaming the videos of different hearings and different committee meetings and click whatever one has a green button on it that says in progress and just watch it for five minutes. And you'll be like, oh, okay, yeah, this is just people having conversations about complicated issues. Like, no wonder I don't know where I stand on this issue. It's complicated. And even this smart group of elected people can't figure it out. So it's...

Yeah. And they're all coming into this space as an elected official with their own personal experiences and their own, you know, professional expertise. And then they show up and are expected to vote on issues that they may have known nothing about before that hearing. But for sure, I think that is part of the power of folks engaging in a legislative session is like, they're often looking for that guidance of saying, like, what do I need to know about this issue? Like, what does this actually look like on the ground? I mean, nobody is an expert in all things. But when you're an elected official, you've got to cast your vote on all the issues.

And you may have your own kind of focus area or area that you really know and really care about, maybe an area you campaigned around, you know. But like you said, then you find yourself in a group that's discussing something that maybe you have absolutely no background experience in and the value of having someone write to you and say, hey, here's my personal experience that relates to this, and I just want to share that with you, you know. Maybe you're a legislator who doesn't have kids or grandkids, and there's something that's related to early childhood or anything in that zero to 18 space, and it's kind of just abstract to you. And then you hear from someone for whom it's not abstract and it brings it to life, and you're like, oh, wow, oh, I hadn't even considered that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Are there any particular bills or focus areas that really have your attention this session, either on a professional level or just personally?

Yeah. Well, I would say both. This session, Medicaid expansion is a huge issue, and I was on Medicaid at one point in my young adult life, and thank goodness for it. I was able to have health care while I was figuring out what to do after college and working on jobs. In my previous experience in behavioral health and now in early childhood, it's just so crucial. It is just the backbone of so many people's access in the state to health care and services that folks really, I mean, so much would struggle without it. It really has expanded access for people to be able to get the services they need so that they can get healthier and get back on their feet and not have to hit absolute rock bottom before they might be able to qualify for something.

Well, and in some cases hit rock bottom and then wind up in a system that's even more expensive for the state.

Absolutely.

Do you have any plans to be at the Capitol? So are you going to be there for any of the Medicaid hearings or anything else?

So the other policy issue that is top of mind, both professionally and personally, is child care. My daughter now is 7 months old and I have not been able to access regular child care. So no, I have not been, I've sporadically, I've been to the Capitol just a handful of times briefly this session, but I have not been able to actually dedicate myself to going to particular hearings that I really care about because I don't have child care.

And as all parents know, there's sort of the folly of putting something on the calendar. It's like, it might be on the calendar, but it doesn't mean that your kid's not going to have norovirus the day before or your babysitter can't make it.

I think it's that perfect, just microcosm, right? Of like, oh, I would love to be there in the rooms to help engage with these policy issues on child care, to make child care more accessible and affordable in Montana. But I can't because I don't have accessible and affordable child care in Montana.

Perfect irony. Yeah, yeah. When you do go to the Capitol, for someone who's never been inside or maybe never even seen this big, fancy building where all the hard work happens, can you just put someone there? What does it look like? Do you have to wear something special? Do you have to behave differently? Yeah. In theory, any Montanan can walk into the Capitol during this time, look at the schedule, find their way up into the gallery to watch a hearing. So when you go, are there certain expected or required rules around dress or decorum? What do you advise for someone who's like, I'd love to go, I'm really sure what I need to do to make that happen?

Yeah. It is totally accessible. The doors are unlocked, you walk in and there are some folks that are employed there, that are there to help you, give you a little map of the capital and say, here's where you can find this room. But it will be, I mean, it's bustling right now, it's full of people. You don't have to show up in a suit and tie. If you are not a suit and tie person, wear what you're comfortable in, wear what feels like you. In hearing rooms, so hearing rooms are typically a lot of times in sort of the lower level, they're sort of smaller if there's a big popular bill, they get very crowded very quickly. You'll see the legislators sitting at their tables, and then there's chairs set up on the other side of the room for folks from the public. If you show up to a hearing, there's no expectation that you testify or say anything. You can go and just listen and just watch. And then you can also go into the House or Senate chambers, you can watch the House gallery, you can go up there and sit in the seats above and sort of watch them take their roll call votes. And I mean, generally, you don't cause a ruckus. There are people there watching and making sure that everyone's behaving themselves. Especially if you watch a hearing, I think that's a good thing to watch online too, where you get sort of a taste for the decorum that does exist in a hearing. Where there's certain language they use, everything has to go through the chairperson. So it's madam chair, a member of the committee, everything is addressed through the chair. They do a lot of these sort of weird speak that just sounds kind of bizarre as an outsider. But once you listen to it a few times, you're like, oh, I get it. This isn't intimidating, it's just the rules. And if you want to provide public comment, you don't have to have a super slick, well-prepared presentation. And you can get up there and say something for 15 seconds. It could be as simple as, I'm Mary, I'm from Helena. I have, say it's childcare, I have a daughter and I haven't been able to access childcare. So I'm in support of this bill, I hope you vote for it. And that's all you have to say. And then there are expert people who might really extrapolate and provide some data and really get into it. But you can really engage at the level that I think you're comfortable with. And that can be like written testimony too. I know folks get really nervous about like zooming in or walking up to the podium. But there are a lot of ways for your voice to sort of make its way into that building.

Do you have any good advice for someone who, you know, maybe their local elected official doesn't hold quite the same worldview or political belief system that they do? You know, how do you effectively communicate with someone whose views maybe don't seem to align with yours? Do you have any good advice for sort of advocating across lines?

I think speaking to your own personal experience is always so powerful and the best thing you can fall back on. I think when we talk to an elected official as just, you're another human being in a position to potentially help with something that's going on in my life. I really want to share what this looks like in my world. And for you to just speak to, I can't go to work, I haven't been able to return to work full time because I haven't accessed child care, or my son hasn't been able to get that inhaler because we haven't been able to get our Medicaid application process. Whatever it is, I think speaking to that, just telling your own story and speaking to your personal experience cuts through basically all of the rhetoric. It's really hard for somebody to, with just a broad stroke, ignore that or say, I disagree with you when you're like, I'm not saying that this is about, child care should be publicly subsidized by the government because it's a right that we should have as parents or as families. You're just saying, I can't access child care, and this is the impact it's having on my life. Is there anything you can do to help me? That makes it so much easier for folks to engage in a conversation because you're starting to talk about specifics, and you're getting away from these big headlines.

Zooming down to the personal and avoiding that should language. But just to say, in my experience, here's what we went through. Yeah, the power of your personal story.

Yeah, absolutely.

That maybe even if it doesn't engage them on an intellectual level, but maybe it hits them on a heart level. Some small shift might happen on that level.

Yeah, and as much as in my line of work, I would like to think that data and research is what will drag policy change. When we can say, we know if we do this, these are the outcomes we will see. It makes fiscal sense. We'll save money, kids will be healthier, all those sorts of things. It's amazing just how much those handful of anecdotes can really be the kicker in terms of folks deciding if they care about the issue or not, or if they'll vote a certain way. Because it's so much more abstract when you're looking at a study and you're saying, okay, 30% of kids, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But when you hear the story of what one of those kids has gone through and what that kid's life is like, or that family's life is like, it becomes so much more tangible and real.

Yeah, like the quantitative isn't always the most compelling for everyone. And it's more like stories, not spreadsheets sometimes. And everyone's brain works so differently. So I'm sure there are a lot of legislators that are absolutely data-driven in their decision making. And then the other ones where a narrative or qualitative proof of the need for this thing is what makes it click for them. It was so good to talk to you and I'll see you around.

Thanks for the invite to do this. I look forward to it.

Mother Love is a project of Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, the Montana Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the health, safety, and well-being of Montana families by supporting mothers and babies ages 0 to 3. Opinions and views expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent the views of HMHB as an organization. Visit us at hmhbmt.org to learn more about who we are and what we do. We hope you'll join us next time for more conversations about big ideas to help little Montanans.