Paris Hilton may end up being the unlikeliest lobbyist of the 2023 Legislature.
She touched down at a private airplane hangar in Belgrade just a day after House Bill 218, a legislative proposal to ratchet up restrictions on the so-called "troubled teen industry" in Montana, emerged out of the Senate Health, Welfare and Safety Committee, although in a compromised form of its original draft.Â
Hilton grew to fame as hotel heiress and reality TV star, but in recent years has parlayed her prominence to advocate for regulations over the therapeutic residential boarding school industry for youth with behavioral needs. Hilton was sent to four programs, including one in Montana.Â
People are also reading…
In an interview Thursday with the Montana State News Bureau, 42-year-old Hilton described being assaulted, strangled, malnourished and watched by male staff while she showered at a now-shuttered therapeutic boarding school in northwest Montana near the Idaho border.Â
Since the state in 2019 gave the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services oversight of the industry and codified a new set of regulations, several programs have closed or moved to states with more relaxed regulatory environments. Still, state inspectors have found repeated violations of those rules, including a mishandling of a Texas girl's suicide in 2017. She died at age 17.
"These people are elected to protect the people and the community and the children and the families," Hilton said.
As the Montana Legislature approaches its final stretch, where citizens elected to these offices are eyeing a return to the normal pace of their day jobs, Hilton's synonymy with glamor and fame may get mixed receptions.Â
"Is she a Montana citizen?" Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, said when asked about Hilton's potential impact on the Senate's decision on HB 218. "I'm a Montana state senator. I represent the people of Montana."Â
Hilton has taken her advocacy work to state Legislatures before, as well as the halls of Congress. Where federal regulations have been hard to muster, states like Utah, where scores of programs have for years operated with little-to-no regulations, have taken them up in stride. Across that work, Hilton said she's spoken with enough former students to recognize the pattern of their shared experiences.
"My story is the same as hundreds of thousands of other survivors," she said. "If this could happen to me, I don't even want to know what could happen to the other children that are coming from the foster care system, children who have no voice, children with disabilities who are being abused and no one can stand up for them."
On Thursday, Hilton handed HB 218 sponsor and Rep. Laura Smith, D-Helena, 50 individual signed letters for each state Senator. Some appeared to be well-received, at least in part, because of Hilton's celebrity status.
"Celebrities have the ability to put a whole bunch of light on an issue, and I don't think that's negative at all," Sen. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, said Friday. "This isn't some issue-of-the-day to her."
By midday Friday, communications teams for the Montana Senate appeared ready to connect with Hilton's team. Several GOP senators responded directly to a tweet Hilton posted Friday offering to connect with any lawmaker willing.
"Several Republican Senators are willing to meet with you to discuss the bill, @ParisHilton," the Senate GOP account tweeted Friday.Â
"I'm game," Sen. Chris Friedel, R-Billings, tweeted.Â
Hilton's appeal to individual lawmakers in Montana's citizen Legislature is just one instrument for advocacy. She has millions of followers on social media platforms; among them, people who consider themselves survivors of these programs.Â
"I feel that's my mission and my legacy," she said. "I feel really grateful to have this platform to be able to shine a huge spotlight on such an important issue. I'm so proud of all the impact that myself and all the survivors coming together have made."
Sen. Shannon O'Brien, D-Missoula, applauded Hilton's willingness to share her trauma.Â
"I believe that every human being has their own experiences and their own story, no matter where they come from, no matter how many Instagram followers they have," O'Brien said. "I admire Ms. Hilton for speaking her truth, for doing her part and to make the world a better place."
The bill from Smith meant to provide unmonitored communication between children in these programs and their parents, a potential opening for children to report the kind of abuse and neglect Hilton and others have spoken about in committees this session. The amendment made in the Senate committee would allow programs to monitor calls.
Several on the Senate panel, including the amendment sponsor, Sen. Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, said they feared open lines of communication for children could lead to more runaways or drugs being ferried into the program. The bill goes well beyond the communications provision, including additional inspections and restrictions on what can be done to discipline or restrain children in the programs. Some lawmakers, in voting against the bill in committee, worried overburdening the programs would push them, and the services for children with behavioral health needs, out of state.
In Hilton's letter to senators, one of which was shared with the Montana State News Bureau, she asserts the unmonitored communication as a parental rights issue meant to provide protections and prevent deaths.Â
"Just it was just torture every single day, and I wasn't able to tell my family, because they would only allow monitored calls, and they would have their hand on the receiver," she said in Thursday's interview. "And if I would try to say one negative thing, the phone would immediately be hung up, I would be slapped, strangled, yelled at. And then they would lie to my parents.
"It's kind of the perfect storm for these people because they can get away with it because they've just manipulated not only the children, but also the families."
Smith, former deputy director of DPHHS, said Friday afternoon Hilton's new presence was already "bringing genuine visibility to the issue."Â
"I've had really meaningful conversations today with Senate colleagues on both side of the aisle," Smith said in a text. "Abuse of children and parents' right to talk, unmonitored, to their own children transcends party lines."
HB 218 passed out of committee earlier this week and is yet to be scheduled for a debate on the Senate floor.Â