HEAT AND GREET: Montana legislators literally make sausage in advance of session's start.

• Author: Kennedy, Lesley
• Position: On the Same Page / Successful bipartisan efforts in legislatures across the country

You've heard the old saying: Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. But Jon Bennion thinks it's time to send that notion straight to the, well, meat grinder.

On the eve of the start of the Montana Legislature's 2019 session, the state's chief deputy attorney general hosted about a dozen legislators at his home near Helena for a lesson in sausage-making--along with a healthy side of bipartisan comradery.

"You always hear the comparisons of legislating and sausage-making and it just occurred to me: I wonder if there's a way to put these two things together," says Bennion, who has been part of Montana's legislative process since 2007.

With space restraints in mind, he wanted to be sure the invitees included a mix of Democrats and Republicans, women and men, representatives and senators, and urban and rural legislators, but also veteran and freshmen lawmakers. "Not only was there a bipartisan element to this," he says, "but also a mentoring element that I hope will bloom into something greater, either this session or down the road."

For the event, Bennion, who has been making sausage as part of a family tradition for a few decades, put together a list of 14 best practices for sausage-making and a corresponding list of rules for good legislating.

The group whipped up pork and elk recipes ranging from traditional German to breakfast herb to Italian, while discussing their jobs--but not any specific policy.

"I told them, we're just talking about the policymaking process, so let's save the debates we know we're all going to have during the session and just focus now on making delicious sausage," he says.

Representative Ryan Lynch (D) says the bipartisan nature of the event made it memorable. "People from both sides of the aisle came together to break down barriers and enjoy an old tradition of making sausage," he says. "It was a celebration of the...