HELENA — Lawmakers on Saturday considered buying out game farms — instead of legalizing them — as a way of dealing with industry concerns that a 2000 citizen's initiative banning new game farms and limiting the existing ones took away such farmers' livelihoods.

"I think sportsmen will support this," said Rep. Paul Clark, D-Trout Creek, an outspoken critic of House Bill 379, which would repeal large portions of Initiative 143. I-143 banned all new game farms, forbade existing game farmers from expanding or selling their licenses and outlawed the practice of hunting captive deer and elk.

HB379, by Rep. Rick Ripley, R-Wolf Creek, would not allow any new game farms in the state, but it would allow existing farmers to expand, sell their licenses and sell hunts for captive animals.

The House of Representatives was expected to take a final vote on the measure Saturday. The bill has already cleared two other hurdles on its way to becoming law.

Instead, the House voted 51 to 41, with some lawmakers absent, to send the bill back to the House Agriculture Committee for more work.

House Majority Leader Roy Brown, R-Billings, made the motion to send the bill back to committee.

"We have some real concerns about the bill," Brown said. "It doesn't do what we want it to do."

In HB379's place came talk Saturday of abandoning the idea of legalizing game farms and buying them out, instead.

The debate around HB379 has been heated. Game farmers say their livelihoods were hit hard by I-143 and many have filed suit against the state asking to be reimbursed for all the profits they claim they can't make anymore.

Some 77 game farms are licensed in Montana, although fewer than 20 are licensed to provide captive animal hunts.

Supporters of I-143, who point to recent court decisions affirming their view, say the state has a right to limit what people can do — even on private property — if that behavior threatens the public good. In the case of game farms, supporters cite the spread of chronic wasting disease — a mysterious killer of deer and elk often tied to game farms — and hunting ethics that frown upon shooting captive animals as good reasons for the state to ban game farms.

HB379 also causes some unforeseen problems. I-143 repealed some laws and rules governing the expansion and permitting of new game farms, under the assumption that since the state won't be doing that kind of thing anymore, it didn't need the old laws. HB379 didn't put all the old rules back into effect, said a memo from a lawyer for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Consequently, HB379 does more than just allow game farms to expand, the memo said, it makes expansion easier and cheaper than ever before.

In the middle are politicians like Brown or Rep. Mark Noennig, R-Billings, who say they support private property rights, but don't want to override I-143, which passed in 58 of the state's 100 House districts.

When lawmakers took their first vote on HB379 last week, it passed 53 to 47, with many lawmakers voting to repeal I-143, even though their own districts had passed it.

Others, like Clark and Rep. Dick Haines, R-Missoula, say their No. 1 priority is preventing the spread of chronic wasting disease, which has migrated from game farms to wild deer and elk in many states and in Canada, costing millions of dollars to control, if control is even possible. States like Wisconsin, which has been particularly hard hit by chronic wasting disease recently, have seen their hunting season dwindle as hunters stay home in the fall over fears of the mysterious disease.

"The issue of that disease overshadows everything else," Haines said.

Exactly how a government buyout of game farms might work was still being hammered out Saturday. Clark said the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which gets most of its money from licenses and a federal excise tax on hunting and fishing equipment, may be the most logical place to start since the rest of state government is in a budget crisis.

Brown and others said they envision a system where game farmers would have to volunteer to be bought out, and then promise not to sue the state later.

The buyout would leave I-143 on the books, Clark said, meaning the state could end up with no game farms — and no lawsuits against it — sometime in the future.

"This could end up saving the state money," Noennig said.

Clark said he thought this effort may be the first truly bipartisan thing the Legislature has done this session. The idea has early support from both parties, including some party leaders.

There were no estimates on how much a buyout of the game farms would cost.