Sen. Ellsworth gets his punishment. Montana's congressional delegation stands behind the Trump tariffs. Humanities Montana becomes a victim of the DOGE cuts. And, the old fight over who should own public lands resurfaces.
Capitol Talk is MTPR's weekly legislative news and analysis program. MTPR's Sally Mauk is joined by Montana Free Press State Editor Holly Michels and Lee Banville, Director of the University of Montana School of Journalism and Professor of Political Reporting.
Sally Mauk: Holly, the state Senate this week finally agreed on punishment for Republican Sen. Jason Ellsworth's ethics violations, and that is to censure him and bar him from the chamber. But he's still going to be allowed to vote.
Holly Michels: Yeah, Sally. So, this censure deal was brokered between Republican and Democratic leaders in the state Senate, and it has a broad range of penalties for Ellsworth. Most notable, like you said, is he can't go on the Senate floor for life. He's also removed from Senate committees for the rest of this session, and he can't serve on interim committees through the interim before the 2027 legislative session. So basically, what he can do is vote on bills on second reading where there's debate and third reading which decides if they ultimately clear the Senate or not, but only in a remote capacity. He's also barred from engaging with directors in the executive branch or legislative staff unless they reach out to him first. And he's also not allowed into legislative office spaces. Ellsworth was last elected in 2022, assumed office at the start of '23, so his term is done when the next Legislature starts in 2027.
So, there was some division in the Senate about this path of discipline for Ellsworth. Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray brought the motion. He said it was a punishment not only for Ellsworth's attempt to split these two contracts up, which we've talked about before on the show, to keep them at a threshold below getting more scrutiny, and trying to award them to a friend, but also litany of past actions that includes a fine of $600,000 dollars the Federal Trade Commission levied on him back in 2008 for fraud related to magazine subscriptions, also two instances where Ellsworth was stopped by the Montana Highway Patrol and in one of those he pleaded guilty to obstructing an officer back in 2021, which was before he was elected president of Senate in 2023. Other senators also referenced Ellsworth's then-partner seeking a protective order against him in 2023 over claims of physical abuse and threats with a firearm. There were some in the Senate chamber like Sen. Forrest Mandeville, the Columbus Republican who chairs the Senate Ethics Committee that examined Ellsworth's contracting issue, who thought that the censure didn't go far enough, and an expulsion was the right course. Mandeville tried to bring an expulsion motion, but that failed on a tie. The censure motion did pass, though, 44 to 6.
Sally Mauk: Lee, this is a remarkable fall from grace for a man who was as recently as the last session president of the Senate, and now he can't even set foot in the chamber.
Lee Banville: I mean, at the beginning of this session, he was competing to be Senate president again. And it is sort of a remarkable collapse of a political figure here in Montana. But it's also one that, as Holly just outlined, had a series of issues culminating in this long drawn-out drama around his efforts to enter contracts with a friend of his for legal services that were largely unneeded. I mean, the reports that have come out about what he did in this most recent incident were quite damning. But what was remarkable also was really this took a negotiation with the Democrats to choose to punish him because they had helped quash some of the earlier efforts to expel Sen. Ellsworth. And so, you know, in the end of the day, the Senate came together and said, 'OK, no, we need to do something and so this is the thing that we're going to agree to.' I actually think there was also a little bit of like, I don't know if the Democrats really wanted to be the ones protecting him when you look at the litany of things that have really marked his career in not a good way. And so, I think this was a way for all of them to move on and sort of say, 'Okay, well, this is how we will address this for the remainder of this session, but also moving forward.'
Sally Mauk: Holly, we talked last week about a new law signed by the governor barring trans women from some bathrooms and locker rooms, but this week a Missoula district judge issued a temporary restraining order putting that law on hold for now.
Holly Michels: Yeah, Sally, so the law was effective immediately after Gianforte signed it, which is why the ACLU of Montana, on behalf of several plaintiffs, brought a lawsuit also on the same day it was signed. What the Missoula judge found is this law seems to threaten the rights in Montana's constitution for equal protection, privacy, due process, and the right to pursue life's basic necessities. The court also set a hearing for April 21st that will take up the request for a preliminary injunction, which, if granted, would serve as another stop on this law while this full lawsuit plays out. The ACLU on behalf of plaintiffs welcomed this temporary restraining order, saying their clients would have been forced to use restrooms that don't fit with their gender identity, creating what could be dangerous situations. Gianforte in response said that the state will defend the law. So, for now, what this means is facilities can't be sued over this, though some places like the University of Montana had already made changes to comply with the law, but it is not in place for now.
Sally Mauk: Lee, President Trump's new tariffs are drawing criticism from many quarters, but not from Montana's all-Republican congressional delegation. Here's what Sen. Tim Sheehy said on CNN when asked if his Montana constituents will be hurt by the tariffs.
U.S. Senator Tim Sheehy: There's absolutely going to be short term pain. The president's been clear about that. Everyone has. I mean, if you're going to remodel your house to make it better in the end, it's going to really annoying in the short term when your house is getting remodeled. And there's drywall dust everywhere, and there's workers in your living room. The reality is that remodel has got to happen in order to make things stronger and more stable on the back end.
Sally Mauk: This assumes, Lee, that one can afford the remodel in the first place.
Lee Banville: Well, I know I'm paying for my bathroom remodel, but that's a separate issue. I mean, I think what Sen. Sheehy is saying is that we need to reshape the American economy, and that is going to be a short-term ugly process and a long-term beneficial one. But that is a huge gamble, because it assumes that A) the tariffs are going to do what the president and his economic advisors believe they're gonna do, which is both raise revenue as these imports are essentially taxed, and then also, push businesses to really reorient their supply chains and their entire operations within the United States, but also to really make the market only the United States. I mean, one of the things we haven't really thought about is like, okay, the tariffs are being combated by other tariffs. And so now the companies that oftentimes export goods to other countries are now going to face increased tariffs as well. And so, the markets that they get to work in might be shrinking as well. So, this reorienting of the entire economy to the United States is a remarkable economic attempt and Sen. Sheehy is like, 'Well, that's what we're doing.' Other senators, I heard Sen. Ron Johnson saying, 'Well, I need to keep communicating about what I'm hearing from my constituents.' And so, it'll be interesting to see as these pressures really start to build on both businesses and stockholders and pretty much everybody in between. whether they hold the course or whether they start to say, 'Well, we're starting to feel too much pain in this transition.'
Sally Mauk: Well, another action by the new administration this week, Holly, was to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has basically closed Humanities Montana.
Holly Michels: It has, Sally. The program's executive director says that this is the money that pays for a huge amount — the bulk of the work it does — its programming, and staff salaries. That's things like the Montana Poet Laureate Program, Montana Conversations, sending speakers to schools around the state, working with museums around Montana, and more. So, the organization has canceled all their planned programs and events. This cut came as part of work being done by the Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and in a letter from that National Endowment for the Humanities, their acting chairman said the grants they eliminated no longer fit the agency's needs and priorities and were terminated due to what the letter called several reasonable causes. This letter went out April 2nd and was effective immediately.
Sally Mauk: Lee, Humanities Montana is a popular entity in our state and full disclosure, I've been a speaker in one of their programs, which was super rewarding, and Montana Public Radio receives grant money from them. This is a big blow to the state's cultural life.
Lee Banville: I should also say that the (UM) School of Journalism has repeatedly received funding from Humanities Montana. You know, the thing that's interesting about this organization is most of their grants are fairly small, a few thousand dollars, to really bring in speakers to create cultural events throughout the state. They've always been very focused on making sure this is not, oh, Missoula and Bozeman and Billings have events. It's that communities across the state are going to hear voices from lots of different quarters and have these experiences, these art exhibits, poetry readings, these speakers come in. I think it's also quite popular with older Montanans who go to like public libraries and other local cultural events. And so, you're going see this pop up everywhere, whether it's fewer festivals or events in your community, less programming for children or for older Montanans or less sort of public interest programming. You know, it's also a larger question of, it was not a huge chunk of a budget. And so, it really also speaks to the depth to which the Trump administration is defunding elements of government programming that they say the government doesn't need to support. It basically pushes all of the cultural programming in the state of Montana onto private money. And whether that will continue to happen, we'll have to see.
Sally Mauk: And Lee, Humanities Montana really reaches very remote parts of the state. And those are parts that are just not going to have anyone fill that gap, probably.
Lee Banville: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a unique program in the state that allowed us to have programming from Ravalli County up to Glendive and, you know, out to Ekalaka. So … they did have programming everywhere and those communities I think are going to feel it.
Sally Mauk: Holly, the House this week rejected a resolution endorsing a Utah lawsuit that would give that state ownership of millions of acres of federal public land. The resolution was sponsored by Marion Republican Tom Millett, who supports states taking over federal land within their borders. And here's what he said.
State Rep. Tom Millett: Right now, the western states are deprived of basic and fundamental sovereign powers over their territory.
Sally Mauk: This is an old fight, Holly.
Holly Michels: Yeah, it is, Sally. I think anyone who's been up here during the legislative session knows that the public lands rally is one of the biggest we see in the session. It fills this building every two years and I think is a really good way to illustrate what a big deal this is in Montana. So Rep. Millet, like we heard there, he said he brought this resolution because he wanted to support Utah's claim that unappropriated federal land in the state belongs under state control. Miller argued that his resolution is not about selling federal lands, but about answering that constitutional question, and he also raised concerns about who gets money from royalties on federal lands. But those who opposed the resolution said Montanans have spoken out over and over and very strongly against any sort of federal land transfers. Other people raised concerns about how this resolution could possibly lead to privatization of public lands, and some lawmakers wondered why Montana needed to get involved in Utah's business. So, this resolution ended up dying on the House floor on a 34-66 vote.
Sally Mauk: Lee, the often-repeated phrase, 'Public land should stay in public hands', doesn't always mean the same thing to people. For some it means staying in federal control, and for others, in state control.
Lee Banville: Right. I do think that oftentimes public lands is, especially for Democrats, is sort of code for environmentalism. And for Republicans, it's code for public access or a mix of all of those under both parties. And I think what's interesting about this lawsuit is it speaks to the larger concern that if you transfer public lands from the federal government that, although it's cutting its budget all over the place, doesn't have the sort of stringent rules around balancing the budget and can actually spend more resources to manage those public lands — if it lands on the states, the states don't have the funding to run the lands the way that they're run now. And so that will start to edge us towards potentially selling those lands for either short-term economic need that the state might have or just the fact that they don't have the budget or don't want to devote the budget to monitor and run those lands. And so, with that as a backdrop, this sort of effort ... other states had joined in Utah's case. So, I mean, it was notable that Montana, a Western state with a lot of federal lands chose not to, I think is kind of notable. But I think it does speak to this larger question about public control and what does that really look like.
Sally Mauk: And it's not the end of the debate, that's for sure.
Lee Banville: I don't think it will be no.
Sally Mauk: Well, the legislative calendar is shrinking, with lots of work yet to do. Holly and Lee, we'll talk about it again next week. Thank you.
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