Shaylee Ragar: The 69th legislature is starting Week Five. Lawmakers have begun an ethics investigation into a sitting senator. Legislation concerning transgender health care and bathroom use is moving through the process. This is The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. I'm Shaylee Ragar with Montana Public Radio.
Mara Silvers: I'm Mara Silvers with Montana Free Press.
Tom Lutey: And I'm Tom Lutey with Montana Free Press.
Shaylee Ragar: Hello, how are we doing? Are we feeling settled in yet? It's week five.
Mara Silvers: I'm gripping my coffee maybe a little too hard this morning.
Tom Lutey: I need a good barber and a good dry cleaner, so I think we're settled in.
Shaylee Ragar: There you go. But I will say the state Senate doesn't quite seem to be in a routine yet.
Tom Lutey: They haven't quite settled in. They're still trying to sort out an ethics complaint.
“ It is our duty to call out allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Shaylee Ragar: Tom, give us a summary of this investigation into Republican Senator Jason Ellsworth.
Tom Lutey: Sure, Hamilton Republican Ellsworth is accused of circumventing state law in order to award a large contract to a business associate.
“ For approximately $170,000 of taxpayer money.”
Tom Lutey: He's alleged to have done this by, uh, splitting contracts in two in order to keep the contracts, uh, small and under the radar of the department of administration, which is what the legislative auditor concluded in a report last week.
“ The allegations in the findings of the audit report are serious. They must be addressed.”
Tom Lutey: The auditor also concluded…
”Actions taken by former Senate president Ellsworth constituted abuse of his position as Senate president. And that a waste of state resources occurred.”
Tom Lutey: Ellsworth, right before the Ethics Committee was about to get going, produced swarm testimony from Bryce Eggleston, the would be contractor, who declared that Eggleston, not Ellsworth, wrote the agreements. The detail is intended to poke holes in the work of the auditor who didn't interview Ellsworth or the contractor for his investigation.
Shaylee Ragar: Seems like there are new details in this story every day, but before we get to that, Tom, talk us through the somewhat awkward dynamics that are at play here.
Tom Lutey: Yeah, there are a lot of awkward dynamics at play here, starting first of all, with Ellsworth being the past president of the Senate and Matt Regier, the current president, Ellsworth led the Senate in 2023.
The contracting question stems from an effort to limit the powers of Montana courts, a project that Ellsworth directed in response to Republican demands. Despite that, Ellsworth, failed to win the reappointment of the Senate to Senate president. And he lost the job to Kalispell Republican Matt Regier.
Not to be left out, Democrats partnered with Ellsworth in the first minutes of the session to get better committee assignments for a few of their members plus a few Republicans, including Ellsworth. And of course, this would not be the everything bagel of chaos that it is were it not for an appearance by the executive branch.
The Department of Administration, despite questioning Ellsworth's contract, approved it. And we can expect Misty Ann Giles, administration director, to be testifying before the ethics committee about that decision.
Shaylee Ragar: So, Tom, what's next?
”There's going to be some hard days up here.”
Tom Lutey: Well, the Ethics Committee meets today, it's their second meeting.
”There's going to be some more of those hard days to come, but, but members–”
Tom Lutey: And they're still working on kind of the rules of actually how to proceed, and there's some disagreement about that. What comes after it is likely several days of hearings and testimony.
”To discipline one of our own members is a serious responsibility. And one that we must handle carefully, fairly, and with due process.”
Tom Lutey: The Senate's a pretty busy place right now. They're a little behind the eight ball on bills. The deadline for non-revenue bills is coming up at the end of February.
Shaylee Ragar: How much oxygen do you expect this to take up in the Senate?
Tom Lutey: Well, let's put it this way: If I found an open window, I'd sit beside it and breathe deep.
Shaylee Ragar: That's probably a good idea. Like you said, Tom, this is gumming up the process.
”This is a distraction and it needs to be taken care of.”
Shaylee Ragar: They're already tight on days. They have a 90 day limit. The House is flying through legislation, sending it over to the Senate, and the Senate is not keeping pace with the House.
Tom Lutey: They're at a full gallop right now and the Senate's going to have a hard time catching up with them. I think leadership in the Senate has suggested that they're on top of it, but we are starting to hear from people in committee that they're behind.
Shaylee Ragar: I think what's interesting about this time right now, where the Senate is trying to catch up, the House is flying through. We can really see what legislators are prioritizing with their limited time, their limited scheduling.
We've seen bills to regulate the judiciary move really quickly through the Senate, and now we're also seeing some bills that would curb rights of transgender Montanans. So again, these priorities are moving higher on the list for lawmakers right now, even as all this other stuff is happening.
Mara, broadly, what are we seeing on that front?
Mara Silvers: We've really started to see some of these bills pick up speed in recent weeks. So I'll just go through the major bills that are on my radar, kind of one at a time, because they're each pretty complicated.
We have a bill that originated in the Senate that would create a felony for adults who provide certain types of gender transition related medical care to minors under the age of 16, or help procure those treatments for the purpose of aligning a youth's appearance with their gender identity.
“ Acknowledging biological realities. should not be complicated or controversial.”
Mara Silvers: Separately, we have a bill that essentially would designate transgender women and girls as men and prohibit them from participating in female athletics or activities. So that sounds pretty similar. Listeners might remember a bill that we saw pass in 2021, but it's definitely more expansive because of its application to activities generally.
And then third is a bill that would apply to minors and adults. The bill is similar to quote unquote bathroom bills that we've seen in other states.
”Women should not have to sacrifice their privacy or their safety because of political agendas or cultural trends.”
Mara Silvers: It would essentially require public facilities to make sure that their multi-user bathrooms, locker rooms and sleeping areas are sex segregated based on a person's chromosomes and reproductive biology.
Shaylee Ragar: Republican lawmakers have prioritized this kind of legislation in past sessions. We're seeing that again this session. I'll note that Lieutenant Governor Kristen Juras was in a couple of these hearings representing the interests of the governor in support of these proposals.
I know you've been sitting through some long hearings, Mara. These are hours long hearings about these proposals. Where are they coming from?
Mara Silvers: They are taking up a lot of time, but the proponents are generally the same. There's some divergence depending on the bill, but some of the main groups that we're seeing support these bills are national and Montana based groups that have made gender and gender related bills, bills related to transgender people quite a priority in recent sessions.
So Alliance Defending Freedom is one of the most powerful national groups on that front. The Montana Family Foundation is a local group that a lot of people might know it's a conservative Christian policy group. And then there's another organization that's testifying in support of these bills called the Montana Medical Freedom Alliance.
So those are some of the big names that people might see and recognize. But at a really high level, I'd just say that these types of bills, these gender expression and trans rights bills nationally have really moved into the limelight for Republican lawmakers across the country. They've kind of eclipsed abortion bills in some ways in the hot button culture war category that we see in Montana and have turned into a wedge issue that conservatives are really wielding to try progressives as socially extreme.
And on the flip side, extreme is also the way that we can see Democrats and transgender rights advocates describing the groups that are backing these bills. So that's an accusation that's flying both ways.
Shaylee Ragar: But we should note that there have been far more opponents in these hearings than proponents.
”We'll go to opponents in the room. I know we have a lot.”
Shaylee Ragar: Who are legislators hearing from and what are they saying?
Mara Silvers: Opponents have far outnumbered proponents in every one of these bill hearings and, for the most part, I would say that there are groups that would be impacted by this legislation. For example, the Montana League of Cities and Towns has been an opponent on the bathroom bill saying that the local governments will really be the ones that face liability and huge price tags if this bill were to go into effect.
But there's also medical organizations, individual medical providers, who on other bills say that this is just creating a hostile environment in Montana for the practice of legitimate medicine. And probably most saliently, we've heard from a lot of trans people…
“ I am a transgender man. And I've been on testosterone for 18 years.”
Mara Silvers: …who have just talked about what it is like for them to move through public spaces in Montana and how these bills would make that harder. Interestingly, I will note that one group of people that did not show up to testify en masse for one of these bills were the parents of trans children who were notably absent from the hearing on the felony bill.
“ I'm here today thinking of all of the parents who would be here today to express their opposition, but for fear of prosecution.”
Mara Silvers: The opponents have consistently said, ‘why are these the culture war issues that you're spending resources on as opposed to all these things that actually do create issues or have real impacts on people's lives?’
“ We didn't ask to be here. We don't file these bills, and we don't ask you to talk about them. You file them, and then we have to come talk about them because we want to defend ourselves. It's not us. It's them.”
Shaylee Ragar: What do you expect to see going forward with this legislation, Mara?
Mara Silvers: Honestly, since 2021, when we started to see more of these bills become normal in the Montana Capitol, they pass more and more easily.
And so now as we're sitting here in 2025 with solid Republican majorities and in both chambers, and these bills really represent that culture war political kind of wedge issue that I was talking about earlier, I'm expecting them to pass through both chambers quite easily. And then for the battle to move on to the courts, which honestly brings it full circle.
It really reflects how much pressure is on the judiciary and why Republican lawmakers have put the judiciary so squarely in their sights because most of these bills have not gone into effect in Montana because judges have enjoined them or struck them down on constitutional grounds. And that has been immensely frustrating for the lawmakers and and proponents of this legislation in the Capitol.
Shaylee Ragar: That is such an important thread, Mara. I appreciate you bringing that full circle for us.
I do think we have to leave it there for today, but before we go, our new favorite segment tell me what was your favorite moment from last week?
Tom Lutey: Oh, easily walking out of the Capitol at 530 and the sun still being up.
Shaylee Ragar: Oh my gosh, yes, wasn't that glorious? What about you, Mara?
Mara Silvers: I think the thing that's coming to mind for me is this moment in the basement a lot of our best scenes take place in the basement. A colleague of ours poked her head into my office and pointed down the hall and she said, ‘did you know that there's a blood pressure monitor next to the vending machine in that room over there?’ And it was her first time seeing it and something that I had the same reaction when I saw it for the first time. But it's hilarious to me that right next to all the soda and all the sweet snacks and all everything else, there is a blood pressure monitoring machine just for the very stressed out lobbyists and lawmakers who are walking around this building.
Shaylee Ragar: I also share such a fondness for this building. We do have a lot of fun in the basement. I will say my favorite moment from last week was the governor held a press conference in Bozeman to talk about taxes. I took the opportunity to get out of the Capitol.
Mara Silvers: Good for you. See some sunshine. Take a road trip.
Shaylee Ragar: Right, go talk to people who are not living this every day and have other lives.
Mara Silvers: Yeah, good reminder that we all need to get out of this bubble every once in a while. Go touch grass.
Shaylee Ragar: Right, well, snow.
This has been The Session. A look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. Thanks guys.
Mara Silvers: Thanks, Shaylee.
Tom Lutey: Thanks.
