2 days Ago By SEABORN LARSON [email protected]
The only presence Sen. Jason Ellsworth will have in the Senate Chamber at the Montana State Capitol going forward will be the nameplate clinging to his vacated desk, and even that will expire in a matter of weeks. The Montana Senate on Tuesday resoundingly voted for a censure that stripped Ellsworth of nearly all legislative privileges, bringing a bipartisan resolution to a fight that's dogged the upper chamber for months.
The censure motion was the product of negotiations between Republican and Democratic leadership. As proposed by Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, Ellsworth was removed from all committee assignments and banned from serving on interim committees after the session. He retained his ability to vote, although only by remote means; the motion also rescinded Ellsworth’s floor privileges for life, meaning he cannot appear in the Senate chamber, even after his term through 2026 ends.
The motion passed 44-6, with Ellsworth voting against it. In the waning hours of 2024, Ellsworth leaned on his authority as president of the Senate to sign the state onto two contracts for a total of $170,100. The contractor was a longtime business associate and friend, one he had tried and failed to secure government work for before.
Ellsworth never disclosed the relationship with that contractor, Bryce Eggleston, and was initially thwarted by legislative staff who believed the senator was evading oversight of the state procurement procedures. The Montana State News Bureau first reported on the contracts Ellsworth attempted to sign, as well as the deal he ultimately did obtain for Eggleston. Days after the Montana State News Bureau broke the story, Eggleston terminated the agreement and no money ever changed hands.
McGillvray stated on Tuesday that the motion meant to punish Ellsworth, the former Senate president, not just for the ethical violations but for episodes that spanned two decades that, many lawmakers felt, had become a stain on the Senate’s integrity. Those spanned Ellsworth’s federal violations to a restraining order accusing him of domestic violence. “It’s more than just the Senate Ethics Committee report, I want to make that clear,” McGillvray said on the Senate floor.
“We’re looking all the way back, looking at a pattern of abuse that needs to be addressed by the Senate body.” Ellsworth, who has been mostly absent from the Capitol in recent weeks and was again on Tuesday, did not return calls or texts for comment for this story. The censure broke an impasse Republicans and Democrats couldn’t clear last week, when, after a legislative audit report and Senate ethics investigation found Ellsworth in violation of legislative ethics laws, the chamber battled over whether to expel the senator or brand him with something less severe.
Republicans who wanted to police one of their own sought to expel him, but were accused by Democrats of taking it too far because Ellsworth allied with the minority party early in the session. Republicans rejected a less consequential censure motion proposed by the Democrats, whom GOP lawmakers accused of protecting one of the votes that maintains their coalition’s majority of the chamber. Sen.
Chris Pope, a Bozeman Democrat and vice chair of the Senate Ethics Committee that probed Ellsworth’s contract transactions, said Tuesday the censure resulted in a “very black mark” for Ellsworth, but was appropriate. “I think there’s a sense in this body that our colleague has really fallen and that there needs to be consequences,” Pope said. “We’ve also — as a body, I think — been interested in being judicious and being fair, but being very explicit as to what the punishment and what the long-term need is here for this body to express itself and its commitment to transparency and integrity and decorum to the people of Montana.
” Other lawmakers maintained the censure didn’t go far enough. Sen. Forrest Mandeville, a Columbus Republican who chaired the ethics committee, offered a substitute motion to expel Ellsworth, the fourth such motion since this affair began in January.
“I don’t really see what’s changed in the last week that would change my mind that expulsion is the most appropriate punishment,” Mandeville said. “I feel that the infractions that the senator from Senate District 43 has made over the course of his service in the Senate makes him unsuitable for office.” That motion needed a two-thirds vote to succeed, but drew a 25-25 tie.
The prevailing sentiment after the censure motion passed on Tuesday was relief from Senate leadership of both parties. The fight over how to handle Ellsworth has drawn bitter, intense debates in the upper chamber and devoured precious time in the 90-day session. “Eating up time is probably an understatement,” Senate President Matt Regier told reporters after the hearing.
“We did not expect to come in here and have to deal with this type, this level of ethics violations, but it’s part of our job too. We need to make sure the people of Montana trust this institution and the process.” Regier and others said they still preferred an expulsion, although the censure is, effectively, every punishment he could face except removing him from the Legislature entirely.
“It’s pretty severe,” McGillvray said. The censure laid on Ellsworth on Tuesday also bars him from communicating with legislative staff. “Legislative staff care deeply about the Montana Legislature,” Legislative Services Director Jerry Howe said Tuesday.
“Like a family experiencing the public divorce of their parents, this is a somber day for all of us. Having said what I just said, we all have deep respect for the decisions of the House and the Senate — especially those that are made by a two-thirds vote.” It’s unclear whether the matter is, in fact, fully resolved.
Moderate Republicans and Senate Democrats last month raised questions about a separate arrangement in which Regier hired Kalispell attorney Abby Moscatel to serve as his special counsel. The Senate sent that matter to the Legislative Audit Division, staking their commitment to that investigation on the GOP’s enthusiasm for probing Ellsworth’s contract dealings. Weeks later, the audit division submitted its report, which found no evidence to substantiate that Regier had violated any state law in obtaining those legal services.
Still, Sen. Shelley Vance, R-Belgrade, claimed last week the matter had left a “dark cloud” over the chamber and attempted to advance the matter to the Senate Rules Committee, presumptively initiating ethics proceedings against Regier. McGillvray, who chairs the rules committee, said Tuesday he had no intention of calling a meeting to consider Vance’s referral.
Vance said she hoped the chamber will take up her referral before the session ends. Vance, who shares an office with Ellsworth, ultimately did vote for the censure on Tuesday, but did so perhaps begrudgingly. “I thought it went over the top,” particularly the lifetime ban, Vance said.
“But in negotiations that I was not a part of, I understand that’s all we could do.” “He did, he needed to be punished,” she added..
