District Court judge says he’ll rule quickly on term limit lawsuit

Montana lawmakers are limited to serving eight years in each the House and Senate within a 16-year period. Some lawmakers have stayed in office longer than 16 years by switching between chambers. 

But Knudsen’s decision overturned a 2012 decision by then-Attorney General and Democrat Steve Bullock, which interpreted the term limits statute as allowing candidates to run for election in the House or Senate immediately after completing eight years in the opposite chamber. They then could return to their original chamber 16 years after they began their term, with no break between those.

Knudsen’s opinion differs, saying the clock starts when a candidate is voted into office in November — not when they take office in January. Legislators would have to have a break between returning to office, and two legislators would be disqualified from being certified this week for office.

And on Tuesday, lawyers for the Attorney General’s Office argued that eight years means eight years, full stop.

“As soon as you hit that eight years, the constitution doesn’t contain any other provisions,” Deputy Solicitor General Brent Mead told the court Tuesday. “It is eight years that triggers the prohibition, and that’s it.”

House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick and House Rep. Llew Jones, along with Ted Kronebusch — a longtime ally of Jones and leader of the Pondera County Republican Party — are plaintiffs in the case, and all briefly took the witness stand. 

Jones, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee and an architect of the state budget, beat Rep. Zach Wirth in a tight Republican primary for Senate District 9 earlier this year. Fitzpatrick is running for reelection in House District 24.

They will be barred from being on the ballot if Knudsen’s decision stands. Jones and Fitzpatrick both won their Republican primaries in districts that have historically gone to conservatives in the state. 

Senate President Matt Regier, a Flathead Republican, requested Knudsen look at Jones’ eligibility on July 9, just six weeks before the ballot certification deadline, which is Aug. 20.

Fitzpatrick said after the hearing that he felt it went well and that Judge Abbott was asking questions he felt favored the plaintiffs. Both sides agree that court is the proper venue for settling the issue, said Jesse Laslovich, who gave arguments for the legislators on Tuesday.

But the timing is an issue, Laslovich said, even pointing out that more legal documents had been filed in the time leading up to the 2:30 p.m. hearing that no one — not the court, not the defense, not the plaintiffs — all fully had time to read.

“If we were sincere about this 800-pound gorilla in the room needing to be addressed, we would do it the right way,” Laslovich said. “It would not be 90 days before the secretary of state is to certify the ballots for the general election.”

Austin James, representing the Secretary of State’s Office, said they are under a massive time crunch. They also don’t know what to do with the replacement candidates that the state Republican Party has asked for.

On Monday night, members of the state’s Republican Party nominated Kronebusch as a replacement candidate for Jones — the state GOP previously instructed county parties in the districts Jones and Fitzpatrick would represent to find replacement candidates for them.

“We’re not sure what to do with that once we get it, and we would ask the court to declare whether a vacancy hazard has not occurred depending on its ruling, and simultaneously what that replacement process looks like depending on its ruling,” James said. “But at the end of the day, we also want to make sure that our voters have a candidate on the ballot, and that that candidate is eligible.”