HELENA — The Montana Senate adjourned for its transmittal break Thursday evening — and one of their final actions was to refer their presiding officer for a potential investigation.
Senators voted to ask the Legislative Audit Division’s “Fraud Hotline” to look into claims about Senate President Sen. Matt Regier, R-Kalispell.
On Wednesday, the Montana Free Press published an article that looked at Regier’s hiring of an attorney while serving as speaker of the House in 2023 and at the scope of that lawyer’s contracts with the state.
Sen. Shelley Vance, R-Belgrade, said on the Senate floor Thursday that she was troubled by the article.
She made a motion to ask the Senate Rules Committee to consider whether Regier had acted unlawfully or “engaged in waste, fraud and abuse” — and whether to refer the issue to the Senate Ethics Committee.
Vance specifically linked her motion to the ongoing investigation into Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, who preceded Regier as president.
“Mr. President, these are many of the same issues raised in the matter involving Sen. Ellsworth,” she said. “Since we referred Sen. Ellsworth to Ethics, it only makes sense we begin a similar investigation into the current president of the Senate as well.”
However, Sen. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, made a substitute motion to instead forward the issue to the Fraud Hotline — which Regier had previously done with allegations that Ellsworth had improperly handled a state contract.
“This would be consistent with the process that the former president went through, as we should attempt to stay consistent,” Zolnikov said. “Let the Audit do the report, and let them do the findings. That would be intellectually honest and consistent.”
Zolnikov's motion passed 34-16. Regier voted for it, while Vance and Ellsworth voted against it.
Regier told reporters after the Senate adjourned that the move for an investigation was politically motivated, that everything he did was “100% legal,” and that he was happy to have the Audit Division look into it and he expected to be fully exonerated.
Vance and Ellsworth are both among the group of nine Republican senators who have broken with Regier on a number of key votes since the start of the session.
The Ethics Committee hearing into Ellsworth is set to begin on Friday. The Senate is set to return from their weeklong transmittal break the following Friday, March 14.
