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Montana Senate leadership delays action on Ellsworth motion

Montana Senate
Senate Chamber
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HELENA — The atmosphere on the Montana Senate floor was much quieter Friday than it had been Thursday. A day after a fierce debate centered on the investigation into Sen. Jason Ellsworth, Senate leadership said it made sense to take a step back for now.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, said, after talking with other senators, he had decided to delay a proposed motion to remove Ellsworth from a committee – a motion that kicked off several hours of heated discussions.

“I think it is a good time to take a breath and talk this over more and address the issue at a later date,” McGillvray said on the floor Friday.

(Watch the video for more on the ongoing tension in the Senate.)

Senate leadership delays action on Ellsworth motion

Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, has been accused of not following the proper procedure when approving a $170,000 state contract late last year, while serving as Senate president. A Legislative Audit Division report said his handling of the contract had demonstrated “abuse and waste.” Ellsworth and his attorney have pushed back against those findings.

Senators voted unanimously last week to refer the allegations against Ellsworth to the Senate Ethics Committee.

On Thursday, McGillvray announced he would move to take Ellsworth off the Senate Finance and Claims Committee and replace him with Sen. Vince Ricci, R-Laurel. That motion requires one day’s notice, so it was scheduled for Friday.

After that, Senate Minority Leader Sen. Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, brought a motion to suspend the Ethics Committee process for now and rerefer the allegations to the Montana Department of Justice. It passed 27-22, with support from all 18 Senate Democrats and nine Republicans – including Ellsworth – who have broken with leadership on several key rules votes this session.

Flowers said on the floor Thursday that he made the motion because the ethics process had become too politicized and that it was turning into a criminal prosecution instead of a fact-finding effort. Senate Democrats echoed that Friday in a statement justifying the move.

“At every turn, Democrats have tried to support an unbiased and impartial process to review the allegations against Senator Ellsworth,” Flowers said in the statement. “Our integrity as legislators is paramount. The Ethics Committee has alleged criminal offenses and it is appropriate that we put Montana’s top law enforcement officer on the case. I’m looking forward to our senators returning to the important work that Montanans sent us here for.”

McGillvray told MTN Friday that Senate leadership sought to take Ellsworth off the Finance and Claims Committee because the allegations against him created an appearance of potential conflict if he were to be responsible for appropriating state money. He said they agreed to delay for now after talking with Flowers.

“We're just pulling back right now because we want to have more time to talk with the minority party – because I think everybody sees it’s a problem, we just need to figure out what's the best way to address it,” he said. “I think maybe more communication will come up with something, maybe we won't.”

Senate Chamber

On Thursday, Sen. Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls, had said that he planned to make a motion to expel Ellsworth on Friday. In the end, that didn’t happen.

Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, told MTN he thought an expulsion motion would be premature at this time.

“We’ll continue to go through these steps, see what DOJ says, and see what happens further with the Ethics Committee,” he said.

McGillvray said during Thursday’s debate that he had received a text message from Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who runs the Department of Justice. He said Knudsen wasn’t sure DOJ would have the jurisdiction to take up a case without a referral from a local law enforcement agency.

On Thursday, a DOJ spokesperson told MTN they would review the referral from the Senate when they receive it, to see if there are possible steps for the department to take. They said Friday that they didn’t have any further comment yet.

McGillvray told MTN that, despite the time and effort that's gone into this issue, it isn't stopping the Senate from doing its work.

“We're moving our policy,” he said. “This is not going to interrupt the business that we're about up here with regard to property taxes, judicial reform, elections, you name it.”