Montana GOP in Court Over Blocking Some Republican Senators from Electing Party Leadership

The Montana Republican Party in court Wednesday refuted allegations that it wrongly disenfranchised Republican state senators at its June convention.

Responding to allegations publicly for the first time, Montana GOP leadership told a Lewis and Clark County district court judge that it had the right under the First Amendment to manage its affairs as it sees fit, including censuring and expelling members.

At issue is the party’s decision to deny nine Republican members of the Montana Senate a chance to elect new party leadership during the convention. Members of the hard-right Montana Freedom Caucus called on MTGOP delegates to not recognize the nine senators and prevailed on a 136-to-97 vote.

The nine Republican lawmakers are entangled in a months-long feud tied to their votes that broke with the rest of the GOP caucus on several key issues during the 2025 Legislature, including passage of the state budget and a version of property tax relief generally opposed by a majority of Republican senators. Sens. Jason Ellsworth, of Hamilton; Denley Loge, of St. Regis; and Shelley Vance, of Belgrade sued over their disenfranchisement. Vance took the witness stand Wednesday, receiving pointed questions from GOP attorney Emily Jones.

“Shelley, do you agree that a majority of the delegates at the Officers’ Convention voted not to have you participate?” asked Jones, who opened her line of questions by mentioning that her husband, GOP political consultant Jake Eaton, worked on Vance’s campaign for state Senate.

Vance described the vote to exclude the nine lawmakers from voting as a “gotcha.” She had been invited to the convention and paid to register, she said. Because the rules entitle legislators to a vote, she expected to participate.

“I had no heads up. And when this took place, I didn’t even have, I didn’t feel like I personally had time to even think about, you know, what I could do, or what I could say, or anything like that,” Vance said. ”But the end result was … my ability to represent my beliefs as an elected official, as an elected senator and as a delegate and representing my people in my district that I have, that was taken away.”

After the June vote expelling the lawmakers, they were told to leave their seats and directed to stand against the wall at the back of the room if they intended to watch.

The targeted Republican lawmakers are suing for a do-over, asking the court to block Art Wittich, the party leader elected at the convention, from holding that position until there’s another vote. Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Chris Abbott did not reach a decision at the conclusion of Wednesday’s hearing.

Wittich campaigned on new strategies for how the MTGOP will do political business, including creating a “red policy committee” to research and review new legislative proposals. Another change he floated: establishing a “conservative governance committee” to vet candidates and hand out party endorsements — a stamp of approval that could be leveraged during Republican primary elections. 

C.J. Cavan, the parliamentarian hired by MTGOP to interpret the rules during the convention, testified that none of the office election outcomes the day of the convention would have been changed by the three senators who sued. Had all nine of the censured senators participated, it still wouldn’t have been enough to change an outcome, Cavan said.

Cavan also said the time to object to disenfranchisement was during the convention, not after the fact as the plaintiffs chose to do.

“None of the nine senators raised a point of order following the vote on the exclusion motion,” Cavan said in a prehearing declaration to the court. “Similarly, none of them made a motion to rescind or amend the motion, a motion to reconsider, or any other motion.”

MTGOP interim Chief Operating Officer Deborah Churchill questioned whether Tempel could object. The Republican senator from Chester stopped payment on the check for his registration once the party denied his chance to vote. Churchill is also a member of the MTGOP executive board and her remarks came in a prefiled declaration.

The MTGOP executive board censured the Republican lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session. A questionnaire submitted to at least one senator, Josh Kassmier, of Fort Benton, focused primarily on Republican Senate President Matt Regier of Kalispell, who lost control of his caucus on the first day of the session. On day one, moderate Republicans assigned to a never-before-used committee concerning the executive branch rebelled, forming a coalition with Democrats to get reassigned to better committees. The lawmakers assigned to the Executive Branch Review Committee described it as a “parking lot” meant to keep them from working on the state budget and key bills like the renewal of Montana’s expanded Medicaid program.

Less than two weeks later, Regier used an anonymous tip line to report Ellsworth for official misconduct to the Legislative Audit Division. The two competed in late 2024 to be Senate president, a position Ellsworth held in 2023.

The Senate Ethics Committee eventually found credible evidence that Ellsworth contracted $170,100 in government work to a long-time business associate without ever disclosing their 20-year relationship, and the chamber voted to ban him from the Senate floor for life and strip him of any committee assignments for two years. The fight persisted throughout the session, with the censured Republicans working with House Republicans and legislative Democrats to pass a budget, increase teacher pay, create property tax relief on primary homes and renew Medicaid expansion. Those bills prevailed over Republican party-line proposals for the same subjects.

There were new details about the party feud revealed during the hearing Wednesday. 

Former MTGOP Vice Chair Lola Sheldon Galloway, of Great Falls, told the court prior to censuring that the executive board met with Regier, Sens. Sue Vinton and Mark Noland in March to discuss the matter.

The board then issued the censure letter in which it declared that it no longer recognized the nine lawmakers to be Republicans.

During the exchange, the attorney for the disenfranchised Republicans, Joan Mell, asked if Galloway was aware of Chruchill being disciplined for surreptitiously recording conversations at the party headquarters in Helena earlier this year. Galloway said she wasn’t. 

This story originally appeared in the Montana Free Press, which can be found online at montanafreepress.org.