GOP Membership Bylaw Changes Signal Escalation of Intraparty Conflict 

New membership bylaws adopted by the Montana Republican Party have raised alarm bells for some legislators already at loggerheads with the state GOP, inciting new fears that their futures in the party could be at stake. Among other changes, the new rules allow a pathway for party members to be suspended or terminated, without explicitly spelling out reasons that could cause one’s party membership to be terminated.  

Critics of the new bylaws argue the shifts are likely to escalate existing rifts within the party, and flagged concerns about the legality of the changes, which they say clash with an existing state law that governs local central committee membership.  

The bylaws, which Republican State Central Committee members in attendance at the party’s recent platform convention in Missoula approved, spell out new requirements for those who want to maintain their membership in the state party.  

“It’s never been that way,” said Jim Peterson, a former Republican state Senate president and state Senate majority leader from Buffalo who served in the state legislature from 2003-2015. 

Party members will have to pay $20 in dues and sign an affirmation of support stating they will abide by the party’s bylaws. The new provisions in the bylaws also spell out a procedure for suspending or terminating party members “for cause,” with the final decision placed in the hands of the State Central Committee. Causes that could result in suspension or termination are not spelled out in the bylaws. Art Wittich, the state GOP’s chairman, did not answer what those causes could be when asked for examples.  

The bylaws require “official” members who do receive “charges” that could be grounds for suspension or termination to maintain “confidentiality regarding the charges and proceedings,” and outlines a proceedings process. According to the bylaws, new provisions about membership categories, registration and dues will go into effect on July 31. 

The new bylaws raised concern among some legislators, both current and former, over what they called a consolidation of power. They argue the new bylaws would allow for Wittich and the State Central Committee to boot party members who don’t toe the party line, including publicly elected officials like legislators and local precinct committee members.  

Wittich wrote in an email that the new bylaws were drafted by the GOP’s Rules Committee and were approved almost unanimously at the party’s platform convention earlier this month.  

“The vast majority of the party is tired of a few county officers, and a few [rogue] legislators, ignoring our party platform and joining with democrats to balloon government taxes and spending,” Wittich wrote in an email to the Beacon. “Why should the winning party surrender to the dying party?”  

For Peterson, the former Republican Senate president, the new bylaws escalate a longstanding internal rift in the state GOP.  

The party has long seen conflict between its more-conservative and more-pragmatic wings, both at the central committee level and in the state legislature. Those divisions recently came to a head during the 2025 legislative session, which saw groups of Republicans in the state Senate and House siding with Democrats on several key issues.  

Following those defections, Wittich, who has long been associated with the party’s more-conservative faction, ran for party chair on promises to “vet” legislators to ensure their fealty to the state GOP. He delivered on those promises when the party released a first-of-its-kind “Honor Roll” of candidates this spring, in which it backed a slate of more-conservative candidates in the primaries over ones the party viewed as more moderate. Peterson wrote a column about the bylaw changes this week, in which he also pointed to Wittich “engineering” his ouster as Senate president when they served in the legislature together in the early 2010s.  

The column argued the moves establish a pattern of Wittich attempting to “purge” the Montana GOP, in an effort to ensure its members at all levels align with Wittich’s ideas of Republicanism.  

“My goal here is first of all, I served for 12 years and I’m almost 80 years old, and so I’m not doing this for my ego,” Peterson said. “I’m not doing this because I want to win. I’m doing this because I think it’s the wrong process. That’s not what our founding fathers intended. They intended people to have healthy discussions, and you represent the people who elected you.” 

In an email, Wittich responded to the column by calling Peterson a “wee bit delusional.” He disagreed with Peterson’s characterization of how his ouster as the state’s Senate president happened. Wittich wrote that, “The caucus voted him out” because they were “tired of him cutting deals with Gov. Schweitzer … and bloating the state budget.” Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who served from 2005-2013, was a Democrat.  

Wittich also suggested those who raised concerns about the bylaws should have attended and raised them at the convention.  

But legislators who’ve been at odds with the party pushed back on that point. Llew Jones, a Conrad Republican who found himself in the party’s crosshairs this spring, pointed to last year’s party convention, when the party barred nine GOP senators from voting for party leadership after they drew ire for crossing the aisle during the 2025 legislative session on some key issues. The GOP argued in court that, as a private body, the party has the right to manage its affairs as it sees fit.  

Following a spring in which the state party passed resolutions stating Jones and other legislators were not considered Republicans, Jones said there was little doubt in his mind they would have received a similar reception if they’d attended the party’s platform convention this year.  

When Wittich was elected to serve as party chair last summer, the vote included more than 200 delegates. At this year’s party platform convention, where the new bylaws passed muster, 96 people voted on them, according to a column from Rep. Tom Millett, R-Marion. The new bylaws passed, Millett wrote, 93-3. 

“Identifying ideological differences is not a ‘purge;’ it is part of the political process, and voters remain free to decide whom they support,” Millett wrote.  

Beyond the implications for ongoing GOP infighting, Peterson and Jones both said the new bylaws conflict with existing state law. 

“I think this will have to be resolved in the courts,” Peterson said.  

Meanwhile, the power to challenge these new bylaws rests with local Republican central committees, they said.  

“I will be shocked if these central committees take this laying down,” Jones said. He speculated some may push back against the state party over the bylaw changes. 

Central committees govern political party affairs, making ultimate decisions about endorsing candidates, ballot initiatives and supporting local campaigns. They also send representatives to state party platform conventions, like the one that took place in Missoula earlier this month. Republican voters elect central committee members every two years.  

In 2019, Kalispell Rep. Frank Garner passed a bill in the legislature that aimed to prevent central committee fraud. The legislation provided that aside from a death of an incumbent precinct committee member, written resignation, or their move out of the precinct which they represent, precinct committee representatives cannot be removed from office. Garner’s 2019 bill followed hefty conflict that had come to a head in the Cascade County GOP.  

Steve Fitzpatrick, now the Cascade County central committee’s treasurer and a longtime lawmaker, drafted the 2019 bill about central committees. He recalled how Cascade County central committee members — who he described as “far-right” — began “playing games” when more moderately oriented members won election to the central committee in 2018.  

Fitzpatrick described rewritten rules, people being stripped of their positions, and fraudulent “proxies” attempting to cast votes on the committee. He added Cascade County wasn’t the only place where that type of activity was taking place.  

“Part of [the bill] was getting rid of this crap of taking people out of elected positions,” Fitzpatrick said.  

Intraparty conflict, he said, has long simmered below the surface, often appearing in local GOP central committees around the state. But in his view, having the conflict ramp up to the state level is a new dynamic — one Fitzpatrick thinks is spurred by split views in the majority party about how to handle Montana’s hefty budget surplus.  

The Cascade County GOP is one of the county central committees Jones anticipated might mount a challenge to the state GOP’s new bylaws, alongside a handful of others.  

“I think the bylaws conflict with the state code,” Fitzpatrick, who has a law degree, said. “There’s no doubt about it.”   

Fitzpatrick, however, said his county’s central committee members haven’t discussed challenging the state’s new bylaws, to his knowledge. The central committee hasn’t met for at least two months, and its next scheduled meeting is in August. 

As for Wittich, he’s confident the party’s new bylaws will stand, even if they are challenged in court.  

“The MTGOP has first amendment and associational rights that have been recognized by the courts,” he wrote in an email. “We are confident these amendments will also be upheld if they are challenged.”  

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