After Democrats got wiped out of every statewide office last year, most Montanans thought things couldn’t get any worse for their political party.
Then the 2025 legislative session came and 10 Democratic state senators who will be up for election again voted three times to keep corrupt Republican Senator Jason Ellsworth from being expelled from office.
Ellsworth was fined $600,000 by the Federal Trade Commission for unethical business practices. He pleaded guilty to criminal obstruction of a police officer while trying to abuse his elected office to get out of a speeding ticket. He was accused of domestic violence involving a firearm by the woman he used to live with. He was found by the Senate Ethics Committee and the auditor of state government to have engaged in waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money by directing $170,000 to his longtime friend who hadn’t done any work to earn the money.
Despite all this, Democrats said it wasn’t enough to justify removing Ellsworth from office, even as a majority of the Senate voted to kick him out. Those Democrats now have to own three votes to protect Ellsworth for the rest of their short-lived political careers.
Senator Cora Neumann of Bozeman previously ran for Congress. Senator Shane Morigeau of Missoula ran for State Auditor. Senator Laura Smith of Helena wanted to be Attorney General someday. They were some of Montana Democrats’ best hopes to one day win higher office, until they chose Jason Ellsworth and corruption over the people of Montana and ethical integrity. Their hopes of ever ascending to higher office are now over.
Senators Denise Hayman of Bozeman, Sara Novak of Butte, Jonathan Windy Boy of Box Elder, and Andrea Olsen, Willis Curdy, and Jacinda Morigeau (all from Missoula) represent Democrat-friendly districts in the Senate. Any Democrat from those areas who wants to serve in the Legislature now has an easy path: just point out to Democratic primary voters that those senators sided with a corrupt Republican. Hayman, Novak, Windy Boy, Olsen, Curdy, and Morigeau will never survive a Democratic primary against even a halfway-competent opponent.
I hope Senator Mary Ann Dunwell enjoyed her last legislative session. Not only will she have to try to survive any Democratic primary after her votes to save Ellsworth, she’ll then have to face a Republican in a red-leaning district in the general election. While the Republican candidate can campaign against Republican corruption, Dunwell will have to explain her pro-Republican-corruption votes as a Democrat. Goodbye, Mary Ann.
Like elected sheep being led to the political slaughterhouse, these 8 Democrats blindly followed Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, a Bozeman Democrat, and Minority Whip Laura Smith, D-Helena, as they urged them to stand with their good friend Jason Ellsworth. It’s amazing to me they can’t see that Flowers and Smith led them straight over a cliff into the political abyss.
Greg Hertz is a Republican state senator from Polson. He is the chair of the Montana Republican Legislative Campaign Committee.