Knudsen’s Term-limit Reset Races the Ballot-certification Clock

A new legal interpretation of Montana’s term limit law is colliding with an approaching deadline to finalize the November ballot, setting up a court fight over whether two veteran Republican lawmakers can compete for seats in the 2027 Legislature.

Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen this week rescinded and replaced a 2012 legal opinion that has guided the state’s enforcement of legislative term limits for the past 14 years. Knudsen issued the opinion at the request of Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, who asked for an opinion on whether Rep. Llew Jones is constitutionally eligible to appear on the ballot for Senate District 9. According to Knudsen’s interpretation, Jones, who defeated a Republican challenger in the June primary, is not eligible to run for the Senate seat in 2026. 

According to a Friday court filing requesting a temporary restraining order to prevent Knudsen’s decision from taking effect, House Majority Leader and House District 24 candidate Steve Fitzpatrick, R- Great Falls, would also be ineligible for the ballot under Knudsen’s opinion. 

The Montana GOP Executive Board passed a resolution Friday “supporting Montana’s constitutional term limits” and “establishing an expedited process” to designate replacement candidates for Senate District 9 and House District 24.

Montana voters approved term limits in 1992 through Constitutional Initiative 64. Effective Jan. 1, 1993, the amendment bars a candidate from the ballot if they have served eight or more years within the previous 16 years in either the House, the Senate, or one of several other statewide offices.

A complaint asking the court to uphold the Bullock term-limit interpretation and a request for a temporary restraining order to prevent the opinion from being enforced while the case proceeds was filed Friday by Jesse A. Laslovich on behalf of Fitzpatrick and Jones in Montana’s First Judicial District court. Under state law, Montana’s secretary of state must certify candidates by Aug. 20 — 75 days before the Nov. 3 general election. As of the time of publication, 1st District Court Judge Mike Menahan had not ruled on the request. 

Jones told Montana Free Press Friday, “I found out I might be thrown off the ballot when a reporter called me for comment. Not a letter, not a phone call from the attorney general’s office — a reporter. Whatever that process was, it wasn’t the one Montana has used for the last 30 years. I’m not asking anyone to take my word for it. I’m asking a judge to look at 14 years of Montana practice and decide whether a party boss and an attorney general can undo an election nine days before the ballot certifies. That’s what courts are for.”

Under a 2012 opinion from then Attorney General Steve Bullock, a lawmaker can return to a chamber in which they have already served the maximum eight years if an intervening eight years have passed by the time the new term starts.

Bullock summarized the rule this way: “a candidate may file for office if, at the time the candidate begins to serve in that office, he or she will have had an 8-year break in service over a 16-year period of time.”

Knudsen instead says the 16-year window ends with the term already underway during the election.

For example, a senator who served from 2009 through 2016 could have run again for Senate in 2024 under Bullock’s opinion because eight years would have passed before the new term began. Under Knudsen’s rule, all eight years of the earlier service would fall within the 16 years ending in 2024, keeping the candidate off the ballot.

The change doesn’t prevent lawmakers from moving directly from the House to the Senate or vice versa. Montana’s Constitution treats service in the two chambers separately.

The new interpretation does disrupt a practice that has become common under Bullock’s opinion: serving eight years in one chamber, eight in the other, and then returning directly to the first. 

Knudsen argues that Bullock created an “8-year break in service” exception that does not appear in the Constitution. Knudsen’s opinion states, “The Constitution has never permitted eight years outside an office, standing alone, to restore ballot eligibility.”

The timing of Knudsen’s decision leaves little time for disputes to play out before ballots are finalized. Any lawsuit challenging the opinion would ask a court to resolve an issue no Montana court has ruled on previously. 

Until and unless a court rules otherwise, the attorney general’s interpretation directs how state officials apply the law. 

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