Senate Ethics Investigation into Former President Expected to Take All of February
The committee will call 14 witnesses, including current Senate President Matt Regier
By Tom Lutey for Montana Free Press
An ethics committee investigation into former Montana Senate leader Jason Ellsworth will take most of February, if not longer, to ensure the Hamilton Republican is afforded time for a defense.
Lawyers cautioned Senate Ethics Committee members Monday that the mid-February end date for the investigations and hearings provided little time for the president of the 2023 Legislature to question witnesses and build a defense.
“We need to ensure due process in this case and that we accord respect, deference, and the presumption of no misconduct in the subject of these hearings,” said Adam Duerk, the attorney prosecuting the Senate’s case. Duerk was hired late last week after Democrats on the ethics committee protested Republican Senate leadership’s initial hire of a former legislator and attorney who had disparaged Ellsworth on social media.
Ellsworth is accused of splitting in two a $170,100 contract awarded to a business associate in order to avoid a state law requiring contracts of $100,000 or more to be competitively bid. The split contract, and questions about whether contractor Bryce Eggleston could do the work, are the foundation of the Senate’s case against its former leader.
Eggleston has said under oath that he, not Ellsworth, crafted the agreement, a detail that could poke holes in the Senate’s case, as neither Eggleston nor Ellsworth were interviewed for an investigation by the Legislative Auditor triggered by a tip to the fraud hotline. The auditor’s investigation informed the Senate’s unanimous decision last week to approve ethics committee proceedings against Ellsworth.
Monday marked the ethics committee’s second meeting, during which it produced a list of 14 witnesses, including current Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell. Other witnesses on the list are President Pro Temp Ken Bogner, R-Miles City, and Senators Barry Usher, R-Molt, and Greg Hertz, R-Polson.
Usher was vice chair of the 2024 Senate Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform, a committee Ellsworth formed as president to craft bills limiting powers of Montana courts — this after the several laws created by the Legislature’s Republican majority were ruled unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme Court. Eggleston was to observe and report on state agencies as they put into practice laws stemming from the select committee’s work.
Usher has said he knew nothing about the Eggleston contract, which Ellsworth pursued after the committee disbanded in December.
Ellsworth attorney Joan Mell told the committee Monday that its mid-February end date for hearings didn’t afford her time to build a defense and question witnesses, some of whom she said worked for the Legislature and would be reluctant to speak for fear of retaliation. Mell served on the 2024 interim committee on judicial oversight.
She said the committee was formed under the assumption that Ellsworth was guilty. A week ago, Mell demanded a correction to the Legislative Auditor’s report, because it didn’t include Eggleston’s testimony, or interviews with the contractor or Ellsworth. The committee’s rules were premised on the Legislative Auditor’s report being factual, Mell said.
“Before you have convened, every one of you has read the audit report. Every one of you had entertained the conclusions of the Legislative Auditor that are replete with erroneous conclusions,” Mell said.
Mell also questioned whether the ethics committee could hear the case against Ellsworth given that the contract was created in between sessions of the Legislature. By rule, Mell said, the committee is limited to investigating matters that take place during a legislative session. Neither the committee, nor its attorney, responded to the point Mell was trying to make.
Other witnesses to be called included three members of the state Department of Administration who recognized that the contracts with Eggleston should have been a single contract and that the work should have been bid competitively. Nonetheless, the administration staff converted the agreements into a single contract and signed off.
Department of Administration Director Misty Ann Giles told legislative auditors that she felt her agency had to see the contracts through in part because the agreements had already been signed by Ellsworth and that the money available for the work was about to expire at the end of 2024.
Giles is on the list of witnesses to be called by the state, as are two employees of Legislative Services who objected to the agreements.