HELENA — A state district judge in Helena has granted a preliminary injunction preventing the enforcement of an opinion from Attorney General Austin Knudsen – and therefore allowing two prominent Montana lawmakers to remain on the November ballot for now.
District Judge Chris Abbott released his opinion Wednesday morning, after hearing arguments on the case Tuesday afternoon. He said Reps. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, and Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls, had demonstrated a plausible case to succeed in their challenge to Knudsen’s opinion, and that returning to the legal status quo before that opinion was the best option.
“The principal concern is that if this Court is wrong, then two candidates who should not be eligible to run have been placed on the ballot,” Abbott wrote. “Given that this has represented the status quo practice for well over a decade, that these candidates already have the endorsement of the people to represent the Republican Party in the election, and the impact on those voters if their choice is denied, this concern is amply outweighed by the factors favoring relief.”
Knudsen’s office immediately confirmed they plan to appeal Abbott’s ruling to the Montana Supreme Court.
The case centers on Montana’s term limit laws. A 1992 amendment to the Montana Constitution says lawmakers and executive officials can only serve in a position for eight years out of any 16-year period. A 1997 legal opinion from then-Attorney General Joe Mazurek found the language of that amendment requires officials to spend more than eight years away from their position before they can return, but a 2012 opinion from then-Attorney General Steve Bullock said eight years was enough time to make an official eligible again.
The impact has been that lawmakers like Fitzpatrick and Jones can serve in one legislative chamber, move over to the other after terming out, then return to the first after terming out in the second, without having to sit out an election cycle. Since 2012, at least five lawmakers, including members of both parties, have returned to a chamber eight years after being termed out.
Knudsen’s opinion, released last week, said Bullock’s interpretation was wrong and that eight years out of office is not enough time to become eligible again. Knudsen directed Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen to certify candidates for the November ballot based on his opinion – which would leave Jones and Fitzpatrick off as ineligible candidates.
Abbott wrote that a “purely literal reading” of the constitutional text led to the interpretation Mazurek and Knudsen reached, but that context clues indicated that might not have been what the writers of the 1992 amendment or the voters who approved it had intended.
“If the proponents wanted to guarantee that legislators who moved to another office sat out at least one two-year cycle before seeking their old office, there were more straightforward ways of saying that,” he said. “It is difficult to understand why the proponents would not have just said that a legislator must have a ten-year break in service if that had been their intent.”
Abbott also wrote he doubted whether Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, had the authority to ask Knudsen for this opinion. Regier made his request in July, after the legislative primaries. He cited concerns that Jones might not be eligible to run for the Senate, and asked Knudsen to rule so the Republican Party could choose a replacement candidate if necessary.
Abbott said the Senate president is authorized to ask the attorney general for a legal opinion on matters related to his office, but that Regier’s question appeared to be based on electoral and political considerations rather than the powers or operations of the Senate.
Abbott said the release of Knudsen’s opinion so close to the election also supported the case for an injunction.
“There is no apparent reason why this election, at this time, is the time to be concerned that a legislator will be disqualified from the ballot when no legislators have been disqualified in the nearly 15 years since the Bullock Opinion was issued,” he wrote. “Likewise, the Attorney General could have chosen to issue the opinion after the ballot certification deadline, ensuring that the opinion would have only prospective effect. The current tumult is entirely the consequence of the choices to request, and issue, an opinion upending the status quo while an election is underway.”
A spokesperson for Knudsen’s office said they will be asking the Supreme Court for an administrative stay.
Jones, one of the longest-serving Montana lawmakers, is running to return to the Senate after serving there from 2011 to 2018. Fitzpatrick, the House majority leader, is seeking another term in the House, where he has served from 2011 to 2016 and since 2025.
See Abbott's full ruling https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/d2/94/28efd4064c82825979d96e20e10c/opinion-and-order-on-motion-for-preliminary-injunction.pdf
