One-party rule has cost Montana millions because of the Legislature’s love of unconstitutional bills

During the last several years anyone following the news has been made aware of the majority party in Montana pushing to reform the state judiciary.

Their complaints, including judicial activism, have been many – enough so to create a select committee for judicial review and oversight after the 2023 legislative session. From that select committee dozens of bills were created to reign in a supposedly malfeasant and reckless judicial branch. Does the judicial branch need reforming and oversight, or is there something else going on here?

Statistics don’t lie, yet as history shows, regardless of party affiliation, elected officials can and will if they can get away with it. Historical statistics show that in the state of Montana from 1900 to 2020 a total of 36 pieces of legislation passed and executed into law were deemed unconstitutional by state and federal courts, with 24 of those occurring between 1900 and 1989.

In 2021, everything changed to a historic level. In that legislative session alone, 16 pieces of legislation passed and executed into law were rule unconstitutional by the courts. That was followed by the 2023 legislative session with another eight pieces of legislation passed, executed, and ended up being unconstitutional, a total of 24 in two legislative sessions. Think about that: What took previous legislative sessions almost a century to accomplish, the current majority party managed to accomplish in two sessions.

Ask yourself what caused this flurry of bills to be ruled unconstitutional: Was it judicial activism, out-of-control courts, or legislative recklessness on a historic scale? For some citizens reading this, the idea of passing unconstitutional laws may be a nonstarter, and why bother even talking about it? That is because there is another aspect to this: Money—our money—being spent on legislating, then defending the legislation against constitutional legal challenges.

It doesn’t come cheap, as documented in this publication when Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen signed the check for $825,000 to pay the attorneys who represented the plaintiffs against the state in Senate Bill 266, passed in the 2021 legislative session. We taxpayers had other costs to bear by paying for the time and energy to multiple hearings in the legislature, Gov. Greg Gianforte’s speech about “woke overzealous regulators,” and paying attorneys in the Montana Department of Justice to defend the state. All told, more than $1 million of our tax money was spent, the bulk of which, for out-of-state attorneys who charged several hundred dollars an hour. One million of our tax dollars to settle unconstitutional law. Now multiply that times 24, and the majority party has decided millions in taxpayer money was an inexpensive price to pay for nothing more than grandiose political theater.

Again, is this blitzkrieg of unconstitutional bills from two legislative sessions the product of an out-of-control judicial branch, or constitutionally corrupt legislative and executive branches? With millions and counting, the readers of this publication might want to think that through. Is this an isolated issue, or the tip of the iceberg with the unchecked power of one-party rule? Your property taxes tell the tale.

It’s time then for a full line-item audit by the state auditor of the legislative and executive branches pertaining to all expenses related to these unconstitutional bills. Everyone listed above are our employees. It’s time for that their employers to keep them accountable to the true costs of this historic legislative assault on the rule of law.

Realize it’s not over.

Multiple pieces of legislation passed in 2025, like HB 719, recently ruled unconstitutional, are being contested. No doubt many others will be ruled unconstitutional. More millions down the drain with potentially more to come in the 2027 legislative session. In economically stressed times like these, can we afford our employees tossing our money around like “Monopoly” money? Obviously one-party rule is not as fiscally conservative as we’ve been promised.

Remember Montana, if those we elect to public office don’t have to follow the rule of law and the Constitution they took an oath to uphold, neither do we. Anarchy anybody?

Before answering, ask former Vice President Mike Pence about anarchy.

Marshall lives in Hot Springs, Montana.