Is Austin Knudsen Montana Democrats’ Best Friend?

If Montana Democrats were looking for someone to help them pick up seats in the Legislature this November, Attorney General Austin Knudsen seems to have just delivered.

Knudsen, a Republican, has issued a new interpretation of Montana’s constitutional term limits that could remove two Republican candidates from the November ballot: House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick and longtime legislator Llew Jones. 

The opinion reverses a 2012 interpretation issued by then-Attorney General Steve Bullock and could upend a practice that Montana has followed for 14 years.

The immediate political consequences are enormous.

Jones won the Republican primary for Senate District 9. Fitzpatrick won the Republican nomination for House District 24. Under Knudsen’s interpretation, however, both are ineligible to appear on the general-election ballot.

And that raises a question that is almost as important as the term-limit question itself: If these candidates are removed, who replaces them? The answer appears to be nobody.

Montana's MCA 13-10-327 provides a mechanism for replacing a party candidate after the primary when the candidate dies, withdraws, or is disqualified under the campaign-finance statute, 13-37-126. It establishes procedures through which the appropriate Republican Party committee can appoint a replacement. 

But the statute does not provide a process when a candidate becomes ineligible under a new constitutional term-limit interpretation.

That statutory gap is not a minor technicality. It means Montana voters in these districts may not have a Republican candidate to vote for at all.

The result is that Democrats will win two legislative seats automatically. Not because Democratic candidates beat Republicans in the general election, but because Austin Knudsen changed the law midstream and disqualified two Republican legislators.

That is an astonishing political consequence for an opinion issued by a Republican statewide elected official. And the consequence here could be remarkably favorable to Democrats. 

With the stroke of a pen, Austin Knudsen may have done more to elect Democratic Party legislators than anything the Democratic Party has done.

That would make Austin Knudsen, whatever his intentions, one of the most consequential allies Montana Democrats have had this election cycle. Perhaps “Democrats' best friend” is too charitable. 

Nobody seems to be doing more to get Democrats into the Montana Legislature than Austin Knudsen. 

And what’s even more amazing is that Greg Hertz, the Chairman of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, seems to be totally onboard with this plan to elect Democrats too. 

Hertz wrote an editorial the other day expressing support for this maneuver to disqualify Republicans and potentially given Democrats two safe Republican seats. So much for being an advocate for electing Republicans.

The courts will ultimately have to decide whether Knudsen's interpretation is correct and what happens to the ballot if it is. 

Until then, everyone should resist the temptation to declare the outcome settled.

But one thing is already clear: changing the interpretation of the rules after the primary has consequences. And if the new interpretation removes Republican nominees without providing a clear path to replace them.

For Montana Democrats, Austin Knudsen seems to be their best friend.

Senator Josh Kassmier represents District 13.