Judge keeps Jason Ellsworth trial on track, restores Senate seat

A Lewis and Clark County judge kept Jason Ellsworth’s official misconduct case moving toward a July jury trial while restoring his seat in the Montana Senate, separating the criminal case from the chamber’s own punishment. For Helena readers, the ruling means Ellsworth can again take part in legislative business even as prosecutors continue to pursue whether his contracting conduct broke state law.

Judge Chris Abbott rejected Ellsworth’s bid to dismiss the case, ruling that choosing a contractor is an administrative act, not a legislative one, so legislative immunity does not apply. That finding is the core of the prosecution’s path forward in the First Judicial District Court in Helena, because it leaves intact a single misdemeanor official-misconduct charge filed by the Montana Department of Justice. Under Montana law, the offense carries a possible fine of up to $500, up to six months in county jail, or both.

The case centers on a $170,100 contract tied to the Senate Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform. The Montana Legislative Audit Division concluded in January 2025 that Ellsworth attempted to split the work into two contracts to get around a $100,000 procurement threshold, and the work involved Bryce Eggleston, identified in reporting as a former employee of Ellsworth’s private magazine-subscription business. The Senate Ethics Committee’s notice letter said the contracting activity ran from about December 10, 2024, through about January 24, 2025. Ellsworth has denied wrongdoing and argued that he was acting within his role as Senate president.

Abbott’s ruling also lifted Ellsworth’s suspension from the Senate, saying the chamber had already stripped him of committee work and other authority and that voters should not be deprived of their elected representative without a strong public-protection reason. But the decision did not erase the Senate’s separate discipline. On April 1, 2025, senators voted 44-6 to censure Ellsworth, remove him from all standing and interim committees, strip access to legislative offices and staff for the 2025 biennium, and ban him from the Senate floor for life. Reporting from that punishment also said he could still vote remotely and communicate with staff only in writing.

Ellsworth, a Republican from Hamilton who served as Senate president in 2023 before losing that post to Sen. Matt Regier in November 2024, is term-limited and will leave Senate District 43 at the end of 2026. For now, the court ruling and the Senate’s punishment sit side by side, with one question headed to a jury and the other still defining how much power Ellsworth can exercise inside the Capitol.