Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday. Sign up January 9, 2025A dispute involving a bipartisan group of senators upset about their committee assignments stalled the Senate’s plans to begin hearing bills this week.Senators who had been assigned to a new committee, the Executive Branch Review Committee, nominally tasked with reviewing gubernatorial appointments and regulatory reform bills but criticized as a “parking spot,” had pushed for reassignments to other committees with clearer authority. Majority Republicans and minority Democrats who had been assigned to the new committee backed a Senate floor motion brought by Democratic Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, Monday with a rules amendment to assign themselves to other committees and demote the new committee to on-call status.Efforts by the bulk of the Republican caucus to overturn that decision were unsuccessful Wednesday and Thursday as a select group of Republicans and Democrats joined together to win several votes. In comments to reporters after a Thursday floor session, Senate President Matt Regier noted that committee assignments were made by the Senate’s Committee on Committees, not by him directly.“My guess is we’re going to get back to business, but it won’t be as normal,” Regier said. “Fifteen minutes into the entire legislative session, to have a vote like we did on Monday, I said it really jars the confidence from the rest of your peers and your caucus. How do you move forward on that? I think with a lot of bridge-building that I hope the nine will take.”“The nine” Regier referenced included the five Republican members assigned to the committee, plus four other Republicans who voted with them.Over the course of the 2025 session’s first week, critics complained that the committee was a holding pen for senators thought to be problematic for a conservative agenda. During a Senate Republican caucus meeting Thursday, Sen. Wendy McKamey recalled the committee being described to her as a “parking spot” in another conversation. McKamey said the members of the committee weren’t being treated fairly. She voted in favor Monday of the amendment to get the members reassigned.Sen. Barry Usher, a Republican from Yellowstone County, who voted to keep the committee intact, took to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday to criticize the nine Republicans.“Will the Montana State Senate ‘nasty 9’ tran-partisans continue to vote with democrats? Sen Loge, Sen McKamey, Sen Kassmier, Sen Temple, Sen Gellespie, Sen Hunter, Sen Vance, Sen Lammers and Sen Ellsworth,” Usher wrote.On Facebook, former lawmaker Matt Monforton accused the nine of being turncoats, posting their phone numbers and legislative emails. “Meet Democrat Pat Flowers, your new Senate President!” he wrote. Senate committees stopped hearing bills for days as the drama played out. Regier said the delay was to allow leadership time to reconfigure committees.The new committee met once for 25 minutes this week, just long enough for a round of introductions by committee members.Flowers told Capitolized that placing him and two other Democrats on the new committee meant that Democrats were stretched thin in representation on other committees.The five Republicans on the committee have all previously been in bruising inter-party political battles, which is to say this week’s dust up wasn’t their first: Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, president of the 2023 Senate, lost his bid to keep the job in 2025. The Republican caucus chose newcomer Regier instead. Regier’s no stranger to leadership, having been House Speaker in 2023, but the selection was rare. There is no record in the last 30 years of a former House speaker arriving in the Senate and immediately being chosen president.Josh Kassmier, R-Great Falls, got to the Senate by defeating the vice president of the state Republican Party, Lola Sheldon-Galloway, in one the state’s most closely watched GOP primaries. Kassmier was also one of the primary candidates endorsed by Gov. Greg Gianforte last year. Those endorsements are still a sore spot for some legislators. Gregg Hunter, R-Glasgow, got to the Senate by defeating Rhonda Knudsen, who was trying to cross over to the Senate after serving three terms in the House where in 2023 she was speaker pro tempore, third in power to now-Senate President Regier. Knudsen is also mother to Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. Hunter was endorsed by C4MT, a political committee aligned with the Legislature’s Solutions Caucus, a group known for frustrating conservatives by working with Democrats in the past to advance major bills, like Medicaid expansion. Russ Tempel is a Chester Republican who has provided key votes, including to approve Medicaid expansion in 2019 and kill three conservative anti-abortion bills.Denley Loge, of St. Regis, was endorsed by Gianforte in his primary as well.On BackgroundRepublican Gov. Greg Gianforte took a somewhat unusual step of wading into legislative races last year by announcing endorsements in 24 contested GOP primaries. The Montana Senate got off track at the start of the 69th session.The post Regier’s not fine with The Nine appeared first on Montana Free Press.