Senate Ethics Committee reviews draft report on Sen. Jason Ellsworth’s contracts, delays adoption

HELENA — The Senate Ethics Committee reviewed a draft report on March 15, 2025, that details findings about contracts Senator Jason Ellsworth signed with an outside contractor and related questions about disclosure and procurement. Committee members heard staff read the draft findings, raised questions about factual wording and sourcing, and agreed to give counsel time to revise the report before considering adoption at a follow-up meeting.

The draft report, read to the committee by committee counsel Ron Carroll, summarizes documentary and testimonial evidence gathered during an adjudicatory hearing that concluded March 15. "After receiving extensive documentary and testimonial evidence, the Senate Ethics Committee makes the following findings of fact," Carroll read as he introduced the document. The draft organizes findings around the statutory charge in section 2-2-112, Montana Code Annotated (referenced in the draft as "2 2 1 12 MCA"), and includes a timeline, attachments, and 27 proposed factual statements.

Why it matters: The committee is deciding whether Ellsworth violated the statutory disclosure rules governing legislators' personal or private interests in matters on which they act. The draft alleges that Ellsworth signed two contracts on Dec. 26, 2024, and submitted or approved related invoices that raised both procurement and disclosure concerns. Committee members emphasized the committee's role in producing factual findings and asked counsel to avoid conclusory language or reliance on other agencies' determinations without clear attribution.

Key facts in the draft and testimony cited by counsel

- Contracts and invoices: The draft states that on Dec. 26, 2024, Senator Ellsworth presented two contracts and two invoices totaling $170,100 and later signed a final contract on Dec. 31, 2024. The transcripted draft reports an invoice dated Jan. 10, 2025, for $7,087.50 that Mr. Eccleston (the contractor) later said did not reflect work he had performed. The draft also records that Ellsworth approved payment on Jan. 14, 2025.

- Disclosure and procurement concerns: The draft alleges Ellsworth did not disclose a long-standing personal and professional relationship with the contractor, and that splitting the work into two contracts created an appearance of impropriety and may have skirted procurement rules. The draft cites procurement rules (Section 18-4-305, MCA, and ARM 2.50.603(5)) and testimony from Department of Administration witnesses and legislative financial staff to support those factual claims.

- Prior business relationship and sworn statements: The draft references evidence of a multi-year business relationship between Ellsworth and the contractor, including prior court materials and a sworn statement in which the contractor described Ellsworth as an owner and the contractor as an employee of a related business. The draft cites those exhibits directly in support of the relationship it records.

Committee discussion and requests for revision

Committee members repeatedly asked counsel to keep the report's language strictly to findings of fact, with citations to testimony or exhibits where assertions might otherwise read as conclusions. Senator Smith asked that the report avoid conclusory words such as "created an appearance of impropriety" without tying that phrasing to specific statutory language or testimony. Senator McGilvray, Senator Pope, and others suggested condensing repetitive exhibits and making clear where testimony supports particular sentences.

Members also debated whether to reproduce third-party findings (for example, a legislative auditor's finding of "waste and abuse") in full, with some members urging that the committee instead reference such findings by exhibit and focus the committee report on its own factual findings relevant to the statutory issue under review.

Procedure and next steps

The committee did not vote to adopt the draft at the March 15 meeting. Counsel said staff would produce a revised draft with tracked changes and return the committee to consider adoption. The committee scheduled a follow-up meeting for 11:00 a.m. the next day to review revisions and potentially take formal action. The report, as drafted, also contains a timeline noting that the full body of the Senate voted 49–0 on Jan. 27, 2025, to convene the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the conduct of the senator from Senate District 43.

Direct quotations recorded in the hearing include Carroll's opening line introducing the draft: "After receiving extensive documentary and testimonial evidence, the Senate Ethics Committee makes the following findings of fact," and a contractor's sworn statement excerpt quoted in the draft: "he's the owner and I am an employee of Time to Read," which the draft cites from the contractor's sworn statement.

What the committee left open

The draft contains a number of discrete factual paragraphs that counsel and members agreed would be edited for clarity, better sourcing, or condensation. Committee members asked for (1) clearer attributions in paragraphs that describe witnesses' testimony, (2) removal or rephrasing of language that reads like conclusions rather than findings, and (3) explicit citations where testimony supports claims about what staff believed the contracts did or did not provide (for example, statements about insurance, termination rights, or whether work had been performed).

The committee also asked staff to mark in the timeline where witnesses were called but did not ultimately testify and to include exhibit citations referencing the record item that supports a given factual claim. Counsel said he would produce a tracked-changes draft for committee review by the evening and that the committee would reconvene the following day to consider adoption.

No formal sanctions or final determinations were adopted at this meeting. The matter remains before the full Senate should the committee vote to send the report forward after revisions.