Attorney General Austin Knudsen this week rescinded a 2012 legal opinion that has governed how Montana enforces its legislative term limits, replacing it with a new interpretation that would allow two veteran Republican lawmakers to run for the 2027 Legislature — and setting up a court confrontation with a ballot-certification deadline bearing down fast.
The 2012 opinion, which Knudsen's office had previously treated as settled guidance, had been the basis for blocking legislators who served the maximum number of terms from returning to the same chamber. Knudsen's reversal clears a path for the two lawmakers in question to appear on the November ballot, but the legal ground is anything but settled — opponents are expected to challenge the new interpretation before ballots are finalized.
The timing makes this more than an abstract constitutional dispute. Ballot certification deadlines leave little room for a drawn-out legal process, meaning any court challenge will need to move quickly or risk the question becoming moot by default. Critics of the reversal argue that Knudsen, himself an elected Republican with ties to the Legislature, has a political interest in the outcome — a charge his office has not directly addressed in public statements.
Montana's term limit law was passed by voters in 1992 and has been interpreted and re-interpreted through successive attorney general opinions ever since. Whether a single AG opinion can effectively reset a legislator's term clock — and whether courts will agree — is the central question that litigation is likely to force into the open before November.