Sens. Matt Regier, Jason Ellsworth and Greg Hertz sit at a Republican Senate caucus meeting before giving their speeches seeking to be Senate President for 2025. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan)
The former Republican state Senate president denied Friday any wrongdoing in connection with a $170,000 no-bid contract he signed in his final days in office, an expenditure that is now under scrutiny by new Senate leadership.
Montana State News Bureau first reported that the contract Sen. Jason Ellsworth quietly signed at the end of his term as head of the interim Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform has raised concerns with Republican leaders in the Senate.
Ellsworth contracted an outside consultant to conduct an analysis of 27 bills the committee drafted for the 2025 Montana Legislature and make an assessment of their effectiveness in “achieving … intended judicial reform objectives.”
The Department of Administration also signed off on the contract.
On Friday, however, committee member Sen. Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls, told the Daily Montanan the committee had rejected the need to spend money on such a contract because its own staff was able to do the work. Emrich said its membership was unaware that Ellsworth had forged ahead on his own.
“The bottom line is we rejected it as a committee,” he said. “We said ‘No,’ and then he went off and did it anyway, which didn’t make any sense.”
The contract is between Ellsworth and Bryce Eggleston of Agile Analytics, a business that registered its name with the Secretary of State’s Office on Dec. 12. Ellsworth signed the contract on Dec. 31.
A Federal Trade Commission case from more than a decade ago identified Ellsworth and Eggleston as having a previous professional relationship, with businesses registered at the same Hamilton address.
Ellsworth exhibited “close financial and business ties” with Eggleston, according to court filings from the case in which Ellsworth and his Montana-based telemarketing firm was fined $600,000 for violations of the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act.
Ellsworth is a Republican from Hamilton, and according to Agile’s registration, Eggleston is from Stevensville, both in the Bitterroot Valley.
The newly filed business registration form describes Agile as doing work in data analytics and reporting. Eggleston, who did not return a call or emails for comment Friday, appears to have a background as an actor and producer.
Ellsworth told the Daily Montanan he believes the recent registration only indicates a “DBA” change, or a “doing business as” name change to an existing company — the registered entity is AgileXO, according to the form — but did not elaborate.
He said he believes Agile is qualified to do detailed legislative work.
“Absolutely, because they’re very familiar with these particular issues, and they’ve been duly informed of how important they are for the Republican Party,” Ellsworth said.
Current Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, said Friday GOP leadership is still looking to connect all the dots and “see how deep this goes.”
“It’s very concerning,” Regier said.
He said an initial review is underway but declined to offer specifics.
“There’s proper channels to go through to look at waste, fraud and abuse, and if it goes deeper, then it will be relayed on to the proper authorities,” Regier said.
Ellsworth said early Friday afternoon he had not been contacted by any authority requesting a formal response to any allegations of ethical violations.
In November, Ellsworth lost his bid to serve another term as president of the Senate, though he remains in the Legislature. He and Regier clashed last week after Ellsworth joined Democrats in a political struggle that determined the makeup of Senate committees.
Within the Legislature, any legislator can file a complaint alleging a violation of ethical conduct before each chambers’ Ethics Committee. The chair of the Senate ethics review committee said Friday morning it had received no related complaints.
Ellsworth blindsides committee
Senate Republicans formed the interim Senate Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform in April of last year. Ellsworth served as committee chairperson.
Changes to the judiciary are a priority for Republicans this session, after lawmakers expressed frustration at court rulings overturning some of their laws. But Ellsworth denied that his action would cast a pall on the effort and disputed any ethical breach in connection with the contract.
“It’s completely transparent,” Ellsworth said of the way he had handled the contract.
Regier also said he did not believe the appearance of impropriety would cast a shadow on the work done by the Judicial Oversight and Reform Committee.
However, Regier said he spoke with other members of the committee, and they said they knew nothing about the contract.
“This seems like a Senator Ellsworth all-by-himself move,” Regier said. “A lot of great legislation that we’ve already heard has come out of that [committee], so I hope that these two issues will be divorced, because it certainly seems like they are.”
Emrich, who served on the interim committee and is sponsoring many of the 27 bills, said Ellsworth raised the idea of hiring someone to track the legislation during two of the committee’s final meetings, but the committee rejected the idea.
Emrich said that between legislative staff assigned to the committee and already on payroll, and GOP partisan staff, “we didn’t feel like there was any reason to hire more.”
“And we had no idea it was going to cost $170,000,” he said.
In its last meeting in early December, the committee opted to just use legislative staff to prepare regular reports, to which Ellsworth said he was “perfectly fine with that.”
“I feel lied to,” Emrich added. “He wasn’t honest with the committee.”
Ellsworth told the Daily Montanan that because the priority legislation is partisan, with no backing from Senate Democrats, he did not believe it would be appropriate to use legislative staff.
The contract is between Ellsworth, in his capacity as Senate president and committee chair, and Agile. It says the work is necessary “to ensure the committee’s intended outcomes are realized.”
The contract identifies Ellsworth as its “single point of contact,” but Ellsworth said he planned to disseminate reports he received from the committee.
A procurement officer from the Department of Administration signed off on the contract, as did a legal representative.
Department staff did not respond Friday to requests for comment about the timeline of the contract and DOA’s due diligence, but told the Montana State News Bureau one day earlier that DOA approves a limited number of emergency contracts and did so in this case because funds for the committee were set to expire.
The initial contract runs from December 2024 through December 2026, unless terminated earlier or extended. It lists payment as monthly invoicing for $7,087 for 24 months and requires weekly reports “to the chair.
Legislative Services Division Director Jerry Howe confirmed the division recently received a bill for nearly $7,100 from Agile. He said he believes the contract is valid and there appears to be no reason to withhold payment.
However, Howe said given questions being raised about the contract, he likely would confer with legal counsel.
“Now that there’s people raising the specter of (possible problems), we’ll probably have to look at it too,” he said.
Legal counsel with the Legislative Services Division could not be reached Friday for this story.