The Supreme Court has turned back an election law case out of Montana that relied on a controversial legal theory with the potential to change the way elections are run across the country.

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’s federal delegation, now comprised entirely of Republicans, was joined by GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte in Washington, D.C., on Monday to celebrate the inauguration of President Donald Trump to his

Montana does allow the death penalty, although a 2015 court ruling that found the specific substance in the law has precluded the state from executing someone ever since.

On Thursday morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on one of the most prominent in a Republican-sponsored suite of bills that would overhaul Montana’s judicial branch.

Montana’s House is has endorsed a ban on transgender people using bathrooms in public buildings that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth.

The legislative GOP misleadingly calls the 27 draft bills they passed through their partisan judiciary attack committee “judicial reform.”

As Montana’s 69th legislative session gets underway, Republican lawmakers are leading a charge to curb the power of the state’s judiciary, a powerful branch of government that they say has subverted the will of the people by striking down GOP-backed laws in recent years.

Senate Bill 42 would require candidates for Supreme Court, district court and justice of the peace to run with a party label.

The 69th Montana Legislature is officially underway. This week, host Shaylee Ragar and reporters Tom Lutey and Mara Silvers dig in to how the — literal and metaphorical — sausage gets made and what an early GOP divide could mean for the rest of the session.

They can reconquer the House and the White House. But the Senate looks problematic, thanks to a solid red bloc of 25 states.

Lawmakers in both chambers Wednesday considered the future of the low-income health care program, set to expire if they don’t take action.