Senate President Matt Regier said he has “very, very serious concerns” about the contract arrangement. "The more you look at it, the deeper it's getting.”

A Montana House bill would require transgender people to use public bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth.

Conservatives erupted on social media Tuesday following an exchange between Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth and freshman Sen. Tim Sheehy regarding gender identity.

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.

Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras reiterated the administration’s “full support” of the measure, which would force judicial candidates to declare a party for the first time in Montana since 1935.

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.

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has entered the Treasure State in an ongoing flag war between supporters of President-elect Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden, who for ordered the United States flag at half-staff on Monday, Inauguration Day.

House Bill 121 appears to specifically target two Montana lawmakers — transgender state Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D) and nonbinary state Rep. SJ Howell (D) — while broadly restricting all transgender people in the state from using restrooms, changing rooms, and sleeping areas in public buildings, schools, prisons, jails, and domestic violence shelters.

"We did kind of prioritize what could move the needle most," Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, told reporters Tuesday.

Kalispell, doesn’t believe the tension between the courts and the state legislature should be characterized as a war between two coequal branches of government; however, he does believe that lawmakers have an obligation to check the power of the judicial system during the upcoming legislative session.

Montana Republicans, who hold a majority in the Legislature, are set to debate nearly 30 bills aimed at reforming the judiciary based on GOP concerns with the branch of government.

Montana lawmakers heard more than a dozen bills last week aimed at regulating the state’s courts and judges. They included one of the top priorities for Republicans: to make judicial elections partisan.