Helena judge dismisses Zephyr lawsuit 

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A Helena district court judge last week dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Legislature’s censure of Democratic Missoula Rep. Zooey Zephyr during the final days of the 2023 legislative session. 

The court determined that Zephyr’s censure, which barred her from the floor, anteroom and gallery of the state House of Representatives until the Legislature adjourned sine die, was effectively moot, owing to the end of the session a few days after the censure motion passed. 

“Plaintiffs’ claims became moot when Zephyr’s censure ended,” Montana First District Court Judge Mike Menahan wrote in a ruling dated Nov. 22. “The Court cannot grant effective relief in this matter because there is no longer a ‘live’ controversy. Because of the fact specific nature of Plaintiffs’ claims, no mootness exception applies. Without a justiciable issue, this Court may not hear Plaintiffs’ case.”

Menahan also wrote that the Legislature has the constitutional authority to discipline its members, agreeing with a key argument in the Legislature’s defense against the lawsuit.

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Zephyr, who in 2022 became one of the first two transgender people elected to the Montana Legislature, was an impassioned opponent of GOP-backed laws in the 2023 session that would have limited LGBTQ+ health care access and expression in a variety of settings across the state. 

In April, during floor debate over Senate Bill 99, legislation that sought to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth, Zephyr suggested that supporters of the bill would have “blood on their hands,” a reference, she later explained, to the increased risk of suicide faced by transgender and non-binary youth who do not receive gender-affirming care.

House Speaker Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, asked Zephyr to apologize, but she declined. Over the ensuing days, Regier repeatedly declined to recognize Zephyr when she asked to speak on the House floor. The standoff culminated in a debate in the Rules Committee, a protest at the Capitol by Zephyr’s constituents supporting her right to speak, and, eventually, a successful motion to censure Zephyr. Zephyr’s participation for the remainder of the session was limited to remote voting. 

Zephyr and a coalition of her constituents challenged the censure motion in May, arguing that the Legislature deprived them of their constitutional right to participate in government. 

Shortly after, Menahan denied a motion to block enforcement of the censure, writing that the plaintiffs’ “requested relief would require this Court to interfere with legislative authority in a manner that exceeds this Court’s authority.”