Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday.
April 24, 2025
By the time Department of Administration Director Misty Ann Giles rose to speak at her confirmation hearing, the lieutenant governor had likened her to “a bullet.”
“You put a rope around her to get a project done, and she’s going to drag you along until she gets it done,” Lt. Governor Kristen Juras told the Senate State Administration Committee earlier this month.
A lobbyist described Giles, who has been on Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s staff since 2021, as having the stoicism of the James Bond character M, as played by Dame Judi Dench.
The flattery flowed uninterrupted for nearly an hour, only to be followed by hard-hitting committee questions like “What do you do to relax and put your feet up?”
A Georgian, Giles served the governor of that state before becoming the director of Rural Development at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The ag secretary at the time was Republican Sonny Perdue, a former Georgia governor.
There was reason to believe the confirmation hearing for the director known as MAG would be tough. Giles took challenging questions earlier in the 2025 legislative session for the “lottery loophole” created by an amendment to Senate Bill 51 in the 2023 Legislature that allowed the state’s $50 million lottery contract with Intralot to be renewed without competitive bidding. Legislators who voted for the loophole as an amendment to a bill two years ago nonetheless accused the administration of intentionally creating the exception for Intralot, a Greece-based company that operates games for the Montana Lottery.
Senate Bill 51 was brought at the request of the Department of Administration. Giles told the Joint Budget Subcommittee on General Government two months ago that when it came to the amendment creating the lottery loophole, the department had been “schooled by someone in this building.”
There was a “Director Giles Background Memo” shared with Republicans on the Senate State Administration Committee before the confirmation hearing. A copy obtained by Capitolized included questions about why DOA in 2024 approved a $170,100 contract between then-Senate president Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, and his long-time business associate.
Giles had explained in a March ethics hearing, in which Ellsworth’s actions were the focus, that the contract arrived at Administration already signed. Given the circumstances, procurement staff chose to make the signed agreement comply with state law, rather than reject it.
Responding to a question from the committee chair, Republican Sen. Theresa Manzella of Hamilton, Giles said Administration is putting conflict-of-interest language “on everything we now touch.”
“It was my mistake of presuming that’s something that most folks just do,” Giles said of expecting Ellsworth to flag his relationship with the contractor. “We’ve always had that language on our bigger (requests for proposal), which are the bigger-ticket items, but we did go in and add it to all the forms, even if it’s just a personal relationship.”
Of the 300 contracting actions taken by the Department of Administration in 2024, only seven were “sole source,” meaning the government opted against opening the work to other bidders, Giles said. Most of those seven came from the Legislature, or Legislative Services Division, according to the results of records requested by Capitolized.
The director’s handling of a reimbursement program to compensate local governments for COVID-19 expenses was also questioned in the background memo.
The first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic is still a sore spot with some legislators. On the Senate floor Thursday, the one lawmaker announced that he would vote against reconfirmation of a Republican to a regional energy council, not because of anything energy-related, but because the nominee had been on a hospital board that required nurses to get vaccinated in the early years of the pandemic.
The Department of Administration is the wheelhouse for government activity in the executive branch. Juras described Giles as Gianforte’s “chief operating officer.” Witnesses from the Department of Corrections to the Department of Commerce and the Montana Bankers Association advocated for reconfirming Giles. As they did, questions about Ellsworth’s ethics hearing and a pandemic now four years gone seemed narrow in scope.
On April 22, Republican Sen. Wendy McKamey, who represents south Great Falls, rose on the Senate floor and asked that Giles’ confirmation vote be delayed until April 28. The senator said the confirmation vote wasn’t quite ready, but was good for a floor vote April 25.
The wait wasn’t without risk, however, given that the Legislature is nearing adjournment, and Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, has repeatedly said that not receiving a confirmation vote is the same as being voted against. The president has said that anyone unconfirmed is ineligible for confirmation by Gianforte after the Legislature leaves the Capitol.
—Tom Lutey
Villa-fied
On April 23, the state Senate rejected an amendment by President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, to make the director of the Montana Board of Investments a position appointed by the governor. The current director is Dan Villa, a former state legislator and budget director for former Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.
The Board of Investments manages more than $28 billion for state and local governments including universities and public school districts. Several Republicans objected to Regier’s amendment, which they said would politicize an investment fund that should be grounded in fiscal principles, not the will of the governor.
“I think that’s a terrible idea because I think it politicizes and potentially could politicize that appointment,” said Sen. John Esp, R-Big Timber. “No, we can’t invest in oil stocks. Because that’s not politically in line with my thinking as governor.”
Senate Majority Leader Tom McGillvray objected to the amendment, saying that in 2023, he worked to make sure that investments couldn’t be rejected for personal beliefs over green energy or to select companies to invest in based on their commitment to ESG, or environmental, social and governance business practices.
“I think when it comes to managing money, you have to be very careful about politics. And I think this kind of starts going down that road,” McGillvray, a longtime financial adviser, said.
Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, said that no state has a politically appointed director of investments.
“If we went down this road, we would be the first state in the union to have this [be] a governor-appointed position, and I think there’s good reason why that hasn’t occurred in the past. It’s a position where you want some stability, and obviously with that stability comes experience in managing our pretty extensive portfolio. And so I think this would be a mistake, and I urge you to vote red on this.”
Regier argued that the Board of Investments didn’t meet frequently enough to make informed decisions about the performance of its director.
“It just says that the director for investments — very, very important job for the taxpayers and for state government as a whole — that that should be appointed by the governor and then confirmed by the Senate, and not just left up to a board that has their own life, has their own jobs and only shows up a few times and will not hold a director accountable,” Regier said.
No one who spoke on the Senate floor criticized Villa’s job performance.
“I’ve always been on Finance and Claims [the Senate’s fiscal committee], and we’re very much aware and somewhat close to the Board of Investments, heard lots of reports. I think the system we have is pretty good. I think it has worked well. I’m not aware of any issues,” said Sen. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka.
—Tom Lutey
Not petaling out as expected
It’s been a few weeks since the members of the Montana Senate’s largest voting bloc brokered a deal with Republican leadership that gave Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, the ability to reject slates of lawmakers appointed to conference committee by Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell.
Rules previously allowed the minority leader to advise on conference committee members but not reject appointees outright. The committees are typically a source of power for the Senate president because conference committees reconcile differences in House and Senate bills, which are then presented on the floor for an up-or-down vote. Floor amendments aren’t allowed on conferenced bills.
Since that agreement on committee membership, Flowers has become responsible for the conference committee appointments in their entirety, an issue that became apparent April 23, when Republican Majority Whip Sue Vinton, R-Lockwood, asked Flowers if he had consulted with Regier and Majority Leader Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, about conference committee members Flowers was announcing on the floor.
“Last Friday, the president gave me the stack of conference committees and suggested I fill those out and move them on the floor, and that’s what I’ve done,” Flowers replied.
“Thank you,” Vinton replied.
—Tom Lutey
Senate For Daines?
U.S. Republican Sen. Steve Daines is still planning to run for reelection when his term ends in 2026, according to Jason Thielman, a Republican strategist who has worked closely with Daines throughout the senator’s congressional career. The senator indicated his intention to run in the 2026 Senate election via a Federal Election Commission statement of candidacy form filed days after he won reelection in November 2020. By the end of March 2025, Daines had roughly $2.4 million cash on hand, according to the FEC.
With control of the U.S. Senate seemingly up for grabs in the 2020 election cycle, more than $118 million poured into the Senate race between Daines and then-Gov. Steve Bullock, overtaking per-voter spending in other battleground states and breaking Montana’s record for the most spent on a single campaign. The 2024 Senate contest between Republican Tim Sheehy and Democratic incumbent Jon Tester now holds that title with a total price tag of roughly $225 million.
Daines won his 2014 Senate race against then-Butte state Rep. Amanda Curtis by a 16-point margin. In 2020, he defeated Bullock by 10 points.
On April 21, President Donald Trump posted a warm endorsement of Daines on X, though Trump did not reference an election. Daines led the National Republican Senatorial Committee last election cycle, securing victories in states like Montana that flipped the U.S. Senate to Republican control.
Since his 2020 re-election, Daines’ congressional staff has experienced a high turnover rate, which is not rare among U.S. senators. The two most recent departures from Daines’ team include Thielman, who stepped down as a chief of staff to become a partner at the Republican consulting firm S2R in February. Thielman has also been executive director of the NRSC. Rachel Dumke, Daines’ former deputy communications director, announced her exit April 22.
Two Democrats, including Michael Hummert and former state legislator Reilly Neill, have also declared their candidacy for the 2026 Senate seat.
—Zeke Lloyd
