High Court: Sunset Provision Fatal to Constitutional Challenge of Raid on MSF Surplus

A unanimous Montana Supreme Court said it can’t rule on the constitutionality of a bill that moved $28.3 million of the Montana State Fund policyholder surplus into a state fire suppression account because the law is no longer on the books. Senate Bill 4 authorizing the transfer included a sunset provision that took effect June 30, 2019, meaning there’s nothing left to challenge, the high court said. “The statutes are neither constitutional nor unconstitutional because they are no longer statutes,” Justice James Jeremiah Shea wrote in the court’s opinion. &ldquo...