The legal challenge against House Speaker Matt Regier and statehouse Sergeant-at-Arms Bradley Murfitt comes with just days left in the Legislature’s biennial session.Ī spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen - a Republican whose office will defend the case - said the lawsuit was frivolous. Zephyr, whose comments in the Montana Legislature have made her a prominent figure in transgender rights and in conversations about the muffling of dissent in statehouses, said in a statement Monday that she and her constituents were targeted “because I dared to give voice to the values and needs of transgender people like myself.” Zooey Zephyr asked a court Monday to allow for her return to the House floor after she was silenced and barred for chiding her Republican colleagues over legislation to restrict gender-affirming health care and for encouraging protesters.Īttorneys for the first-term lawmaker sued in state district court in Helena on behalf of Zephyr, a transgender Democrat who represents a liberal district in the college town of Missoula, and several constituents who the attorneys said were being denied their right to adequate representation. Zephyr asked a court Monday to allow for her return to the House floor after she was silenced and barred for chiding her Republican colleagues over legislation to restrict gender-affirming health care and for encouraging protesters.

Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, sits in a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee in the Montana State Capitol in Helena, Mont. Updated: 15 hours ago Published: 15 hours ago

The house of many ways