Yellowstone County initiative organizers have been operating under the wrong deadline for months, according to county attorney.
By Zeke Lloyd MONTANA FREE PRESS
A petition to require data center developments in Yellowstone County to receive voter approval needed to deliver the requisite number of signatures three weeks ago, according to a memo released Tuesday by the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office. Signature gatherers had been operating under a deadline of Aug. 12, a date provided by the Yellowstone County Election Department in June. Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito told Montana Free Press on Tuesday that the deadline’s shift to July 13 was prompted by data center developer Quantica Infrastructure, which made him aware of a relevant state statute on July 30.
The new deadline was first reported by the Billings Gazette.
Quantica has proposed a 5,000-acre data center campus just outside Broadview, a town of about 140 people located about 30 miles north of Billings. Plans for the facility include 12 to 16 buildings of about 200,000 to 300,000 square feet each. The entire campus would encompass about 7.8 square miles. Quantica estimates its near-term power requirements at 1,100 megawatts.
Broadview-based Kassi Solberg spearheaded the Yellowstone County Ballot Initiative. The petition aimed to put language on the November ballot that, if passed, would require voter approval of any data center development in the county.
Solberg has been trying to gather the 16,650 necessary signatures by Aug. 12. But Tuesday’s memo from the county attorney to the elections administrator indicates that the deadline to submit signatures was actually three weeks ago.
Twito said that the county election department relied in June on Montana Code Annotated § 13-12-201 when it provided Solberg with the Aug. 12 deadline. According to Twito, Quantica informed his office on July 30 that a different law, Montana Code Annotated § 13-28-206, with a July 13 deadline, should be applied instead. The statute initially used by the election department applies to ballot certifications, while the latter applies to local initiatives. Twito said he spent the weekend researching Quantica’s assertion, and that he ultimately agrees with Quantica’s assessment that Solberg’s petition is more accurately a local initiative, and is therefore governed by the second statute.
In his Tuesday memo, Twito recommended that the election department inform Solberg about the new deadline, because “the signature submission deadline appears to have passed under this interpretation.”
Quantica spokesperson Travis Hall declined to immediately provide comment to MTFP on Tuesday.
Brian Miller, an attorney running for U.S. House in Montana’s Second Congressional District who has been working with Solberg on the initiative, told MTFP Tuesday that using the July deadline is unconstitutional.
“I think that the county should accept the signatures up to the deadline that they told everybody they would,” Miller said in a statement provided to MTFP. “I think it raises a serious constitutional question for them to take the step now because it is unnecessarily infringing upon the people’s right to petition by initiative.”
Miller said he plans to file a claim asking a court to declare denial of Solberg’s signatures submitted after July 13 unconstitutional.
“You’re messing with people’s rights here,” Miller said. “You’re making people feel demoralized by their government.”
Twito said he is seeking guidance from Montana’s secretary of state on the competing statutes. But as of now, he said, the county should not accept signatures from Solberg “unless a court says differently.”
Nick Mott contributed reporting.
