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February 19, 2026
When President Donald Trump nominated Katie Lane for a U.S. District Court judgeship in Montana on Feb. 12, he lauded her work since April 2025 as senior legal counsel on the Republican National Committee.
Trump didn’t mention Lane’s experience in Montana politics, both as an assistant to campaign managers and in court defending Republican legislative policies.
Lane would replace Judge Susan Watters, who announced in 2025 that she will assume senior status later this year.
Lane is a 2010 Bozeman High School graduate and president of her senior class, according to graduation records. In a senior profile, Lane told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle “it was often hard shooting for the stars and maintaining what I believed” as a Christian.
Her first brushes with political significance began in 2011, when she worked on the successful U.S. House campaign of Steve Daines, now Montana’s senior senator. On LinkedIn, Lane described her campaign work as writing the campaign’s monthly newsletter and “walking in parades.”
She then interned on Daines’ U.S. House staff in 2013 while pursuing a degree in economics at Furman University. Before graduating from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in 2017, she interned at the Bozeman-based Wittich Law Firm, the practice of current Montana Republican Party Chairman Art Wittich, who said Thursday in a statement relayed by the state party that he supports Lane’s nomination.
“Katie is a fantastic choice. Smart and principled. The Senate should confirm her quickly,” Wittich said. The party chairman has said little publicly about federal courts, but Wittich has faulted state courts for blocking conservative state laws passed by Republican lawmakers.
While working for the Montana Department of Justice in 2022, Lane defended the state Department of Health and Human Services’ policy of not facilitating requested changes to the listed sex of transgender Montanans on driver’s licenses.
State District Court Judge Michael Moses ruled that the state had argued in bad faith, knowing that a 2021 law that made it difficult to amend driver’s licenses was constitutionally vague.
Lane received the brunt of the judge’s frustration about what Moses called the state’s “flagrant disregard” for court orders. At the time, Lane was deputy solicitor general for the Montana Department of Justice, run by Attorney General Austin Knudsen.
Knudsen gave Lane a strong endorsement for the U.S. District Court position after the Trump nomination was announced.
“During her two years in my office as deputy solicitor general, Katie played an integral role in defending Montana’s laws and challenging the Biden administration’s unconstitutional mandates,” Knudsen said in a statement. “President Trump could not have made a better pick as I am confident she will bring valuable experience and integrity to the bench and look forward to welcoming her back to the state.”
Similarly, both Daines and U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy announced support for Lane’s nomination.
Other elements of the legal community have criticized Lane’s nomination.
The Alliance for Justice, a self-described progressive judicial advocacy group, lodged early opposition to Lane’s nomination based on her nine years of legal experience, which make her one of the least experienced attorneys nominated by Trump during his second term. Of Trump’s six judicial nominees since January 2026, two have had more than 30 years’ experience each, and three have had 16 to 20 years’ experience.
The American Bar Association’s standing committee on judicial nominations recommends that nominees should have at least 12 years of experience.
And what a U.S. District Court judge needs most is trial experience, said Doug James, a veteran attorney in Billings whose grandfather was a state attorney general and lieutenant governor. Trial work, James said, is most of what a U.S. District Court judge does.
“This is a tremendous insult to the state of Montana and to the legal profession, because we have thousands of attorneys in Montana,” James said. “And President Trump could not find a single qualified attorney in Montana to appoint?”
Lane hasn’t yet been scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Before the Senate holds a confirmation hearing, the National Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary will provide its own evaluation, which will include input from its Montana members.