Montana has a rule about who gets to buy a cheap hunting license, and it is not complicated. You have to actually live here.

The congressman for Montana's eastern district didn't. For six years he bought the cheap ones anyway. He got caught, he got charged, and he pleaded guilty.

Troy Downing now serves on the House Natural Resources Committee, where his own website introduces him as a "lifelong outdoorsman" working to "protect Montana's outdoor heritage." The State of Montana's game wardens had a different description of him. They called his time in Montana "seasonal at best."

The rule he broke exists to protect Montana hunters

Montana's residency rule is there for a reason. Elk tags are limited. Access is limited. So the state charges people who actually live here — and pay taxes here — far less than it charges visitors.

How much less? Today a Montana resident can buy a big game combination license, covering deer and elk plus fishing and upland birds, for $64.50. A non-resident pays $1,312 for the equivalent. That is roughly twenty times the price.

To qualify for the resident rate, the Flathead Beacon reported, you have to live in Montana for 180 days first, register a vehicle here, file your state income taxes as a resident, and not hold hunting or fishing privileges in any other state.

Every dollar a part-time resident dodges is a dollar that has to come from somewhere else — from the working Montanan who never left, who files here, who waits in the same draw.

Nine charges

State investigators started looking at Downing in December 2013, after the Montana Department of Revenue told Fish, Wildlife and Parks it believed he had been illegally buying resident licenses. He was charged in July 2017 with nine misdemeanor violations.

The allegations were not a paperwork technicality:

• He bought resident hunting or fishing licenses every year from 2011 through 2016 while not qualifying as a resident.
• He illegally loaned an elk license to another hunter.
• He helped his adult son get a 2015 Montana resident license — while the son held a California driver's license.

And the evidence wardens used to describe his life as "seasonal at best" came from Downing himself. Investigators cited posts on his own personal blog in which he wrote about spending time with family at his Montana vacation home and then heading home to California.

That's the part worth sitting with. It wasn't a rival campaign that called Montana his vacation spot. He did.

His own tax returns contradicted his own campaign

While all this was going on, Downing's campaign said flatly that he had been a full-time Montana resident since 2009.

The tax record said otherwise. Downing filed his income taxes as a non-resident in at least 2013 and 2014 — the same years he was buying resident licenses. He only paid as a full-year Montana resident in 2015.

His campaign's response was not to produce the receipts. Campaign manager Kevin Gardner declined to hand over tax records or documents backing the full-time-since-2009 claim, and acknowledged that Downing still owned property in California. Instead Gardner attacked the state wildlife agency, calling the investigation a "witch hunt" and saying the campaign "cannot fathom the corruption of the judicial system that is taking place." He would not explain what corruption he meant.

Attacking the investigators instead of answering the question is a familiar move. When a lawsuit accused Tommy Tuberville of not meeting Alabama's residency requirement to run for governor, his answer was to ask the court to dismiss the case rather than prove where he lived. And Downing is not the only Republican whose home-state identity turned out to be a costume — the Wall Street Journal found that Zach Lahn, running for Iowa governor as a plain-spoken farmer and outsider, was a millionaire Koch operative who was still voting in Kansas as recently as 2022.

Guilty

On July 18, 2018, Downing pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors as part of a deal with prosecutors — obtaining resident hunting licenses as a non-resident, and unlawfully procuring a license or permit. The plea came less than a week after a judge denied his motion to dismiss some of the charges.

The sentence:

• A $2,110 fine, plus court fees
• Forfeiting all Montana hunting, fishing and trapping licenses for 18 months
• A one-year deferred sentence

Gallatin County Justice Court Judge Bryan Adams told him he was getting off easy: "These offenses, obviously, could have added up to a lot of forfeiture of your privileges, so, in essence, 18 months is not a bad situation for you at this point."

Downing's explanation was that his accountants had made a mistake on his taxes. Then he blamed the state for not catching him sooner:

"If, after the first purchase, FWP would have called my Montana home phone, knocked on my door, or sent me a letter to my Montana address, I would have quickly resolved the problem and we wouldn't be here today."

Read that again. Six years of buying licenses he wasn't entitled to, and the failure he identified was the game warden's — for not calling him.

Montanans get told all the time that ignorance of the law is no excuse. A poacher who says nobody warned him doesn't walk. But Downing's version was that the state owed him a phone call.

Now he helps write the rules

He lost that 2018 Senate race, finishing third in the Republican primary. He was then elected State Auditor in 2020 and to Congress in 2024. Today he sits on the House Natural Resources Committee — the committee with jurisdiction over federal public lands, wildlife, and the places Montanans hunt and fish.

In December 2025 he introduced the "Montana Sportsmen Conservation Act" with Senators Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy, a bill stripping Wilderness Study Area protections from the Hoodoo Mountain, Wales Creek, and Middle Fork Judith areas. Downing pitched it as "unlocking public access and breaking down barriers preventing effective stewardship."

Access. That's the word he keeps using. It is worth remembering what he did the last time access rules stood between him and something he wanted.

Why this still matters

This is not ancient history dug up out of spite. It is a criminal conviction, entered in a Montana courtroom, for cheating a system that exists to give Montanans a fair shot at their own state's wildlife.

It matters because of what it tells us about how he operates:

• He took the discount he hadn't earned. For six straight years.
• He brought his family in on it. His son had a California license and got a Montana resident tag anyway.
• When caught, he blamed everyone else. His accountants. The wardens. The courts. A "witch hunt."
• He has never stopped selling the identity. "Lifelong outdoorsman" is still the first thing his congressional website says about him on natural resources.

We are told to follow the rules. Buy the right tag. File the right forms. Wait our turn in the draw. Downing didn't, and it cost him $2,110 and a season and a half of hunting.

He now helps write the rules for everyone else. We deserve better.

Source

• Republican Charged with Hunting License Violations Described as Seasonal Resident — Tristan Scott, Flathead Beacon, November 7, 2017
• Downing sentenced for hunting violations, loses privileges for 18 months — Associated Press / Great Falls Tribune, July 19, 2018

Photo: Courtesy/Kevin Gardner via the Great Falls Tribune.