James Brown (born 1971) is an American politician who is currently serving as the 18th Montana State Auditor since 2025. He served as a Republican member of the Montana Public Service Commission.
Biography Brown is from Beaverhead County, where his family homesteaded in the late 1800's. Brown graduated from Beaverhead County High School in 1989. He earned a degree in political science and history from the University of Montana at Missoula, a J.D from Seattle University School of Law in 2004, and a master's degree in tax law from the University of Washington at Seattle in 2005.
Brown has worked as a policy aide, a legislative director, and owner/operator of the James Brown Law Office. He has been a leading conservative voice in Montana for decades, including by representing the Trump campaign in Montana and the Montana Republican Party as legal counsel.
Political career In 2020, James Brown was elected as the Public Service Commissioner for District 3. He won this election by nearly 9 points. Following his election to the Public Service Commission, he was elected the President of the Public Service Commission.
In 2022, Brown ran and lost a race for Montana Supreme Court to the incumbent justice Ingrid Gustafson. While the office is considered non-partisan, Montana Republican leaders supported Brown early in his campaign, setting the stage for an election with partisanship overtones. The race was named as the most expensive in Montana history for the office, and Brown attributed his loss on the "millions of dollars in liberal money" that had flooded the state in the final weeks of the race.
In 2024, Brown was elected to be the Montana State Auditor and Commissioner of Securities and Insurance, defeating Democratic candidate John Repke with over 61% of the vote.
Since taking office, Brown has increased public outreach to educate Montanans about fraud and scam threats, developed strategic performance metrics for the office, and bolstered the office's investigatory mission. Between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025, Brown's office denied $21.6 million in proposed insurance rate increases, benefiting more than 77,000 Montanans. In Fiscal Year 2025-2026, Brown's office again denied more than $18.4 million in unjustified insurance rate increases, benefiting 127,855 Montanans.
Brown has also clawed back at least $37.3 million in wrongful billing associated with an Affordable Care Act fraud scheme that targeted Montana's native communities.
As Montana State Auditor, Brown serves on the five-member Board of Land Commissioners, which manages state trust lands to generate revenue for public education in Montana; in 2025, the Land Board generated more than $80 million for public education via state trust land management.
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