The ballot clock runs out Thursday

Morning. Monsoon moisture is still parked over southern Montana, so if you heard thunder over the weekend, no, that wasn't your neighbor's new sound system. Today's the last quiet stretch before Thursday's ballot-certification deadline turns Helena into a courtroom. We read the filings so you can drink your coffee. Let's go.

Two Republican lawmakers sued the attorney general and secretary of state Friday over a decision by AG Austin Knudsen that would knock them off the November ballot. Here's the knot: Montana caps lawmakers at eight years per chamber within a 16-year window, and for nearly 15 years a 2012 opinion from then-AG Steve Bullock let candidates run again once they'd been out of that chamber for eight of the last 16 years. Knudsen reads it the other way — serve eight years, and you're done coming back, full stop.

The suit was filed in Lewis and Clark County District Court by House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick, Rep. Llew Jones and GOP official Ted Kronebusch, who call Knudsen's reading a move to "turn nearly 15 years of practice and precedent on its head." The timing is the whole story: Senate President Matt Regier asked Knudsen to review Jones's eligibility on July 9 — six weeks before the Aug. 20 certification deadline the secretary of state now has to meet.

What happens next: the state Republican Party is preparing to replace the candidates on the ballot unless a judge steps in first. With certification landing Thursday (Aug. 20), whoever's name goes to the printer is being decided this week.

A chairlift burned at Maverick Mountain Ski Area after the Sand Creek Fire moved through the resort and Grasshopper Valley — base structures survived, but the damage is extensive.

A Yellowstone County judge upheld the county's move to kill a data-center ballot initiative that would have required two-thirds resident approval before building one — clearing the massive Quantica project near Broadview, population roughly 150, to keep moving.

Laurel High School is tightening its cell-phone rules — 39 states and D.C. restrict phones in schools, but Montana leaves it to local districts, so "bell to bell" here is a school-board call, not a state one.

The NorthWestern utility merger before the PSC got a new wrinkle: Commissioner Brad Molnar, suspended a year by Gov. Gianforte in July over harassment allegations, is suing to get reinstated before the multibillion-dollar decision lands without him.

Showers and thunderstorms keep bubbling up over southwest Montana today, highs in the mid-70s to 80s. A Tuesday trough drops the temps below average before the ridge builds back — pack the rain shell, but don't retire the shorts.

Phones bell-to-bell, or trust the kid to manage it? If your local district put Laurel's stricter policy on the table, would you back it? Reply with one sentence — add "print it" if we can share yours.