HELENA — A ruling this week from the Montana Supreme Court means that signature gathering can begin for one of the proposed ballot measures that seeks to ensure Montana judicial elections remain nonpartisan.
On Thursday morning, Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts – the committee sponsoring Constitutional Initiative 132 – rallied with supporters on the Walking Mall in downtown Helena, to officially kick off their signature-gathering effort.
“This is a major victory for all of Montana,” said Caitie Butler, a spokesperson for MNC.
(Watch the video for more on where CI-132 and other proposed ballot measures stand.)
In attendance were three former Montana Supreme Court justices: Chief Justice Mike McGrath and Associate Justices Patricia Cotter and William Leaphart.
“People shouldn't expect a judge is going to decide the case one way or another because of a political party affiliation,” McGrath told MTN. “It just introduces the whole idea of partisanship into the judicial branch.”
Speaking during the rally, Cotter said, if a judge ran with a party label, that would be “implicitly promising that it would uphold the party platform.”
“Montanans almost universally want independent judiciary,” she said. “They want a judiciary that is not controlled by political persuasion and political compulsion.”
Since 1936, Montana law has required judicial candidates to run on a nonpartisan ballot. However, in each of the last three legislative sessions, lawmakers have debated proposals to introduce party labels.
CI-132 would add a section to the Montana Constitution, saying “Judicial elections shall remain nonpartisan.” If voters pass it, it would essentially prevent the Legislature from switching to partisan elections without another voter-approved amendment.
Republican supporters of changing the current election system have argued judges are not truly nonpartisan and that the framework hides information about their political leanings from voters.
MTN asked McGrath – who was elected county attorney and state attorney general as a Democrat before joining the Supreme Court – about those arguments. He said he worked with justices who had been Republican and Democratic officials before taking the bench, but he believes all of them were able to put those leanings aside and act independently.
“Decisions were made by the court that I served on, again, based on the law and the facts of each case,” he said. “Everyone was entitled to a vote, and entitled to make an argument on a particular case. The arguments would always be, ‘Well, because of these facts, this law should apply.’ Partisanship just wasn't an issue.”
MNC submitted two versions of its proposed amendment. The second version, given the temporary title of Ballot Issue #6, would not only have said current judicial elections must stay nonpartisan, but also required any newly created courts have judges elected on a nonpartisan basis.
MNC filed a pair of lawsuits, challenging Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s handling of the two proposed measures. Knudsen’s office ruled Ballot Issue #6 didn’t qualify to go on the ballot because it violated a state requirement that any constitutional amendment only makes one substantial change at a time. They found CI-132 legally sufficient for the ballot, but rewrote MNC’s proposed ballot summary.
On Tuesday, the Montana Supreme Court ruled on both suits. Five out of seven justices found the attorney general’s proposed ballot statement for CI-132 was misleading, saying it implied that the measure would change how judicial elections are currently conducted and that judicial candidates are all aligned with parties and that information was being hidden. The majority, led by Justice Jim Shea, ordered the state to use MNC’s original proposed ballot statement for CI-132.
Justice Jim Rice dissented, saying that MNC’s statement that CI-132 meant elections would “remain” nonpartisan could create a wrong impression for voters, and that the attorney general’s language should have stood. Chief Justice Cory Swanson wrote his own dissent, arguing both sides' proposed statements were inadequate.
Amanda Braynack, a spokesperson for Knudsen’s office, said in a statement to MTN that Rice’s dissent was correct.
“We are disappointed the Court ruled to advance a ballot statement with the apparent goal to mislead Montana voters,” she said. “Additionally, the Court contradicted their own judicial code that makes it clear ‘independent’ is another word for office holder, which Attorney General Knudsen paraphrased in his revised statement.”
However, the court ruled unanimously to uphold Knudsen’s decision on Ballot Issue #6. The justices agreed that preserving the current nonpartisan elections and requiring any new court to have elected judges were separate policies that must be voted on separately.
With the court’s rulings in, Butler said MNC is now committed to moving forward with CI-132.
“We introduced the two initiatives because we wanted maximum flexibility going through what we knew would be some legal hurdles,” she said. “We're just really happy to have, the clear, simple ballot language that we submitted and a path forward.”
For a constitutional amendment to qualify for the 2026 ballot, supporters have to collect at least 60,241 signatures from registered voters, including a minimum number in 40 of Montana’s 100 state legislative districts. The deadline to get those signatures in will be in June.
Butler said they’ve already received the petition forms to start collecting signatures on CI-132. She said they’ll soon have their volunteers circulating the forms, though winter won’t be the most active period for signature gathering.
“Our goal was to begin gathering signatures at least by the beginning of the year, so to have the Supreme Court's really rapid decision and then the petitions in hand, this is great because it gives us more time to go out and gather signatures from every corner of the state,” she said.
There’s also a second group trying to qualify a constitutional amendment guaranteeing nonpartisan judicial elections: Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges, the sponsors of Constitutional Initiative 131. Like with CI-132, Knudsen’s office approved CI-131 for signature gathering but rewrote the ballot statement, with very similar text.
MFIJ also objected to Knudsen’s decision and asked the Supreme Court to overturn it. So far, they are still awaiting a ruling.
