2 weeks Ago By SEABORN LARSON [email protected]
Competing visions for one of the GOP's top priorities have started moving through the Montana Legislature with plenty of support, as Republicans have vowed for months to turn judicial elections into partisan affairs. Tagging judicial candidates with party labels is a critical component of to reshape the courts this session. Lawmakers emerged from an intensive working session last year with the proposal at the center of their work, and Gov.
Greg Gianforte during his State of the State address in early January he would sign a partisan judicial elections bill into law, adding Montana to a short list of states to do so. Two bills — so far — that attempt to make that change have a clear distinction: would require judicial candidates to declare a party affiliation, while ostensibly makes the declaration optional. Opponents of HB 295, however, argue the bill still antagonizes judges.
If a candidate declines to label their campaign with a political party, the tag next to their name on the ballot would read, "Undisclosed." Rep. Paul Fielder, a Thompson Falls Republican and sponsor of HB 295, presented his bill in the House Judiciary Committee on Monday.
One lawmaker asked if he would be open to more neutral language in his bill, swapping out "undisclosed" for "nonpartisan." "I don't think that's a good option because everybody's got some views," Fielder said. "If you can't align with one of the many political affiliations out there then you're just choosing not to reveal what your leanings are.
" Republicans have long accused the courts of being political enemies of Montana's majority party after much of the most contentious GOP legislation from recent sessions has been struck down again and again on legal challenges. The judicial branch is nonpartisan, and judicial elections can often feel sparse on character illustration because candidates are limited as to what they can discuss about certain issues that may come up in court. Republicans have raised party labels in judicial elections as a voter education measure that would bring the courts into closer alignment with Montana's increasingly Republican tilt But opponents of the GOP effort say the courts are intended to rule on the law and the facts of the case, not public opinion.
"This is nothing more than an effort to have biased judges who are going to align themselves with the Republican Party," Anne Sherwood, a Helena attorney representing a new nonprofit called Friends of the Third Branch, testified on Monday. A third proposal, from House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls, would apply only to Montana Supreme Court races. It would also use "nonpartisan" instead of "undisclosed," and makes the party label optional.
That bill has not yet been heard by a committee. Fielder's bill has 24 co-sponsors, while SB 42 was produced last year by the Senate Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform, an ad hoc working group formed after Republican legislators suffered another series of losses in court. That proposal, from Sen.
Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls, requires judicial candidates to declare a party affiliation. It also differs from Fielder's bill by requiring party labels for every judicial candidate, from Supreme Court down to municipal judges and justices of the peace. In a hearing on his bill Monday, Democrats failed to secure a change to the bill that would have nodded to a recent survey by the Montana League of Women Voters, in which 89% of respondents disagreed with the notion that Montana Supreme Court justices should make decisions based on political party considerations.
In the same survey, 71% of respondents said they opposed the idea that justices should run under party labels. Emrich laid out his analysis of the survey after the Democrats' amendment failed. "The fact that the public is very opposed to partisan outcomes of judges' decisions would showcase the fact that the voters don't know that their judiciary is currently partisan," Emrich said the hearing.
"This bill simply shines light on the fact that the judiciary is a partisan judiciary." The committee approved Emrich's bill on a party-line vote, 6-3, sending SB 42 on to the Senate floor. Democrats did not participate in last year's Senate Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform, contending at the time that the committee was predisposed to undermining the judicial branch's independence in order to see more Republican policies upheld.
Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, a Belgrade Democrat, said the legislative session would be a better place to argue the merits of Republicans' ideas. Still, Flowers said last week his caucus was not playing catch-up as those judicial bills are now cruising through the process. "We weren't just going fishing this summer.
When these committee meetings were going on, we were meeting," Flowers said. "We were aware of what was coming. We were preparing our response to that and I think you're seeing some of that in our response to these bills in committee.
And we have had some success in defeating some of these bills." GOP judicial bills suffer a handful of floor vote losses Of the Senate committee's 27 bills aimed at retooling the courts, three have already been defeated on the House or Senate floor. One of those measures, , would have asserted more legislative control over a ballot initiative a judge deemed sufficient.
That bill died Monday on a 17-32 vote. Another committee proposal, , would have required judges to more potently prioritize legislative intent of a bill that's been challenged as unconstitutional. That bill got opposition testimony from Rep.
Bill Mercer, R-Billings, who raised the legislative intent provision as problematic. "We need to be devoted to the text," Mercer said. "If we're doing our job in away that ensures that the statutes are clear, we shouldn't want the courts to go beyond that.
" That bill went down Monday on a 37-62 vote with 20 Republicans joining all Democrats to oppose it..
