At Northern Plains, we are concerned about a number of bills that seek to make elections for Montana judges partisan, bringing divisive politics further into our courtrooms and making it harder for judges to be fair and impartial.
Montanans come from a wide array of backgrounds and communities. We are from the plains and mountains, cities and towns, rural ranches, expansive farmlands, and everything in between. Some days it feels like we have more differences than things that bind us together. But we choose to focus on what we have in common – our shared identity as Montanans. We have little use for petty politics, especially those that seem designed to divide us. And it’s our view that politics tends to break more than it solves.
We won’t claim that Montana’s courts are perfect, or that every judge makes the right decision every time. We want to see fair and impartial courts that do a better job of bringing justice to all Montanans. But we do not think bringing more politics into the picture is the way to get there. We want justice from our courts – not politics.
Providing partisan elections for judges risks creating bias, and inserts more politics into our courts, not less. We need to get politics out of the courtroom, not further entrench our judges and judiciary in a system that connects them to the political elite and political dollars.
Please take a moment to tell your elected representatives that Montanans want a fair, impartial, and nonpartisan court system:
Call the Legislative Switchboard at (406) 444-4800 and ask to leave a message for your House Representative. (You can find your Representative by clicking here.)
Ask them to vote no on Senate Bill 42, a bill that would change Montana’s nonpartisan judicial elections into partisan races.
(Senate Bill 42 has already passed through the Senate and has now been transmitted to the House.)