Attorney General’s Edits To Initiatives Anger Petitioners
A second nonpartisan judicial elections ballot initiative received the OK of Montana’s attorney general Oct. 9, but with the same edits that triggered a lawsuit against the AG last week.
Constitutional Initiative 132 would amend the state Constitution to ensure that all judicial elections are nonpartisan. The push follows several failed attempts by state Republican lawmakers in the 2025 Legislature to make judicial candidates declare a political party. Those attempts were preceded by the Montana Supreme Court judging multiple Republican bills unconstitutional over the last five years.
Again, Knudsen has changed the petition language voters would see, a move that sparked a lawsuit last week when the AG did the same to a similar initiative.
The original CI-132 language read: “This constitutional initiative would require that Montana Supreme Court and district court elections remain nonpartisan.”
Knudsen’s language reads: “A constitutional initiative that, if passed, amends Article VII of the Montana Constitution to create a new Section 12 that mandates all judicial elections be nonpartisan. A nonpartisan election prohibits labeling candidates on the ballot according to the political party the candidate aligns with including labels like independent.”
It’s the last part of the Knudsen edit — “according to the political party the candidate aligns with”— that the petition group Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts takes issue with. In court filings the group argues that Knudsen’s version implies the judicial candidates have a political affiliation that’s being hidden. It’s the same language the attorney general used to amend Constitutional Initiative 131, which applies specifically to the elections for seats on the state Supreme Court and district court judgeships.
The point of the attorney general’s language, according to a filing by Deputy Solicitor General Brent Mead, is to convey the practical implication to voters of seeing a non-partisan ballot versus a partisan ballot.
The attorney general’s language adds a partisan message to the initiative language, said Betsy Brandborg of Friends of the Third Branch, a nonprofit that raises public awareness of the judicial branch while defending a separation of powers between politicians and the courts.
Keeping party labels out of judicial races compels voters to think about a candidate’s qualifications rather than defaulting to a letter on the ballot beside their name, Brandborg said.
“The idea is ‘let’s make people think about who they want judging,’” Brandborg said in a Monday interview. The state’s judicial races have been nonpartisan since the 1930s.
Knudsen hasn’t weighed in publicly on the initiatives, but he has repeatedly railed against what he calls “activist judges” when courts have ruled against his Department of Justice.
CI-132 supporters need to collect sufficient signatures from the public by June 19 to qualify for the 2026 November election. The same is true of CI-131 organizers Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges. Both groups are party to the lawsuit filed last week.
There is a third proposed court-related ballot initiative that would require that any newly created court be filled through nonpartisan judicial elections.
During the 2025 Legislature, Republicans succeeded in passing a law allowing political parties to donate directly to judicial candidates for the first time. With no limits on political party donations to candidates of any kind, the new law opens the door for unseen party spending in judicial races.
