Committee Launches Ballot Initiative For Nonpartisan Judiciary

A second group of Montanans has launched a campaign to amend the state constitution to ensure that candidates for court races are elected without political affiliation.

Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts on Friday launched a political committee and released two versions of proposed ballot language to enshrine a nonpartisan judicial system in the state during the 2026 election.

“We’re proud to be launching this long-planned effort to protect Montana courts from partisan influence,” Caitie Butler, spokesperson for Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts, said in a press release. “Our campaign builds on years of successful efforts to ensure that judges are accountable to the citizens of Montana and the constitution, not politicians.”

Another committee, Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges, launched its own constitutional initiative campaign in June. Throughout the 2025 Legislature, Republican leadership, including Gov. Greg Gianforte, pushed to make changes to the state’s judicial system.

Among the ideas to increase transparency and accountability to the court system was a plan to allow judges to run under party labels, removing the idea of a nonpartisan court.

Many Republicans who advocated for the more than seven bills pushing partisanship onto the bench said it would merely clarify what they perceived as an already partisan system.

But detractors, including Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Cory Swanson, argued that the answer is not to lean further into political alignment.

While all bills related to political judicial races — except one allowing political parties to donate to judicial candidates — died in the Legislature, the conversations continued after lawmakers left Helena.

Now, two separate groups are working to codify nonpartisan elections in Montana’s constitution. Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts is a coalition comprising multiple advocacy groups throughout the state including Montana Federation of Public Employees, Big Sky 55+, ACLU of Montana, Forward Montana, and Catalyst Montanan. The coalition has “extensive experience defending Montana’s courts and running successful campaigns to limit the influence of politicians and party bosses in our court system,” according to the press release.

A committee spokesperson did not directly address a question about why the groups aren’t working together.

However, she said the committee undertook a “lengthy, thorough and responsible” research phase and legal review before publicly launching its campaign.

“This group has been exploring this for many months,” Butler said. “A lot of the groups involved were also heavily involved in making sure the legislature didn’t make the courts partisan.”

Members of many of the groups publicly supporting the committee, including Big Sky 55+, testified numerous times before the Legislature about why judges should remain as apolitical as possible.

“Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts believes that judges should be accountable to the citizens of Montana and the constitution, not politicians, party bosses, or donors,” Executive Director of Big Sky 55+ Trent Bolger said in a press release. “These measures ensure the people of Montana get to pick judges who will adhere to the constitution rather than a party line.”

The committee has submitted two ballot initiatives with similar language. Both ensure that all elected judges remain nonpartisan, but one adds an additional provision that any new courts created in the state must also adhere to a nonpartisan election for judges.

The shared language of both initiatives inserts the following language into Article VII of the state constitution: “Judicial elections shall remain nonpartisan.”

Former Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike McGrath endorsed the committee’s efforts in their announcement.

“It’s simple — judges should be elected based on their record and qualifications alone. Montana citizens deserve to have their cases decided by independent judges, based on the law and facts of each case, without regard to party affiliation,” McGrath said. “The measures Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts submitted today protect our long-standing tradition of electing judges based on the person, not the party.”

The committee also shared the support of former Republican state Sen. Bruce Tutvedt for the ballot measures.

In early June, Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges launched its campaign to put a nonpartisan judiciary constitutional initiative to voters in 2026.

Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges is led by Pepper Petersen and Ted Dick, the same team behind the ballot initiatives in 2020 which legalized adult use of recreational marijuana.

Petersen told the Daily Montanan earlier this summer that his decades of political work in the state working on issues from coal mining, to gun rights, to marijuana, makes them the right group to bring forward the initiative.

Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges has earned endorsements from many political pillars of Montana’s past, including Democrats and Republicans.

“Without independent judges, our entire system of government, our democracy and our way of life fall apart,” former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot said in an endorsement video last week.

Former Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer also endorsed the campaign, as has former Republican Secretary of State Bob Brown, former U.S. Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat, and multiple current and former legislators.

The filing language for the Fair and Impartial Judges ballot initiative states would add the following into Article VII, section 8 of the Montana Constitution: “Supreme court justices and district court judges shall be elected in nonpartisan elections by the qualified electors as provided by law.”

In campaign finance filings from the end of June, the Fair and Impartial Judges committee reported receiving $20,881 in contributions.

Petersen told the Daily Montanan he and Dick have so far donated their time and services to the campaign, through their consulting firms Coldwater Group and Bolder Action Consulting.

Financial reports for Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts will be submitted at the end of the quarter.

Petersen told the Daily Montanan in a phone interview that while he had heard of another group working on a similar issue, he hadn’t spoken to anyone from the committee.

“We’re always willing to talk to anybody about this issue, whomever they be, and work with people to make sure we get this done for Montanans. For 90 years we’ve had nonpartisan judges, and we’re going to make sure that gets into the constitution,” Petersen said. “On any campaign, you’ve got to focus on what you’re doing day by day. Right now, we have the biggest bipartisan group of supporters that are interested in this issue.”

While two committees are completely independent of each other and not collaborating, Butler, the Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts spokesperson, said that they have the same goal — preserving nonpartisan judicial elections in Montana.

She added that the lengthy process for approving constitutional initiatives — by the Secretary of State and the Attorney General — before signature gathering can begin can benefit from having multiple proposals on the table.

“Multiple policies ensures maximum flexibility in getting a policy through,” Butler told the Daily Montanan.