HELENA – Montana Republican Party members plan to meet in early January to decide whether to join a lawsuit seeking to allow only registered Republicans to vote in GOP primaries.
Many state Republicans supported the proposal at their convention earlier this year, but party chairman Will Deschamps said then that no decision would be made until after the November elections.
Deschamps scheduled a Jan. 10 meeting of the Republican State Central Committee in Helena.
“Calling a meeting of the state central committee ensures that we have activists and volunteers making the decision,” Deschamps said in a statement.
Ravalli County Republicans filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in September seeking to close the primaries, and four more county groups have joined.
Attorney and Rep.-elect Matthew Monforton of Bozeman said he expects another five counties to join the suit in coming weeks. He filed the lawsuit on behalf of Ravalli County Republicans, saying the counties didn’t want to wait for the state party to act.
The suit asks a federal judge to strike down as unconstitutional Montana laws allowing any registered voter to participate in any party primary. Monforton said a similar effort was successful in Idaho.
Monforton said the meeting set by Deschamps was unnecessary because the party voted for it in June.
“It’s nothing more than an attempt by Deschamps to have a do-over in order to stab rank and file members in the back and get his own cronies to reverse the vote,” he claimed.
Party spokesman Chris Shipp says the party can decide to join the counties’ lawsuit, file its own or reject the idea altogether.
Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch said the state has always had open primaries and she supports the current law.
“The trouble with the closed primary idea is that it closes access and Montanans are fiercely independent,” she said. “Unaffiliated or minor party voters may be left out of the process.”