Flathead Judges Clash Over Court’s Role in Nonpartisan Supreme Court Bid

After spending roughly a decade each on the Flathead County District Court bench, Judge Amy Eddy and Judge Dan Wilson face off this November for the seventh open seat on the Montana Supreme Court in a nonpartisan race set against a broader statewide fight over judicial partisanship.

Both judges on Tuesday addressed that fight directly, outlining sharply different judicial philosophies — and different approaches to campaign funding — at the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce candidate forum luncheon, held alongside remarks from other local legislative candidates.

Eddy told the audience a judge’s primary role is to recognize the limitations on the judiciary’s authority while applying the law.

“To do that, you need to rely on the text of the constitution, the structure of the constitution and the history of the constitution,” Eddy said. “The Montana Constitution was not meant to be frozen in time. Every 20 years, we get to vote on whether or not we want to form a new constitutional convention, and in that way, each generation pulls the constitution forward with us because the law is meant to solve modern problems.”

Wilson, however, described a Supreme Court justice’s role as integrating “the people’s will” while the constitution that was drafted in 1972 serves as a formative text that the judiciary branch must uphold.

“The purpose of a judge is to find the people’s will and pose it in a case without regard to a judge’s personal views or agenda,” Wilson said. “That, in my view, is judicial activism and is to be avoided at all costs. Judges are there to serve the people. They have the hand on the rudder of the ship of state, which is meant to keep our state’s laws predictable, both for individuals and businesses.”

As campaign funding remains a thorny issue in judiciary races, Wilson said the constitution allows the support of organizations and said his “record of consistent rulings” has attracted the support of groups including the Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Montana Mining Association and the Montana Livestock Growers Association. The groups, he said, have examined his record and chose to support him because of his “values of consistency and predictability of the law to be primarily upheld.”

“I have never known a judge who has ever taken an oath to a political party who does not consider the oath to the constitution and the rule of law itself to be the guiding instruction,” Wilson said.

Wilson said when delegates met in 1972, they recognized judges would struggle to fund a campaign without outside support, making it inevitable that political parties would back certain candidates and help fund their campaigns.

Eddy, however, said Montana’s nonpartisan judicial elections have been part of the state’s policy for nearly a century so that judges are not “held captive by political parties.”

“We do not want them swearing loyalty oaths to political party platforms before they make a decision,” Eddy said. “We do not want them asking whether or not that decision is going to jeopardize a party endorsement or ongoing political party contributions.”

Under House Bill 39, political parties for the first time this year are allowed to contribute $84,000 directly to judicial candidates in the primary and general elections.

“I’m not accepting any political party money and I’m not attending any political party events,” Eddy said.

Eddy cautioned the audience against influence from organizations delivering “political cheap shots” against her and her opponent during the campaign and encouraged voters to retain their faith in the judicial branch.

Of the 58,000 cases handled by the 53 district court judges in Montana last year, Eddy said only 900 cases were appealed to the Montana Supreme Court.

“What that means is that you should be very proud of the work all of your judges are doing on behalf of your communities and of all those cases the Supreme Court handles, only a tiny percent of them do they ever find a statute unconstitutional because it’s such a high burden to prove,” Eddy said.

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