CI-132 Would Enshrine Nonpartisan Judicial Elections in Montana’s Constitution

In 1994, Katherine “Kitty” Curtis ran for a seat on the bench as a Flathead County district court judge. 

Then the Columbia Falls city attorney, Curtis recalled knocking on 6,000 doors during the campaign, having conversations with voters about her qualifications, her experience as a lawyer and her views on how a judge should carry themselves. She won her first term to the bench in 1995, marking a spot in local history as Flathead County’s first female district court judge, a role she served in until her retirement in 2013. 

This year, Curtis is campaigning again, though not for a politician or judge. Instead, Curtis has helped collect signatures — more than 500, by her count — and shared information about a ballot measure she views as protecting the system she served for decades.  

That ballot measure, Constitutional Initiative 132, reads simply: “CI-132 amends the Montana Constitution to require that judicial elections remain nonpartisan.”  

CI-132 would keep partisan labels off the ballot for judicial candidates running for any position, from the Supreme Court to the state’s district courts, water courts, municipal courts and more. It wouldn’t preclude candidates from associating with one party or the other and accepting their contributions, said Caitie Butler, spokesperson for Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts, the group advocating for the initiative. 

If approved, the measure would preserve the status quo in Montana, Butler said. Judicial races in the state are already conducted in a nonpartisan manner and have been for more than 90 years.  

Still, the measure comes against a complex backdrop, as some in Montana have raised concerns about how justices’ political leanings have played into some key decisions on laws passed by the Republican-held state legislature. CI-132 follows a legislative session that saw politicians make several attempts to cast judicial elections as a partisan affair.  

For Curtis, though, the importance of a nonpartisan judiciary branch remains clear. She views it as a matter of fairness for those who interact with the court system in the state. 

“I don’t think Montanans, everyday Montanans, expect judicial campaigns and judicial elections to be any different than they were 30 years ago when I ran to be a district court judge,” Curtis said. “I think political parties and politicians are the ones who are trying to make judicial elections and judicial campaigns into something that they’ve never been before.” 

According to Lee Banville, a political analyst and director of the University of Montana’s journalism school, a conversation about Montana’s courts and whether they are obstructing the ability of elected officials to implement policies began around a decade ago.  

It has played out, Banville said, in multiple ways, including outside spending and accusations about judges “pre-judging” legislation. The latest round came in the form of several proposals aimed at making judicial elections partisan, though none of those efforts passed muster at the legislature.  

What did pass in 2025, however, was a bill that allowed parties to donate directly to judicial candidates. It’s a dynamic the state is seeing play out for the first time in this year’s Supreme Court race between Flathead County district court judges Dan Wilson and Amy Eddy, though their race is far from the first Supreme Court race to see partisan attempts to influence voters.  

Banville said money has always flowed to judicial figures partisans saw as being in their camp. But rather than coming directly from a party, it would quietly come from key legislators, elected officials and interested groups.  

“It wasn’t as easy for the public to see it,” Banville said.   

In recent years, GOP efforts to publicly push their preferred Supreme Court candidates have risen in stature. But it’s not just one-sided. Banville said Democrats in the state have also begun to see the courts as a refuge of sorts, where they can find legal wins as the state has become more red.  

“It really is ironic because the independent question has, itself, become partisan, and that’s unfortunate because it’s not supposed to be,” Banville said.  

Still, Banville said, by keeping partisanship off the ballot, judicial figures cast as being on one side or the other have still at times made independent decisions. He argued not being beholden to party politics provides a buffer for justices to do so.  

In 2025, Rep. Amy Regier, R-Kalispell, chaired the House Judiciary Committee, where the efforts to make judicial races partisan originated. Her committee saw several different proposals on the issue, from making judicial races a partisan affair at the Supreme Court level only, to the Supreme Court and district court level, and down the ladder. Regier voted, alongside the majority of the Republican caucus, to make judicial races partisan affairs, and she’s against CI-132 this fall.  

While she said she would be hard-pressed to find anybody who doesn’t like the idea of impartial courts, Regier said that’s not how the courts have ruled in recent years. 

Montana’s Supreme Court sees a relatively small number of legal challenges to the laws passed by legislators: dozens of bills — if that — out of hundreds, make it to that level. In recent years, with a Republican majority in the legislature and Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte at the helm, the legislature has seen bills passed attempting to change state norms on a slew of hot-button issues: abortion, climate change, transgender issues, voting rights and more. The state’s Supreme Court, in many cases, has upheld the status quo based on provisions from Montana’s constitution, which was rewritten in 1972 and is widely considered a progressive document. 

To Regier, however, those rulings indicate a partisan slant. And she thinks the efforts to assign party labels to justices is a matter of being straight about that with voters. She said when it’s election time, it’s judicial candidates she fields the most questions about.  

“So, with that, just, people don’t know much about the judges now, and my concern is that CI-132 is just going to keep information hidden forever,” Regier said. 

In 2025, fellow state Rep. Courtenay Sprunger, R-Kalispell, split her votes on proposals to make judicial races partisan. She voted no on a bill providing for partisan nomination of Supreme Court justices, district court judges, justices of the peace and municipal court judges; but yes on a separate bill allowing judicial candidates the choice to declare a partisan affiliation. She doesn’t support CI-132 as written. Sprunger said she didn’t like the idea of forcing judges to run with a party affiliation next to their name. In races for positions like justices of the peace or water court judges, Sprunger said it’d be ideal to maintain nonpartisanship as those courts handle more run-of-the-mill issues, like traffic tickets and small disputes.  

But she agreed with Regier on the worries about voters having all the information they need to cast their ballots for judicial candidates — and that information, to her, should be able to include whether a candidate has a party preference they’d like to declare.  

Curtis, the retired district court judge supporting CI-132, argued the court system does provide extensive documentation of judges’ and justice’s opinions, cases they’ve ruled on and more for voters to sift through.  

Even so, Curtis acknowledged wading through those documents to get a handle on how judges rule can prove difficult for voters. Both Curtis and Regier agreed on the importance of other efforts to provide clarity, like the recently created Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission. That commission’s website states it will begin collecting information and evaluating it in time for the 2027 election cycle.  

Where Regier and Curtis differ, however, is in the conclusion that adding partisan labels would help voters see things more clearly.  

“We all have preference. Just because we wear a black robe doesn’t mean those preferences go away,” Regier said. “I think that’s really what people were trying to reveal by running these bills, to say, ‘hey, you’re showing partisanship.’ If you can look at, say, a legislator that ran as a Republican or Democrat and then at some point ends up being a district court or a Supreme Court judge, again, just because they put on that black robe doesn’t mean that partisanship goes away.”  

To Curtis, the responsibility of transparency lies with judicial candidates themselves. Like she did in her run for office, she said she views it as incumbent on candidates to get out and have conversations with voters.  

“I’m all for voters knowing, as much as possible, relevant information about a candidate,” Curtis said. “They should know as much as possible about a candidate’s experience, about a candidate’s qualifications, about a candidate’s record. But the fact of the matter is 99.9% of Montanans interact with courts in cases like traffic tickets, landlord-tenant disputes, family law matters like child custody or divorce, unfortunately, criminal cases, or a motor-vehicle accident, or a boundary-line dispute. I mean, any number of kinds of cases, and there is no Democratic or Republican way to handle those cases.  

“Those cases depend on the facts and the law, and the relevant information about the judge handling those cases is: are they known to be fair? Are they known to be impartial? Do they know the law, and will they decide the case promptly and efficiently? Not what political party do they belong to.” 

For Butler, CI-132’s spokesperson, Curtis’s sentiment rings true. She harked back to what she called Montanans’ tradition of voting for the person over the party and suggested that tradition remains intact when it comes to the state’s court system.  

Like Curtis, Butler argued judicial candidates should talk to people about who they are. The question posed to voters this fall is simply whether partisanship needs to be part of that equation.  

For Jinnifer Mariman, who works as a lawyer at Kalispell’s McGarvey Law firm, the answer is no.  

“As a lawyer, when I step into a courtroom on behalf of my clients, I want judges applying the law fairly and accurately in every case, not answering to a party boss or facing a primary if they rule in a certain way,” Mariman said. “That’s how I think about it as a lawyer.”  

She continued: “I also recognize from my client’s standpoint, when you have a client and you’re walking into a courtroom, there are big things at stake. You don’t go into a courtroom lightly. I want my clients to know they’re getting a fair shake when they step into the courtroom as well.”  

In Mariman’s view, the perception that politics could be part of a judge’s decision at any level is a major concern. To her, the easiest answer to that question is keeping party labels — and all that comes with it — out of the mix.  

Mariman and Curtis, the retired district court judge, join retired Montana Supreme Court justices, district court judges and Montanans who have added their names to a list of people backing the measure. The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce also recently came out in support of the measure. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, Montana Trial Lawyers Association, Big Sky 55+ and Wild Montana Action Fund have donated to Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts to help the group’s efforts to pass the initiative. 

The Montana GOP has passed a resolution opposing CI-132. There is no organized committee in opposition to the ballot measure.  

Voters will decide on Nov. 3. A “yes” vote on CI-132 will go toward enshrining nonpartisan judicial elections into Montana’s constitution. A “no” vote would allow for potential changes to the current system of electing justices.  

Ballots were mailed to absentee voters Oct. 9. Voters can check their registration status and the status of their ballot here: https://voterportal.mt.gov/WhereToVote.aspx. To register to vote, voters can either bring their completed voter registration application to their county election office or visit their county elections office to fill out a voter registration application and receive a ballot there.  

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