Happy Wednesday, Beacon readers! Mariah Thomas here, dispatching to you all after a week of summer-in-Montana-maxing, as I recently described it to an out-of-state friend. That summer bucket list I mentioned last week had the items “rodeo,” “farmers market” and “paddleboarding on the lake” checked off. It had to be done before the rain arrives in the Flathead Valley this upcoming weekend. Here’s hoping you’re soaking up the sun today and tomorrow!

Last week, I had an update on “The Montana Plan,” or I-194, a ballot initiative that’s been collecting signatures this spring, appearing as though it will qualify for the ballot after surpassing the required number of signatures. It made me wonder where other ballot initiatives stand.

If you all remember, throughout last fall and this winter, several ballot issues (“The Montana Plan” included) were proposed, with some facing legal battles as advocates attempted to move forward with the signature gathering process. Those included a pair of ballot issues aiming to amend the state constitution to require nonpartisan judicial elections; an issue aiming to protect the powers of initiative and referendum from “unjustified interference by the government”; and several issues aimed at capping property taxes.

Those initiatives had until June 19 to collect and submit the required number of signatures to qualify for the general election ballot. For a statutory initiative like “The Montana Plan,” just over 30,000 signatures would qualify it for the ballot. For constitutional initiatives, more than 60,000 signatures were needed.

While the deadline to submit signatures was June 19, county election officials must verify the signatures, a process which they have about four weeks to complete. Then, those signatures are to be forwarded to the Montana Secretary of State, whose office will certify the ballot by Aug. 20.

Here’s where this year’s proposed ballot issues stand.

The two ballot issues aiming to require nonpartisan judicial elections consolidated their efforts back in January, opting to back a single ballot initiative in Constitutional Initiative 132. The effort to keep the state’s courts nonpartisan follows on the heels of a legislative session in which several pieces of legislation aimed to change that longstanding tradition in the state, allowing for partisan election of justices.

Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts, the group backing the initiative, said in a June 10 press release it gathered over 102,000 signatures. (The above photo shows volunteers celebrating the signature submission, sent in alongside Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts’ press release.) Unofficial totals from county election officials, which are still being tallied, show the group collected more than 80,000 signatures. Of those, 62,307 have been accepted — more than the number required for the initiative to appear in front of voters this November — while 18,885 have been rejected.

“While it’s been a massive effort to qualify this measure for the ballot, our work is really just beginning,” said Caitie Butler, the spokesperson for Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts. “We have just under five months to make sure Montanans from Sanders County to Sheridan County understand why nonpartisan judicial elections matter to their lives. Montanans deserve fair and impartial judges, from the Supreme Court down to traffic court. The vast majority of Montanans will interact with our court system at some point in their lives, and we don’t need political parties and dark money special interests weighing in on how court cases are decided. Let’s keep politics out of our courts for good.”

Constitutional Initiative 133, the issue designed to protect the power of initiative and referendum from “unjustified interference by the government,” also said it collected more than 100,000 signatures, well exceeding the approximately 60,000 it would need to qualify for the ballot.

“Ballot measures allow Montanans to propose and pass laws on the issues that matter to them, and CI-133 safeguards that right from government interference,” said SK Rossi in a June 18 press release. Rossi is the spokesperson for Montanans Decide, the group backing CI-133.

Rossi continued: “This overwhelming number of signatures is proof positive that Montanans value our citizen initiative process and want to see it protected from political attacks.”

The initiative came about after a slate of laws passed in Montana’s legislature that the initiative’s supporters argue made the initiative and referendum process more challenging. So far, county election officials have approved 22,877 of the group’s submitted signatures and rejected 6,492. But again, those counts are a work-in-progress, as county elections work to verify signatures and submit them to the Secretary of State’s office.

As for the three ballot initiatives aimed at capping property taxes, none will appear on the ballot in November. Property taxes have been a top issue in the state, and a controversial reform cleaved the state’s Republican Party both during and after the 2025 legislative session.

A pair of issues that would’ve limited valuation increases on property to 2% were backed by Matthew Monforton, a former Republican legislator and Bozeman attorney. But they never launched a signature-gathering effort, in large part because of a lack of funding, he told Montana Free Press. And a third property tax cap ballot initiative proposed by Republican state Sen. Wylie Galt was also halted after “feedback from businesses, public officials, and other individuals,” per a press release.

And that’s what I’ve got for all of you this beautiful Wednesday afternoon! More to come as we barrel toward November’s elections. Stay tuned — and read on for the rest of today’s headlines.