“At a news conference about the committee’s list of bill drafts last month, Sen.-elect Laura Smith, D-Helena, said the committee was pushing out more unconstitutional bills in response to courts finding prior bills passed by the Republican-led legislature unconstitutional.”
As reported in the story linked below from the Daily Montanan, the radical right leaders of Montana’s legislature are introducing a number of bills they claim are aimed at “judicial reform”. The laws they propose would in actuality destroy the independence of the state’s judiciary and make it total subservient to the legislature. The effort is a total assault on the state’s constitution and our protections under it.
Most notable is the creation of a new Chancery Court that would be tasked with adjudicating questions of constitutionality. Currently the district and supreme court judges elected by the people of Montana decide on constitutionality, but in this new scenario three new judges hand-picked and paid by the governor would decide. Would they ever decide a measure signed by the governor was unconstitutional? Of course they would not.
Read that here: https://bills.legmt.gov/#/laws/bill/2/LC1440?open_tab=bill
Next is a bill requiring anyone challenging a bill on constitutional grounds to demonstrate that it is unconstitutional “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Whereas our duly elected judges currently make these fine determinations, now a plaintiff must go above and beyond to prove unconstitutionality. Presumably in front of the governor’s hand picked chancery court. The underlying assumption is that any bill passed by the legislature is constitutional no matter how egregious.
Read that bill: https://bills.legmt.gov/#/laws/bill/2/LC0617?open_tab=bill
Other notable bills:
- Create a judicial performance evaluation commission to review and report on the performance of judges, with 9/11 of its members appointed by the leaders of the Senate, the House, and the governor. Would any judge who ever found against any of these hyper partisan entities get a good review? Of course they would not. Too bad the legislature does not propose a similar commission to review and report on the performance of legislators.
- Require judicial candidates to file by party preference, presumably so the automatic R voters will load the courts with Republicans and creating a huge burden to qualify for the ballot for anyone not affiliated with one party or another.
- Add two new members to the judicial standards commission and reassign it from the Supreme Court to control by the partisan led Department of Justice.
These bills are all about bringing the currently independent, nonpartisan, and co-equal judicial branch firmly under the thumb of partisan legislative leaders. They should be opposed in their current form.
Cascade County does not have a representative on the House judiciary committee, but Senator Daniel Emrich is on the Senate judiciary committee. People in his district should contact him to urge him to oppose these bills.
The latest story from the Daily Montanan is here:
Some previous stories about the interim “judicial oversight committee” from last year and the noxious bills they produced that are being considered now:
Judicial oversight committee asks for 27 bills; Dems and Racicot call them attacks on judiciary
Montana’s GOP-led judicial oversight committee shows nothing but contempt for courts