SB 268 changes Supreme Court justice election
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The Judiciary Committee listened to Senator Joe Balyeat's SB 268 Friday. It is a bill to give the voters a chance to decide whether to elect supreme court justices by district. The bill divides the state into seven supreme court judicial districts, similar to the way the Public Service Commission is elected by district. According to the bill, Hill County would be in Supreme Court Judicial District 1, which includes Cascade, Choteau, Fergus, Golden Valley, Hill, Judith Basin, Liberty, Meagher, Pondera, Teton, and Wheatland counties.
While I was out campaigning, people repeatedly asked me about the judicial candidates because they had no idea who they were. Nels Swandal is from Livingston. Nobody had ever heard of him in our area. Beth Baker is from Helena. Nobody knew her either. This bill would eliminate statewide elections for the justices. The idea is that the voters do not know the candidates, and since they can't run on a party ticket, and since they can't or won't answer questions on particular issues because they might have to hear cases on those issues, there is no real way for the voters to get a good picture of who their justices are. Currently, the voters are pretty much stuck with trusting whatever TV ads or newspaper ads the candidate might run in their local area, and in rural areas, that might not be very many ads.
If the voters pass this bill, the Supreme Court justice they elect will come from an area closer to home. The attorneys who run will be from the area. Their reputation will be able to be considered. The candidates themselves will be able to spend more time campaigning in their areas so the voters will be able to have more contact with them. The candidates will not have to raise as much money to get their qualifications out to the voters.
United Property Owners of Montana, an organization that fights for property rights, http://www.upom.org/default.html, was a proponent for the referendum. The State Bar Association, the ACLU, the Trial Lawyers Association, and two Helena attorneys opposed it.
The bill passed the Senate 30-20, with two Democrat senators crossing party lines and voting for it. Those senators were Gary Branae of Billings, and Brad Hamlett of Cascade.
I think this is a great idea. I am excited about it because I think it will give local voters a much greater opportunity to know who their justice candidates are. I am very interested in legislation that gets the voters more and accurate information. We passed another bill out of the House a few weeks ago. It was by Rep. Joanne Blyton of Joliet, and it would require simplification of the language of the ballot initiatives. Instead of having tricky language on ballot initiative questions, the ballot initiative question would simply require a "yes" or a "no." Then voters don't have to figure out if they vote "for" an issue if that means they like the initiative or they don't like it. That is HB 310.
