(CN) — The way Montanans select general election candidates may soon change after Montana’s Supreme Court sided with election reform proponents on Wednesday by declaring their proposed constitutional initiative as perfectly legal.
The opinion, penned by Chief Justice Mike McGrath, addresses a petition led by Montanans for Election Reform Action Fund, which sought to reverse Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s determination that the group’s initiative to reshape state elections was legally insufficient.
The petitioning group — self-described as “common-sense Montanans who want to make elections work better for the people of Montana” — submitted its final proposed constitutional initiative and ballot statements in September to amend Article IV on Montana’s Constitution to include a ninth section. As proposed, the new section would restructure the state’s current primary election to allow general primary candidates to advance from a top-four ranking system.
Montana currently elects general election candidates by who receives the most votes, whether or not they receive a majority vote. Should Montanans adopt the group’s proposed changes, voters of any political party can elect office candidates — regardless of their political affiliation, as well — from the same primary ballot to advance the top four.
The proposed initiative, or “BI-12” for short, also includes 11 amendments, including limitations to the number of signatures required for ballot qualification and the permittance of primary candidates regardless of their political party preference, affiliation, nomination or a lack thereof.
This led Knudsen to reject ballot initiative on Oct. 13, reasoning that it violated Montana’s Constitution, because they are irrelevant to creating a top-four primary and “present a choice whether Montana should allow political parties to nominate or endorse candidates on the ballot.”
Knudsen also took issue with how the new section defined a “covered office” as the office of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, state representative, state senator, U.S. representative, U.S. senator and “other offices of law.”
The attorney general argued that the definition provides a separate decision point for voters by limiting the applicability of the voting system to certain public offices and not others. He also determined that the overall initiative violated Article IV, Section 3, of the state’s constitution by limiting the Legislature’s constitutional regulation of elections.
Chief Justice McGrath disagreed with these points Wednesday, explaining that the nomination stipulations would not create a separation decision point that required a separate vote and that the designation of “covered office” did not violate the constitution’s separate vote requirement either.
“Section 1 clearly sets forth which offices’ elections would be affected by its enactment. It also does not combine unrelated amendments,” McGrath wrote. “As MER explains, BI-12 would affect federal and statewide partisan offices but not nonpartisan and local offices. Moreover, in considering whether the specification of offices is closely related to the creation of a top-four primary system, we cannot envision how one could design a primary system without specifying the offices to which it would apply.”
McGrath also disagreed that the signature-gathering limitation was irrelevant to the initiative or that it implicated the Legislature’s authority to regulate elections.
To the latter point, McGrath explained that Article IV, Section 3, grants the Legislature the authority to “provide by law the requirements,” and the initiative would not affect the Legislature’s authority to “provide by law.”
“Thus, there is no separate amendment that would require a separate vote,” McGrath wrote, adding: “We therefore hold that the attorney general erred in concluding that MER’s proposed ballot issue is legally insufficient because it violates the separate-vote requirement of Article XIV, Section 11, of the Montana Constitution.”
Concurring justices for the order included Beth Baker, Laurie McKinnon, James Jeremiah Shea, Dirk Sandefur, Ingrid Gustafson and Jim Rice.
Moving forward, the high court has ordered Knudsen to prepare a ballot statement and forward it to Montana’s secretary of state within five days. According to Emilee Cantrell, Deputy Communications Director for the Montana Department of Justice, Knudson's office will comply with the deadline.
With enough signatures, Montanans will vote on the proposed changes during the November 2024 general election.
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