LTE: Vote yes on CI-132

Voting YES on CI-132 gives us all an opportunity to keep our courts impartial. Montana’s judicial elections have been nonpartisan since 1935, and they need to stay that way.

I have served on multiple juries as well as testified in many custody cases, and none of those cases had anything to do with partisan politics. They were only about our fellow Montanans trying to get a fair hearing. An impartial hearing requires judges to be unbiased and handle each dispute based on the law and the facts presented, not on the beliefs or direction of a political party.

You might be asking yourself why an amendment to Montana’s Constitution is needed, since our judicial races are already nonpartisan. We know as we watch and read the many political ads this time of year that politics runs on money. Politicians passed a law in 2025 allowing political parties to contribute up to nearly $90,000 to Montana judicial candidates. That’s a big step in the direction of political parties coercing judges. We need to protect our courts from politics so our judges can do their jobs fairly and without bias. We voters have proven ourselves smart enough to choose judges based on their records and qualifications. We neither need nor want our judicial candidates to have to satisfy a political party to get elected.

Vote YES on CI-132. Keep our judicial elections nonpartisan and politics out of our courts.

Marylis Filipovich

Helena

Originally published in The Billings Gazette on 10/20/2026