GOP Senate and House Leaders to Tackle the Montana Judiciary

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Montana Legislative session is now in session, but on Friday, House and Senate leadership held a ZOOM press conference in which they proposed several bills, primarily focused on what they termed judicial overreach by the Montana District and Supreme Courts.

State President Elect Matt Regier’s opening salvo took the Montana Supreme Court to task over recent decisions he claimed were heavily partisan in nature.

Montana GOP Leaders Hold Briefing on the Montana Court System

“We've seen before in the past that the Montana Supreme Court level, they destroyed public records for years with their emails,” began Regier. “We've seen our Montana Supreme Court get involved with legislative, internal operating rules there in the Forward Montana case, and we've seen the Montana Supreme Court invent a new and completely unenforceable policy in the Held decision.”

House Speaker Brandon Ler picked up where Regier left off with claims of alleged judicial misconduct.

“In Lake County, a district court judge resigned after his abuse of power and mishandling in a child custody case,” said Ler. “The elected replacement didn't even make it to swearing in before being charged with multiple drug felonies related to cocaine. In Bozeman, multiple judges have been accused of extorting a business owner refusing to let him operate until they withdrew their complaints against him.”

Senate Bill 45 Would Set Up a Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee

State Senator Tom McGillvray referenced proposed bills that would provide guardrails for the state judiciary.

“Number one is Senate Bill 45,” said McGillvray. “I'll be carrying that bill that sets up a judicial performance evaluation committee; JPEC, for short. Essentially, what this does is create a process to evaluate judges. So the judicial performance evaluation commission will essentially set up an independent board that will give a midterm evaluation on a judge that is primarily for that judge’s benefit.”

McGillvray said it makes no sense to trust the judiciary to police itself.

One GOP Leader Does Not Trust the Judiciary to Police Itself

“It allocates the Judicial Standards Commission to the Department of Justice,” he said. “It is just illogical to have a Judicial Standards Commission that looks at judges and complaints over judges to be overseen by judges. That's like the fox guarding the hen house.”

Click here to watch the entire Republican leadership press conference.

To provide a balanced view of the judicial issue, KGVO News has reached out to State Senator Ellie Boldman for an opposing view on the GOP plans.