March 18, 2025: A Guest Column by Six Living Delegates to the Montana Constitutional Convention Mae Nan Ellingson, Gene Harbaugh, Jerome Loendorf, Lyle Monroe, Marshall Murray, & Lynn Sparks Keeley
As six of the seven living delegates to the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention, both Republicans & Democrats, we remain united in support of the Constitution we wrote 53 years ago. We have gone on record to the 2025 Montana Legislature that we unanimously oppose any and all bills that would radically change our court system or move Montana toward partisan judges.
In November 1971, we were all elected on a partisan ballot. The day we entered the Convention Hall we were 58 Democrats, 36 Republicans and 6 Independents. But we shared committees, chairmanships and power. And we sat ourselves not divided by political party, but alphabetically as equal citizens working together to craft a new and improved foundational document for our beloved state. Our conscious decision to act in a nonpartisan manner produced a Constitution that has benefitted Montana’s citizens since that time.
For 56 days, we worked together, hammering out all of the sections of Montana’s new Constitution, which the people ratified. While we openly and sometimes strongly debated draft provisions from the convention committees, when the time came to sign the completed document, all 100 delegates, to the person, rose and walked down the aisle, put their pens to paper and unanimously signed Montana’s new Constitution, proud of what we had accomplished for the people of Montana, regardless of political affiliation. The resulting Montana Constitution is considered the best state Constitution in the nation and among the best constitutional documents in the world.
Following America’s Madisonian Democracy model, Montana’s Constitution in Article III, Section 1, creates a government divided into “three distinct branches.” These three separate and co-equal branches, distinctive to America, have built-in checks and balances that provide the governmental chemistry which makes the United States the longest successful experiment in Democracy in the history of the world.
Non-partisan judges and courtrooms are the hallmark of the federal judicial branch. While states may differ on elements of that, Montana has, over the last 90 years, operated completely with non-Partisan judges in non-Partisan courtrooms. Montanans expect their justice to be blind, based upon the facts and the law, not upon partisan preferences. Montana initially from 1889 until 1935 tried partisan judges under the Copper Kings and the Copper Collar, but the people did not like it. We changed to non-Partisan in 1935 legislature and since then we have kept partisanship away from in our courtrooms. In 1972, the Constitutional Convention opted to continue that non-Partisan structure.
Only seven states in America have partisan judges. We strongly believe Montana should NOT join that small group. Polls show that most of Montana agrees with our position. We have asked our fellow Montanans in the legislature to resist the urge to “toe the party line” in our courtrooms. They should consider the long arc of history which says that for us to be equal under the law, justice should be blind and non-Partisan, not be about political beliefs.
Perhaps no Article of the Constitution attracted as much research, interest and highly contested debate and discussion as the Judicial Article. Reformers had touted merit selection and appointment of judges or, in the alternative, public financing of an elected judiciary. But Montana’s long held tradition of elected judges prevailed. In the 1972 Convention, no group or delegate ever proposed that the partisan election of judges would improve the quality of justice in Montana.
We urge you to urge your legislators not to insert partisan political power into our courtrooms. Montana should keep partisan politics in the two partisan branches – the Legislature and the Executive – and preserve the integrity of our judges and courtrooms by keeping them independent and non-Partisan.
Mae Nan Ellingson, Gene Harbaugh, Jerome Loendorf, Lyle Monroe, Marshall Murray, & Lynn Sparks Keeley & are six of the seven living 1972 Constitutional Convention Delegates, originally 100 in number. ConCon member Bob Vermillion was unavailable.