HELENA — Republican leaders in the Montana Legislature have made overhauling the state’s judiciary a major priority for the 2025 session – and in his State of the State address Monday night, Gov. Greg Gianforte endorsed a proposal to make the state’s judicial elections partisan. Now, the first group of judicial reform bills is starting to make its way through the Legislature.

Last year, the Republican-led Senate Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform advanced 27 bills that would change how Montana’s courts operate, after lawmakers accused judges of overstepping their authority.

“Folks, we have a crisis in this state when it comes to our judiciary,” said Rep. Tom Millett, R-Marion. “There's going to be many solutions presented this session to restore that trust, and the people of Montana are looking to us to do it.”

Millett is sponsoring House Bill 39, which would repeal a state law that prohibits political parties from directly contributing money to judicial candidates. On Tuesday, the Montana House endorsed the bill 57-43, with all but one Republican in support and all Democrats in opposition.

Opponents said the change would be a threat to judges’ impartiality. Rep. Peter Strand, D-Bozeman, noted that the justices of the Montana Supreme Court had attended the State of the State address where Gianforte said judicial elections needed to be changed.

“Their entire job, their training, everything about what they do is about objectivity,” said Strand. “They have to find ways to separate the partisan ideas in their hearts from the work that they do. Our job here is to do what we can to help them to get that job done right.”

However, supporters of HB 39 said there’s already partisanship and big spending in judicial races, and that this would only bring more transparency for voters.

“The reality is that politics has always played a role in the judiciary, whether it is the selection process or in the legal outcomes that shape society,” said Millett.

Millett said the limit on how much a political party could donate – $84,150 for a Supreme Court candidate or $2,250 for a district court candidate – wouldn’t make a significant difference compared with the significant amounts of outside spending in these races.

HB 39 will have to pass a final vote in the House before going to the Senate.

Four other bills from the select committee received initial hearings Tuesday morning in the Senate Judiciary Committee. All four were sponsored by Sen. Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls:

· Senate Bill 13 would require lawsuits challenging the decision on whether a proposed ballot measure met legal requirements to go through a district court first. Currently, those cases go directly to the Montana Supreme Court.· Senate Bill 41 would require that, when a judge is substituted off a case, the judge who replaces them is chosen through some type of randomized process – instead of the outgoing judge selecting a replacement.· Senate Bill 43 would prohibit a judge from applying an injunction that stops enforcement of a law to anyone other than the parties involved in the case. Supporters of the bill said Tuesday that they were considering an amendment, to say instead that a district court judge’s injunction would apply only in their own district, and that parties would have to appeal to the Supreme Court if they wanted the injunction to apply statewide.

· Senate Bill 44 seeks to specifically lay out the different powers of each branch of government – legislative, executive and judiciary. Supporters said it was intended to clarify the branches’ roles to help sort out the disagreements between them. The bill also says the Montana University System Board of Regents and Montana Board of Public Education should not be able to override state statutes; it comes after court cases where judges have blocked laws citing the independent authority the state Constitution gives those boards.