{"id":1604912,"date":"2022-08-14T05:48:13","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T09:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1604912"},"modified":"2022-08-14T05:48:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T09:48:15","slug":"montana-supreme-court-disallows-referendum-over-how-its-members-are-chosen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/montana-supreme-court-disallows-referendum-over-how-its-members-are-chosen\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Supreme Court Disallows Referendum Over How Its Members Are Chosen"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmontana-supreme-court-disallows-referendum-over-how-its-members-are-chosen%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1604912&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-montana\">Montana<\/a> Supreme Court has ruled that a referendum asking voters if the court\u2019s justices should be elected in geographical districts instead of statewide on the upcoming Nov. 8 ballot would violate the state constitution.<\/p>\n<p>Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, blasted the 5\u20132 ruling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOpinions from the Montana Supreme Court have become little more than the rubberstamping of Democrat Party policies with a thin veneer of poor, tortured judicial reasoning,\u201d Knudsen said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/dojmt.gov\/montana-supreme-court-votes-to-protect-their-own-jobs-deprive-montanans-of-right-to-decide-election-methods\/\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is perhaps their most shameful and self-serving ruling yet. In order to protect their own jobs,\u201d the five justices in the majority \u201cdeprived every Montanan of their right to decide how we elect Supreme Court justices,\u201d Knudsen said.<\/p>\n<p>Montana is one of 30 states holding elections this year for positions on their respective state supreme courts, according to Ballotpedia. The seven justices of the Montana Supreme Court are chosen by voters statewide in nonpartisan elections and serve staggered eight-year terms. If they wish to continue serving beyond their initial terms, they must run in retention elections. If a vacancy occurs before a justice\u2019s term has expired, the state\u2019s governor appoints a replacement who must be confirmed by the Montana Senate. If confirmed, the justice serves until the next general election.<\/p>\n<p>Since Montana became a state in 1889, members of the Montana Supreme Court have been chosen in statewide elections. But in 2021, Republican lawmakers led by bill sponsor state Rep. Barry Usher\u00a0questioned the impartiality of the judicial branch, and the Montana State Legislature approved HB 325 which allowed for a referendum to be put to voters that if passed would have created seven Supreme Court districts in the state. Several other bills aimed at curbing a perceived activist judiciary in the state were also approved by the Legislature.<\/p>\n<p>Supporters of the legislation said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Montana Supreme Court has ruled that a referendum asking voters if the court\u2019s justices should be elected in geographical districts instead of statewide on the upcoming Nov. 8 ballot would violate the state constitution. Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, blasted the 5\u20132 ruling. \u201cOpinions from the Montana Supreme Court have become little [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1604912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1604912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1604912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1604912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1604912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}