HELENA — Yet another proposed ballot measure in Montana is now caught up in legal action.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s office ruled that a proposed constitutional amendment, currently with the temporary title Ballot Issue #8, didn’t meet the requirements to qualify for the ballot. The initiative’s sponsors are asking the Montana Supreme Court to overturn that decision.
Ballot Issue #8 is an initiative that seeks to revise the initiative process itself. Its supporters say the Montana Legislature has passed laws making it harder to propose and pass ballot issues.
The Montana Constitution already guarantees the people the right to pass laws and amendments through ballot measures, but Ballot Issue #8 would expand that to include a right to “impartial, predictable, transparent, and expeditious processes” for proposing those measures. It would seek to prevent “interference from the government or the use of government resources to support or oppose the ballot issue.”
Knudsen’s office argued the measure violated a requirement that a constitutional amendment only make one substantial change at a time. They argued it “implicitly amended” multiple provisions in the state constitution, including by limiting the “power and authority of public officials to speak officially on ballot issues that affect those officials’ public duties” and by putting restrictions on judges and on the Legislature.
Montanans Decide, the group sponsoring Ballot Issue #8, challenged the decision, saying the measure was a “single, comprehensive proposal,” and that Knudsen’s interpretation of the single-amendment rule “would invest inordinate power in an Executive Branch officer to halt (and, equally troubling, to selectively greenlight) constitutional initiatives.”
“BI-8 will restore Montanans’ power to propose and vote on ballot issues and make the process open and accessible again, which is exactly why we’re not surprised the Attorney General is trying to stop it,” said SK Rossi, a spokesperson for Montanans Decide, in a statement. “Politicians playing games with the ballot measure process, including triggering constant lawsuits, is exactly why we need BI-8.”
Amanda Braynack, a spokesperson for Knudsen’s office, released a statement in response to Montanans Decide’s filing.
“Attorney General Knudsen will continue to ensure constitutional initiatives are legally sufficient and Montanans know exactly what they’re voting for when they cast their ballot,” she said.
This is the fourth time since September that the sponsors of a proposed initiative went to the Supreme Court to challenge Knudsen’s legal determinations:
- The Transparent Election Initiative appealed after the Attorney General’s Office rejected Ballot Issue #4, which seeks to go around the Citizens United decision and block corporations from spending money in Montana elections. That case has not yet been resolved.
- Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts proposed two different versions of an amendment to enshrine nonpartisan judicial elections in the Montana Constitution. Knudsen’s office rejected one entirely and allowed the other to move forward but only after rewriting the proposed ballot statement. MNC challenged both decisions; the court upheld the first and reversed the second.
- Montanans for Fair and Impartial Judges, another organization sponsoring an amendment on nonpartisan judicial elections, also sued after Knudsen’s office rewrote its ballot language. The court again overturned that decision.
