MISSOULA — The Montana state legislature passed five laws last session that took aim at the judiciary branch.
Some of them look to reassign judges for different cases in different geographic locations, while others take aim at judges by creating a special judicial review commission.
These laws sounded the alarm for some legal professionals, and in response, some involved in the legal system gathered to discuss future actions to try to descalate the tension.
Lawyers, legal professionals, legislators, judges and Chief Justice Cory Swanson, hosted a panel to discuss attacks being made on the judiciary at the University of Montana on Friday.
“What I don't want to see is things come off the rails and now judges can't do their job, lawyers can't do their job, people can't get a dispute resolved. Without, court is one phase, violence outside the courthouse is the next phase,” Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Cory Swanson said.
The panel discussion was put on by Friends of the Third Branch, an organization dedicated to advocacy for the judiciary, and largely focused on steps against the judiciary that were taken by the state legislature last session.
Anne Sherwood, a member of Friends of the Third Branch and a practicing attorney in Helena, was tracking moves being made by the legislature last session and said that while many bills aimed at the judiciary were defeated, several ended up passing. A key finding that Sherwood said was in the bills was a similarity to other laws being introduced in other states.
“But I think it's also no coincidence that there's a lot of similarities between all of these bills. And there is a coordinated effort on a national scale to see judicial reform,” Sherwood said.
For Montana House of Representatives Majority leader Steve Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Great Falls, the legislature passed some of the legislation in response to Supreme Court decisions that they viewed as the court overreaching.
When asked why the legislature wouldn’t have taken a more targeted effort to address the specific overreaches, Representative Fitzpatrick said that it was largely a Senate Select Committee that took the reins.
“I think what spurred the Select Committee was two decisions that I think the majority of legislators felt were significant encroachments into the legislative branch's power," Representative Fitzpatrick said. "I think the first one was the Forward Montana case, where the Supreme Court decided that it was going to interpret our rules. And when they interpreted them, they interpreted them wrongly. They decided that we did the wrong conference committee process when that wasn't true. And both the meetings didn't go long enough and all kinds of other things that are strictly within the purview of the legislative branch."
Overall, all of the speakers touched on points of the need to humanize one another and build relationships to try and repair some of the damage already done to the courts.
“That's the reasonable discussion that we need to have in America. We've always had that, back to the football, we've always had that argument between the 40-yard lines. Let's keep having that argument between the 40-yard lines. We do that, we're going to be okay,” Chief Justice Swanson said.
