Montanans never much liked outside influence in their judiciary, and their first line of defense was judicial elections. This may strike us as odd now, in our Citizens United era of unlimited outside money and even national party politics entering our Supreme Court campaigns. Yet the outsider problem and our electoral solution are older than statehood itself. After seeing record amounts of money spent on court candidates in the last campaign, and with three seats on the ballot this fall, it is worth considering where we’ve been and where we’re headed on Montana’s judicial campaign trail.
