• Poll Shows Montana Voters Support Separation of Powers, Impartiality of Montana’s Supreme Court and DAC
  

  
  The 2023 Montana legislative session included many attempts to weaken the independence and non-partisanship of Montana’s Judicial branch of government. How widely were these actions supported by Montana voters? The League of Women Voters of Montana did a public opinion poll of Montana voters in collaboration with  Montana Public Interest Research Group (MontPIRG) and administered by the HELPS Lab at Montana State University-Bozeman.  The poll showed that injecting partisan politics into Montana’s court system is extremely unpopular, six months after the Legislature attempted to radically change the state constitution.

 A full description of the Poll and results can be found here:  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vv-1gNwVp0PSknm29ot6XDuKvu8xF_jP/view

Results by partisan affiliation can be found here:  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_QpeezdaZNxw6vTeOvTbTvC6YXiOwovQ/view

Summary of findings:

Nine out of 10 Montanans said having three separate branches of government is the best way to protect Montanans’ constitutional rights and freedoms. 89 percent disagreed with the statement that Montana’s Supreme Court justices should make their decisions based on political party considerations and 71 percent disagreed that justices should run under party labels, including 61 percent who identified as Republicans.

 64 percent of surveyed voters agreed that Montana’s Supreme Court should have the authority to balance the power of the Legislative and Executive branches with 83 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Independents and 60 percent of Republicans agreeing.

 The poll also asked about the fairness and impartiality of Montana’s Districting and Reapportionment Commission, which redraws Montana’s Congressional and Legislative boundaries every 10 years per state law. A majority of Montanans approved of the redistricting commission’s process and a significant majority of Montanans believe the DAC should maintain its current level of independence from the state legislature.

 Some key findings from this section of survey questions:

• 81 percent of Montanans believe the DAC should maintain its current level of independence.
• 69 percent say the MT Supreme Court should help choose the final member of the Commission if the other four members cannot agree.
• 65 percent of Montanans disagree with the idea that the Legislature should appoint Commission members.

Previous polling on specific amendments found large majorities opposed a range of proposals to change Montana’s governing document, including changing the way in which Supreme Court justices are put in office. The MontPIRG/LWV poll shows 81 percent of Montanans agree that justices should be elected statewide–as they are currently. 

It’s clear from polling that Montanans like their constitution the way it is and would prefer that politicians don’t attempt to alter it. 

Fifty years ago the people of Montana ratified the new constitution via a referendum vote held after the 1972 constitutional convention. When asked, 46 percent of Montanans said they would vote in favor of adopting it again, but another 46 percent said they didn’t know how they would vote. However, only 7 percent said they would vote  against adopting our current constitution. 

The Montana Constitution Survey was administered by the Human Ecology Learning and Problem Solving (HELPS) Lab at Montana State University from June 23-Aug. 18 and used a mixture of online and paper responses during the collection period. The HELPS Lab mailed 7,586 postcards/questionnaires and sent 842 text messages to yield a total of 1,398 survey responses. All were sent to registered voters, and responses came from 55 of Montana’s 56 counties. The report of poll results can be found here: