Montana Supreme Court

A bill that would give power to the state’s top political figures to appoint members of a disciplinary board overseeing the judiciary has advanced in the Montana Legislature.

Lawmakers are considering new regulations for the state’s judicial branch. Tensions have been rising between Republican lawmakers and the judiciary since last legislative session.

The state health department says it will reinstate a rule that bars transgender Montanans from updating the gender markers on their birth certificates. The Montana Supreme Court is now involved in the latest step in a murky legal fight over the policy.

Republican lawmakers have adopted an official report accusing the Montana judicial branch of misconduct. The state’s chief supreme court justice has demanded a retraction of the report and called it “libelous.”

A special committee of Montana lawmakers released a draft report Thursday detailing concerns that members of the judicial branch deleted public records and fell short of ethics rules.

The Montana Supreme Court Wednesday sent a legal challenge to a law banning vaccine mandates back to a lower court on a technicality. The decision is part of an ongoing legal battle over House Bill 702, which bans workplace vaccine requirements and discrimination based on vaccination status.

Montana’s longest serving member of the state Supreme Court, Justice Jim Rice, has won reelection to the bench, according to a race call from the Associated Press. The AP called the race around 9 a.m. Wednesday.

The highly politicized race became the most expensive in Montana history for the state Supreme Court.

The election contest between sitting justice Ingrid Gustafson and Republican utility regulator James Brown for a seat on Montana’s highest court is the most expensive Supreme Court race in state history. Learn about the candidates and how they plan to approach the job.

The court’s longest-serving member, Jim Rice, is running for a third 8 year term against Billings trial lawyer Bill D’Alton for a seat on the state’s high court.