CI-135 doesn't address partisanship of judges

Who is fooling who? Or is it whom?

This is an excerpt from the March 5, 2026, Lake County Leader ("Retired Justices support C1-132, Opinion page):

“CI-132 proposes to add a new Section to ... Montana’s Constitution by adding a new section that reads: ... Judicial elections shall remain nonpartisan ...”

This article goes on to describe who supports it, “... The undersigned, retired Montana Supreme Court Justices” and encourages us all to sign the petition currently seeking signatures.

Then, they offer their reasons. Their first reason is, and again I quote: “... Here’s why ... Judges should be elected based on their character, record and qualifications, not on a political party’s endorsement. CI-132 protects our long-standing tradition of selecting judges based on the person, not the party …”

Again, I ask, who is trying to fool whom? This initiative does not even address the partisanship of judges! Read it again! It refers to elections, not judges! Specifically! Yet these 'retired' judges are attempting to have us believe that it refers to judges, not elections.

This sort of tomfoolery makes me angry. It is precisely why I have decided to run for a school board position in Columbia Falls. It's bad enough that we want someone to be an attorney before they can be a judge, but I digress.

Apparently, commonsense no longer applies to judgeships! Maybe we should teach our judges to read? How about that idea?

One reason I am running for the school board in Columbia Falls is to try giving our upcoming generations the skills to understand that this sort of silly thinking needs to stop. We need to be teaching children how to read, to think past these wishful thinking phases and get to real factual, realistic, and rational thinking.

We need to enable them to think and decide for themselves.

– Russell Sias, Columbia Falls