Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

Dear Editor: In support of Jim Brown for Supreme Court

Dear Editor,

We need to support Jim Brown for our state Supreme Court. It is common among Montana’s most liberal supreme court justices to accept large campaign donations from the same lawyers whose law firms are litigating cases before those very same justices. This underscores just how blatantly and unapologetically political the majority of current justices are.

Not only do these politicians-in-black-robes make decisions without allowing evidentiary hearings or due process, but those decisions consistently overrule the initiative process and the constitutional authority of the legislature when it passes conservative bills they dislike. It is no accident that our high court has struck down many ballot initiatives that limit the taxing and regulatory powers of government but has let stand all initiatives that increase the powers of the state government.

A well-known saying among Montana lawyers is that if you know who the parties are, you will automatically know how the Montana Supreme Court will rule. As current Supreme Court candidate Jim Brown has made clear, that kind of political bias can no longer be tolerated. That’s why Jim is running, and he deserves our support.

Constitutional scholar and former UM Law School professor Rob Natelson put it this way. “No court is perfect. But Montana’s bench may be unique for its disregard of basic standards of justice, the extent of its intervention into the state’s political life, and its high-handed use of power.”

Let’s clean up this mess once and for all by electing Jim Brown to the State Supreme Court.

Robert Bruner

Whitehall, Montana

 

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