42 Days to Go: Katherine Bidegaray and Jerry Lynch

Tuesday Twofer

Sep 24, 2024

Who: Katherine Bidegaray and Jerry Lynch

Where: Montana Supreme Court

Why: The Montana Supreme Court has been a surprisingly constant blue light in a deepening red state. Earlier this year, for example, it overruled four voting laws passed by the 2021 Republican legislature that restricted access to voting. But two liberal-leaning justices are retiring, and Katherine Bidegaray and Jerry Lynch are aiming to maintain the progressive tilt despite the odds against them.

Supreme Court elections in the state are ostensibly nonpartisan, and Lynch and Bidegaray are both hitting hard the campaign message to keep politics and politicians out of the judicial branch in Montana. But that doesn’t mean that party loyalties won’t influence the outcome. Lynch, who has been a federal magistrate judge for 28 years, is running for Chief Justice against Cory Swanson, a prosecutor who shared a law practice with prominent conservative lobbyists before taking a job under a former Republican Montana Attorney General. Lynch says he’s running because of his concern about political attacks against the judicial branch.

District Court Judge Bidegaray is running against Dan Wilson, a fellow district court judge, for an Associate Justice position. Bidegaray has pledged to support the environmental rights, educational rights and women’s rights that Montanans expect under state law.

Without a backstop from a balanced state supreme court, the Montana legislature is expected to try again to enact voter suppression changes in the law.

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