Post-Roe World: What’s At Stake for Our Montana Constitution?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, June 28th, 2022

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Post-Roe World: What’s At Stake for Our Montana Constitution?

Inside the MT GOP’s efforts to destroy the last remaining check and balance to their power

Helena, MT – In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs V. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned Roe v. Wade, Montana’s own state constitution has never been more important or more vulnerable. 

Abortion is still legal in the state of Montana, thanks to our state constitution. The Courts recognize that our Constitution’s iron-clad guarantee of the right to privacy includes the right of Montanans to decide – without interference from the government – whether or not to get an abortion.

But our constitution, and the courts that uphold its principles, are under threat. 

The Montana GOP’s agenda is radical and out of step with Montanans, who overwhelmingly support access to legal abortion. Their agenda is also, as repeatedly decided by the court, unconstitutional. In order to force their unpopular agenda through, the GOP has made it clear they are coming after the courts and the constitution. 

GOP legislators have explicitly called for “throwing out” the constitution, which they’ve described as a “rag.” The Attorney General has taken the unprecedented step of asking the courts to disregard earlier precedent protecting abortion, and today, asked them to use the Dobbs ruling to defend the decision. 

The MTGOP has also continued to escalate their war on the independent courts,  in order to destroy the last remaining check and balance to their power. Earlier this spring, Governor Gianforte, Senator Steve Daines, and Representative Matt Rosendale took an unprecedented step of endorsing a candidate in the Montana Supreme Court race. The Montana GOP tried to “manufacture a crisis” in order to subpoena Supreme Court Justices, publicly bashed sitting Justices at fundraising events, and pushed through eight pieces anti-judiciary legislation aimed at making the courts more partisan, making it easier to remove justices, and undermining the legitimacy of the courts themselves. 

If the GOP wins a legislative supermajority in November, they will have the numbers to put forward constitutional amendments for ballot initiatives. They will try to carve out abortion rights from the Right to Privacy. And they will not stop at just restricting reproductive freedom. 

“The Montana GOP will not stop until they have dismantled the last checks and balances to their power,” says Sheila Hogan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. “They are coming for the courts and the constitution. The best way to stop them is by electing Democratic legislators who will defend our state constitution, and the rights and fundamental freedoms it protects.”

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