On September 6, former Constitution Party state legislator Rick Jore of Montana received a letter from his bank, notifying him that his Democratic opponent in last year’s election had successfully emptied out his bank account, in accordance with a court order. That court order requires Jore to pay $15,664 in legal fees to his opponent’s attorney. Jore had not sued anyone last year. Instead, his Democratic opponent had sued him to obtain a recount. The original tally had resulted in Jore’s being seated in the legislature. The Montana Supreme Court had reversed the original tally and ruled that his Democratic opponent had been elected instead. Under strange Montana rules, when a candidate loses a lawsuit involving recounts, a court has the discretion to order the losing candidate to pay attorney’s fees for the winner.
There was no statutory requirement to award attorney fees here. The actual language of the statute states:
13-36-205. Recovery of costs. In any contest, the prevailing party may recover his costs, disbursements, and reasonable attorney’s fees. Costs, disbursements, and attorney’s fees in all such cases shall be in the discretion of the court. In case judgment is rendered against the petitioner, it shall also be rendered against the sureties on the bond.
In context here, “the court” is referring to the District Court. The Supremes took that discretion away with their order.
If we ever needed further proof that government is, at best, institutionalized theft, this is it.
And too we see the reason Jore was ruled out of the seat: Governments don’t want anyone in who might begin to lessen its power.
Mr. Jore, play this to a tilt. If you do this right with media coverage of what has happened in your race, there’s no way you could lose this seat in 2006.
The Constitution Party is a nutty political party. Plain and simple. However, allowing a member of one political party to grab the money for an another party candidates does seem rather nutty as well.
I believe this is wrong. If you challenge, then you should pay the bill.
This law is bogus. Rick Jore just agreed with the State of Montana who said he won. Legal fees should never be taken when all a candidate did was agree with the states election result. Montana was sued and Rick Jore has to pay. How sick is that.
This law would certainly give me pause before running for office, given I could end up owing a lot of money should my opponent challenge the results and I lose.