On April 10, the Montana Senate State Administration Committee passed HB 454 by 7-0. The bill says parties no longer must elect precinct committeemembers in a primary. Because Montana has open primaries, and because the Republican Party does not want non-members of the party helping to choose party officers, the party has a lawsuit pending in the Ninth Circuit to change the open primary, at least relative to elections for party officers. But if HB 454 passes, the Republican Party can no longer argue that it is being forced to use an open primary for that purpose.
The bill was amended in the committee to provide that county central committees could appoint precinct representatives. Thanks to Mike Fellows for this news.
The county central committee’s could always appoint people after the establishment of the committee. The original bill had said the state party could appoint those members as well. I guess if this were to pass both state and local parties will have to re-write by-laws and rules to reflect the change.
The district court in Montana denied summary judgement on the issue of party officers. That is what was appealed to the 9th Circuit.
The underlying claim against the Pick-a-Party primary remains live. I don’t see how Montana’s law is materially different than that in Idaho – unless one were to assume that there might not be the cross-over voting in Montana that there was in Idaho.