Montana Representative Denise Hayman (D-Bozeman), the Democratic Party Whip, has introduced HB 647. It would increase the number of signatures for a newly-qualifying party from 5,000 signatures to 5% of the vote cast for the winning gubernatorial candidate. It would also outlaw using out-of-state circulators for the party petition, and would forbid paying them on a per-signature basis.

If this bill passed, Montana would have the nation’s highest mandatory petition requirement for a new party to get on the ballot, for office other than president. The 2020 petition would be 12,798 valid signatures, due in March. That would be 2.57% of the vote cast for president in 2016. Even the states that have 3% petitions all base them on turnout in midterm years, but Montana elects its Governors in presidential years, when turnout is higher.

Republicans have a majority in both houses of the Montana legislature. The Montana Democratic Party sued to get the Green Party off the ballot in 2018, and this bill seems to have the partisan intent of keeping the Green Party off the ballot in the future. The Green Party is already in federal court against the existing law, which has an unequal distribution requirement and a deadline that is probably unconstitutionally early.

The bill not only retains the existing distribution requirement, it makes it even more difficult, by eliminating the cap of 150 signatures per legislative district.