One of the two campaigns to preserve Montana’s judicial races as nonpartisan contests has been greenlit for the signature gathering process.

State officials approved the proposed constitutional amendment, now known as CI-131, on Sept. 26, giving the campaign by Montanans for Fair and Impartial Courts a nine-month runway to gather roughly 60,000 signatures required to reach the November 2026 ballot.

“The great thing is we’ve got time on our side,” said J.D. “Pepper” Petersen, one of the main drivers of the campaign, in a phone call on Tuesday.

The public should soon expect to see signature gatherers, Petersen said, more commonly a sign of springtime in election year as campaigns race to gather 10% of voter signatures from 40 different house districts.

The ballot initiative proposes to a

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