Montana Supreme Court Justice Beth Baker said Wednesday that she won’t seek a third term in 2026, saying that 16 years on the bench is enough.
Baker told ԹϺ that she knew her current term would be her last when she ran for reelection in 2018.
“I never contemplated serving more than two terms. The eight-year terms are long ones and if I were to put in for a third term, [that] would be 24 years,” Baker said.
“It’s a tremendous honor to do the work and serve the Montana justice system and I think it requires a person’s full attention and complete energy, basically seven days a week.”
Baker was first elected in 2010, when she former Park County District Judge Nels Swandal. That election year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that spending on elections by unions, corporations and political action committees constituted free speech and couldn’t be limited. The timing of the ruling meant that Baker and Swandal’s race would be Montana’s last state Supreme Court race with limits on outside spending.
Baker’s earlier decision not to seek a third term drew attention Wednesday when 2024 state Supreme Court candidate Dan Wilson issued a press release announcing his candidacy for 2026. Wilson mentioned that Baker wouldn’t be seeking another term.
Baker said the candidate contacted her before issuing the press release to confirm she wouldn’t seek reelection.
“As a native Montanan and a conservative, I firmly believe Supreme Court Justices must apply the law and the constitution as written to all their rulings,” Wilson said in a press release. “ … I pledge to follow that guiding conservative principle. I will not be beholden to any special interest group’s agenda, and recognize that the court’s role is to interpret the law as written — not create it.”
Wilson lost to now-Justice Katherine Bidegaray last November, with Bidegaray getting 54% of the vote to Wilson’s 46%.
LATEST STORIES
Of the 27 bills crafted by a select committee to “reign in the courts,” only eight remain as the Legislature nears its endpoint. Several attempts to get judicial candidates to declare a political party have died, even though that objective was cited as a priority by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte in his State of the State address. Lt. Gov Kristin Juras, a former law professor and 2014 state Supreme Court candidate, testified before the House and Senate judiciary committees in support of partisan judicial races.
A bill that would require property managers to refund rental application fees is advancing in the Montana Legislature. House Bill 311 rallied support from renters around the state who argued it prevents property managers from charging applicants for no tangible service, calling it one solution to combat Montana’s growing challenges with affordable living. An early draft of the legislation grouped landlords with property managers. Legislators initially tabled the bill before sponsor Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, revived it with a successful blast motion on the House floor in March. The Legislation bipartisan…
House Bill 907 seeks to undo a program lawmakers established in 2023 that provided large nonresident landowners with up to five big game hunting licenses.