by Andy Roubik, Corvallis
I’ve lived in the Bitterroot Valley since 1993, and I’ve spent the better part of my leisure time in my canoe. So when I discovered a half dozen or more fences across Mitchell Slough — strung with barbed wire and stretched tight above the water — I was alarmed. Some weren’t even holding cattle. They were deterrents, plain and simple.
We won that fight, and every stream access fight since, for one reason: Montana’s courts answered to the Montana Constitution, not to a political party. This November, two votes decide whether that survives: CI-132, which would lock nonpartisan judicial elections into our Constitution, and Amy Eddy — the candidate for the open Supreme Court seat who refuses to take party money.
In the early 2000s, I filed a portage request over those fences with the Ravalli County commissioners. They dragged their feet — nearly every one openly hostile to Montana’s Stream Access Law.
A couple of us took commissioners down the Mitchell Slough in our canoes so they could see the hazard themselves. With Fish, Wildlife and Parks staffers helping along the way, we took on well-financed landowners — including investor Charles Schwab and ‘80s rock icon Huey Lewis — who wanted to keep the public out.
The landowners tried to claim Mitchell Slough was a private ditch — that man, not nature, had made it. But the Montana Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2008 that the slough is a natural stream, open to all of us under the Stream Access Law. As the justices noted, “The claim that man has made the Mitchell Slough is a bold one, indeed.”
Article IX of the Montana Constitution states that our waters belong to the people.
But that foundation is cracking. Last year, the Legislature passed House Bill 39, legalizing direct contributions from political parties to judicial candidates. The Montana Republican Party has already given $20,000 to a Supreme Court candidate. A judge who owes party bosses will be expected to rule like one — including the next time a fence goes up on a public stream.
CI-132 answers that with a single sentence added to the Constitution: judicial elections shall remain nonpartisan.
Amy Eddy, a Flathead County district judge since 2015, is experienced, steady, and respected across the political spectrum. Her opponent, Dan Wilson, has headlined Republican Party events and accepted partisan cash — which always has strings attached.
Stream access was never a left-versus-right fight. Hunters, anglers, and ranchers of every party won it together.
This weekend I’ll float the Bitterroot from Bell Crossing to Stevensville. Vote yes on CI-132, and vote for Amy Eddy — so the next generation inherits open rivers, and courts that keep them that way.
Leave a Reply