A district court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the city over the library levy election.
In a lawsuit filed in August 2023, Beth Cummings and Dena Johnson asked the court to void the library levy election, in which voters approved a city charter amendment increasing the allowable mills for the library from two up to 17.
Cummings and Johnson filed suit, nearly two months after the election and about six weeks after the county certified the election.
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In the suit, Cummings argued that “just days before the election” she contacted some city officials over concern that the estimated amount of the levy was incorrect.
The language used for the June 6 library election was discussed in a public hearing at a February 2023 City Commission meeting and was publicly available.
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Cummings and Johnson argued in their pro se lawsuit that errors in the resolution, ordinance and ballot language violated state law and confused voters.
“Cummings and Johnson incredulously assert these alleged language errors ‘would make it nearly impossible for most voters, including themselves, to make an informed decision when voting in the library election,’” according to the city’s motion to dismiss. “A plainly and publicly communicated proposal to increase a particular mill levy from two to 17 mills cannot be contorted, in good faith, into some mathematically or grammatically incoherent proposition.”
Judge Heather Perry of 10th Judicial District took the case after local district court judges declined, as is common when a case involves local government entities.
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In her order, issued Feb. 27, Perry dismissed the case, writing, “although their filings are detailed and generally well organized, every one of their legal arguments is wrong. They are consistently mistaken about which sections of law actually apply to the instant matter, misread and misapply controlling precedent, and generally find fault where no fault actually exists or any error was clearly harmless. It is difficult to read their filings and come away with any impression other than that this action is a thinly veiled attempt to undo an election result they dislike rather than a truly justified complaint about a mishandled or otherwise legally problematic election.”
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Cummings and Johnson had requested a hearing, citing a section of law that was not applicable to the library levy election, Perry wrote.
They argued that there were errors in the process that caused confusion to voters, depriving them of their right to suffrage and due process.
Perry said that they stated in their own arguments that they had voted and that despite errors in the process and math on the ballot, they were not prevented from voting.
Cummings and Johnson argued that the city incorrectly published notices of the election, but those were handled by the Cascade County Elections office, which was headed by Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant at the time.
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Cummings and Johnson also argued that city commissioners didn’t act in good faith on behalf of their constituents for allowing a levy that only applied to city residents when county residents also use the library.
The court agreed with the city that it was a nonjusticiable political question and it was clear in state law that the authority of local governments is restricted to their legal jurisdiction, which in this case, is the city limits.
“As their filings make abundantly clear, plaintiffs are not pleased that defendants decided to hold the levy election and that it passed. However, such dissatisfaction does not, in and of itself, constitute adequate grounds for a legal complaint. While plaintiffs take great issue with certain alleged discrepancies and/or errors within the entirety of the levy election process, they fail to adequately demonstrate that any such issues—even accepting all as true—rose to the level of a legally redressable harm,” Perry wrote in her order.
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Perry wrote that nothing in the process of the election, as argued by Cummings and Johnson, “rose anywhere near a due process violation,” and that they were mistaken in their attempts to apply certain sections of state law.
“The court also feels it necessary to briefly comment…that the library levy election at issue here was a major point of reporting and discussion throughout Great Falls, and even the State of Montana, for a significant period of time in the first half of 2023. There were many articles written about the election, citizen groups which formed both in support of and against its passage, and generally many signs that this was not an issue ‘flying under the radar,’ as it were. This reality further undermines plaintiff’s complaints, as despite all the flaws they alleged, none of these were seriously raised before or during the election despite the significant amount of attention paid to it by substantial numbers of people,” Perry wrote.
