A look back at the Montana campaign

Montana was another state described as socially conservative and still voted to advance reproductive rights.

Many states that had been pegged as socially conservative have bucked the trend when it comes to deciding on whether to protect abortion rights in their state constitution. Montana was yet another example of how popular it is, even in places where it was unexpected.

It’s helpful to look at the history of successful movement building at the grassroots level because it gives us an idea of what would work elsewhere. So, with that in mind, I spoke to several activists involved in Montana’s fight for access. The campaign involved a cross-section of several groups, each performing similar functions in some ways and different in others.

Ashley All, spokesperson for Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, discussed their training of volunteers and the hurdles they faced as they pushed for the amendment’s passage.

“It was a lot of work and a lot of challenges that were thrown in our way,” All said. “But ultimately, we were able to make the ballot and successfully win in quite a dramatic fashion on election day in November.”

They amassed 117,000 signatures in support of CI-128, which is the most ever collected for a ballot initiative in Montana history. But it wasn’t without difficulty.

Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen had sought to reduce the time activists had to collect signatures. Afterward, they organized 500 volunteers to canvass the state. They met the threshold, which was 60,000 voters, by June.

Later, there was a court battle in July. Jacobsen attempted to disqualify inactive voters, including registered voters who moved to different addresses. During a scheduled District Court hearing, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights and Montanans for Election Reform successfully defended the rights of Montana voters. They obtained a court order to ensure all signatures from registered voters - including those previously erroneously removed for being “inactive” - were counted.

Akilah Deernose, executive director of the ACLU in Montana, said all that was unjust.

“We had so many unnecessary legal battles that we've never seen for any other group that was trying to get a ballot initiative onto the ballot,” Deernose said. “And so the day-to-day was like, ‘Let's see what attacks are going to come, and figure out how we fight back against them.’”

Activists heard heartfelt stories from women about needing care when their lives had been threatened. They heard about the back alley.

One of the more memorable things for Kiersten Iwai, executive director of Forward Montana, was counting the signatures for Montana’s smaller counties. Most were just hundreds of people.

“Here we are about to do this thing and turn in all these signatures, but that also we truly were able to connect with voters and collect signatures from every corner of the state and some of the most unexpecting from the unsurprising or surprising places,” Iwai said. “That was a huge highlight for me.”

Deernose, All, and Iwai are all good candidates who would serve as effective leaders of national organizations should those positions open in the next few years. I plan on writing about them more in-depth as their careers advance.

As a side note, I intend to visit Washington, D.C., next month to meet with some leaders. Anyone who wants to attend a meeting, which will be held the day after the Women’s March, can e-mail me at codymcdevitt@gmail.com.