Complaint challenges law allowing governor to appoint judges

HELENA (AP) — Montana's governor has signed a bill to eliminate the Judicial Nomination Commission and allow the governor to directly fill between-election vacancies in state District Courts and the Montana Supreme Court, reversing a change made in the state's 1972 constitution and prompting an immediate legal challenge.

A delegate to the 1972 Constitutional Convention and two former lawmakers who voted to create the nominating commission in 1973 are among the petitioners who asked the Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday to declare the law unconstitutional...