The Looming Collapse of Restrictions on Judicial Campaign Speech

Abstract

In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the Supreme Court in 2002 struck down Minnesota's ban on a judicial candidate's announc[ing] his or her views on disputed legal or political issues. Since then, the American Bar Association and many states have revised their codes of judicial conduct to comply with White's specific holding while seeking to retain other limitations on judicial campaign speech. Such efforts, however, ignore the broader implications of the Court's opinion in White. Both the logic of that opinion and the ideological inclinations of the current Court point to the likely invalidation of major portions of these campaign codes. Rather than squander resources on refining and enforcing a regime with such dim prospects, critics of judicial elections should focus on other means of improving the quality of the electoral process.