Judicial Impartiality and the Regulation of Judicial Election Campaigns
Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 15, p. 205, 2004
25 Pages Posted: 25 Apr 2007
Abstract
Approximately eighty percent of America's state judges are elected for office. In an effort to prevent the politicization of these judicial elections, many American states, including Minnesota, forbade judicial candidates from announcing their views on "disputed legal or political issues" during their election campaign. In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (536 U.S. 765, 122 S.Ct. 2528 [2002]) the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Minnesota regulation an unconstitutional abridgement of the Freedom of Speech. Since Minnesota claimed that the regulation was important for the preservation of judicial impartiality, the Court undertook an analysis of that notion. The opinion offered three different definitions of judicial impartiality, and then rejected Minnesota's claim in regard to each. This paper offers a critical analysis of the opinion, showing that the Court's examination of the notion of judicial impartiality was superficial and misguided.
Keywords: constitutional law, jurisprudence
JEL Classification: k1
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation