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By Billy Corriher
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After years of striking down campaign finance laws, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 upheld a Florida rule that bars judicial candidates from personally asking for campaign contributions. Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion drew a distinction between regulating legislative and judicial campaigns: "Judges are not politicians, even when they come to the bench by way of the ballot."
The Roberts court has received strong criticism for decisions such as Citizens United that deny that campaign cash can lead to "the appearance of corruption," but in Wednesday's Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar ruling, the chief justice acknowledged that campaign cash can cause the public to suspect bias or corruption. The court noted that voters could doubt a judge's ability to rule "without fear or favor" if he or she "comes to office by asking for favors."
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The dissents by justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia argued that the Florida rule was both too broad—covering requests to friends who are not lawyers—and too narrow—failing to prohibit judges from sending thank-you notes to donors. But the majority concluded that the rule was an appropriate means of preserving the public's view of judges as fair and impartial.
These bans on judicial candidates directly soliciting campaign money, in place in 30 states, are an important step toward preserving the integrity of elected courts. The Center for American Progress (CAP) analyzed campaign contributions to justices in North Carolina—one state that does not have a ban on personal solicitation. The report, which examined the success rates of law firms that contributed to justices' campaigns when they appeared before the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1998 to 2010, found that:
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