Republican Party v. White Redux?
Interesting happenings up at the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is mulling the state Judicial Performance Commission's charges against a sitting justice for airing election advertisements that, according to the Commission, violated the state's judicial ethics code.
...all of which sounds very familiar, if you've read Republican Party v. White, the 2002 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court last considered the tension between a judicial candidate's First Amendment rights and a state's interest in preserving the integrity of its judiciary. In White, the Court ruled 5-4 that the First Amendment forbade a state from barring judicial candidates from expressing positions on "disputed legal or political issues." Depending on how things go in Wisconsin, the Court may take another stab at elaborating on the interplay between free speech and judicial ethics.
Of course, the Court's most recent foray into the realm of judicial ethics came just a few months ago in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal, in which, unlike White, the Court came down (again, 5-4) on the integrity side of the integrity-campaigning tension. Predictions, therefore, might be as sticky as they would be premature.
Something to stay tuned to, at least.
h/t How Appealing.
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