Court gives Minn. judge candidates campaign leeway

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Minnesota's restrictions on fundraising and endorsements by judicial candidates violated their free speech rights, overturning parts of the state code of judicial conduct. A sharp dissent warned that the change could threaten public trust in impartial courts.

The decision clears the way for bigger spending in what are typically sleepy judicial races at the bottom of the ballot.

In a 2-1 ruling, a panel from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with attorney Greg Wersal, a Minnesota Supreme Court candidate who has filed multiple lawsuits challenging the state's judicial election system. The ruling reverses a lower court decision and wipes away three state judicial conduct rules that constrained judicial campaigning.

Writing for the majority, Judge C. Arlen Bean said those rules - two dealing with fundraising restrictions and another preventing judicial candidates from endorsing each other or other candidates - impinged on candidates' First Amendment rights. He said the state's system of choosing judges may be imperfect, but candidates must be free to exercise those rights. He said judges can step aside in future court cases to avoid campaign-related conflicts of interest.

"As long as Minnesota chooses to elect its judges using a system of private financing, it will be faced with the concern that contributions may impair at least the appearance of a judge's impartiality," Beam's ruling said.

Most Minnesota judges are appointed by the governor and then stand for re-election periodically, with a smaller number directly elected. One of the overturned rules limited judicial candidates to raising money from groups of 20 or more, through fundraising letters or from close family members.

Judge Kermit E. Bye wrote a strong dissent.

"The court today has unnecessarily weakened our courts - and ultimately, I fear, weakened our democracy," he wrote.

Bye said he hopes Minnesota won't follow West Virginia's path, after a state Supreme Court justice there refused to step aside in an appeals case involving his most generous campaign contributor and sided with the contributor's company in a 3-2 decision. In an appeal of that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last year that elected judges are required to recuse themselves from cases where large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias.

Wersal, who is challenging Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Helen Meyer, said he planned to start making fundraising calls within hours and hopes to raise about $200,000. If he can afford it, he said he plans to run TV and radio ads.

"Don't tell me I'm harming democracy - I'm the only guy who's fighting for it," he said.

The Coalition for Impartial Justice, a Minnesota group pushing to replace contested judicial elections with elections in which voters could remove judges without picking their replacements, predicted that the ruling will make judicial elections in the state more partisan.

"Voters want their courts to be above politics," said Brent Routman, an attorney who heads the group.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)