Fall elections are rapidly approaching.  One of the persistent complaints that we often hear is that people do not know for whom to vote among all of the judicial candidates.  Every time there is a general election, there are plenty of lawyers running for judge positions.  However, there is little information regarding the candidates.  That is because, up until now, judges were prohibited from campaigning.  Article VI Section 7 of the Minnesota Constitution provides for selection of state judges by popular election.  In 1912 Minnesota passed a law requiring that judicial elections be nonpartisan.  As a result, the Minnesota Supreme Court adopted a judicial canon that states that, a “candidate for judicial office, including an incumbent judge,” shall not “announce his or her views on disputed legal or political issues.”  Minnesota Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 5(A)(3)(d)(i).  However, this last year the United States Supreme Court decided that the “announce clause” violated the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech.  In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White

(decided June 27, 2002), the United States Supreme Court held that speech about the qualifications of candidates for public office is “at the core of First Amendment freedoms.”  The State of Minnesota claimed that the announce clause was constitutional because it served a narrowly tailored compelling state interest of preserving the impartiality of judicial candidates.  But the United States Supreme Court held that preserving the impartiality of judicial candidates is not a compelling state interest because, “It is virtually impossible, and hardly desirable, to find a judge who does not have preconceptions about the law.”  Also, the Supreme Court found that the announce clause did not serve the state interest of advancing impartiality (or its appearance) in the sense of “open-mindedness” since the clause was not adopted for that purpose.  The court said, “There is an obvious tension between Minnesota’s Constitution, which requires judicial elections, and the announce clause, which places most subjects of interest to the voters off limits.  The First Amendment does not permit Minnesota to leave the principle of elections in place while preventing candidates from discussing what the elections are about.” 

So the question is, the next time you go to the polls, will you know what judge to vote for?  Well, hopefully, at least in the future you will have more information to