White Sale: Judicial Campaigning in the Post-Republican Party of Minnesota v. White Era.

This paper examines how judicial codes of conduct affect judicial campaigning in the post-White era. In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the Supreme Court liberalized judicial campaign speech by striking down a state judicial code. Judicial scholars are still attempting to understand the extent to which White has changed the nature of judicial campaigning. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that states have interpreted the commands of White differently (Eakins & Swenson 2007; Caufield 2008). Some scholars have found increased negative ads for supreme court races in states offering a broad interpretation of White. In this paper, we look at the current state of local judicial campaigns and ask whether or how judicial codes of conduct affect campaigns in states with partisan or nonpartisan judicial elections. We survey local judicial candidates in the 2008 election in six states (Texas, New York, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, and North Carolina). The survey asks questions about the themes, issue agendas, and messages of these campaigns, as well as candidates’ levels of familiarity with the White case. We also ask candidates how judicial codes of conduct may have affected their campaign messages. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]