Can the integrity of Florida’s elected judges be protected by recusals and campaign contribution limits or is the judicial canon banning direct contribution solicitation by candidates still needed?
That’s one of the arguments the U.S. Supreme Court was set to consider on January 20 (after this News went to press) when it had scheduled oral arguments on an appeal from a Florida Bar grievance case where a lawyer who ran for a county judgeship received a public reprimand after she directly solicited campaign contributions.
Such direct solicitations are prohibited by the Code of Judicial Conduct’s Canon 7C(1), which requires judicial candidates to set up a campaign committee to solicit and expend contributions. Attorneys for Lannell Williams-Yulee, who filed preliminary paperwork for a Hillsborough County judgeship in 2009 and then sent out a signed mass mailing that included a request for campaign contributions, said that violates her First Amendment rights and can’t pass constitutional muster.