Supreme Court limits judicial campaign contributions

By a vote of 5 to 2, the state Supreme Court has limited how much judicial candidates may accept in campaign contributions.

The majority ruled that candidates running for judge may not accept individual contributions of more than $2000 during election years and $500 in non-election years. The court added these requirements to its code of ethics rules.

Writing in dissent, Justices G. Barry Anderson and Helen Meyer questioned whether the limits would make any real difference. They said the unstated assumption behind the limits is that it's somehow less unseemly to accept ten contributions of $500 from those with a particular viewpoint than to have a single contributor of $5,000.

Anderson said it's not at all clear that the assumption is correct.