Federal Court Allows Judicial Candidates To State Their Views On Questionnaires
Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom
1 South 6th Street
Terre Haute, IN 47807-3510
PRESS RELEASE
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Contact: James Bopp, Jr.
Phone 812/232-2434; Fax 812/235-3685
jboppjr@aol.com
Federal Court Allows Judicial Candidates To State Their Views On Questionnaires
Today, an Indiana federal court granted an injunction against rules preventing judicial candidates from answering a candidate questionnaire. The parties to the suit include Torrey Bauer and Judge David Certo, judicial candidates in the upcoming election, and Indiana Right to Life, who sent judicial candidates questionnaires asking them to voice their opinion on various issues.
Judge Springmann held that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their challenge to the constitutionality of Indiana’s judicial canons that forbid judicial candidates from making “pledges or promises” of conduct in office or statements that “commit or appear to commit” candidates on issues likely to come before. Plaintiffs claim that these canons violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because they prohibited candidates from simply announcing their views on issues. The court’s ruling prevents Indiana’s Commission on Judicial Qualifications from enforcing these provisions against judicial candidates who answer the IRTL questionnaire.
Indiana Right to Life had sent a questionnaire to candidates for judicial office prior to the May 6, 2008, primary requesting that they state their views on policies and court decisions related to such matters as assisted-suicide and abortion. Judge Certo along with many other judicial candidates, refused to do so, concerned that he would be disciplined by the Commission in light of the judicial rules and the Commission’s interpretation of their rules. Mr. Bauer had answered the questionnaire but recognizes that doing so exposes him to discipline. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court held unconstitutional a Minnesota rule that prohibited judicial candidates from “announcing their views on disputed legal or political issues.”
According to James Bopp, Jr., lead counsel for the plaintiffs, the Indiana judicial canons “contradict the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and subsequent federal court ruling that recognize that judicial candidates have a right to respond to questionnaires like this and that voters have a right to hear what they have to say.” Bopp, who successfully argued the case challenging the Minnesota judicial rule struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002), stated that Indiana’s canons and the Commission’s interpretation of them “cover the same unconstitutional ground” as Minnesota’s rule that prohibited judicial candidates from announcing their views had done.
The case is Bauer v. Shepard, No. 3:08-cv-196 (N.D. Ind. Apr. 18, 2008). The decision is available in PDF format online at the James Madison Center’s website, www.jamesmadisoncenter.org, under the “Judicial Accountability Project” link.
James Bopp, Jr. has a national federal and state election law practice. He is General Counsel for the James Madison Center for Free Speech and former Co-Chairman of the Election Law Subcommittee of the Federalist Society.