## Facts

- Minnesota elects judges by popular election.
- Minnesota’s Code of Judicial Conduct contained an “announce clause” barring judicial candidates from announcing views on disputed legal or political issues.
- Gregory Wersal twice ran for the Minnesota Supreme Court and campaigned by criticizing court decisions, prompting an ethics complaint that was dismissed.
- In a later campaign, Wersal alleged the announce clause chilled his ability to answer questions from the press and the public on disputed issues.
- Wersal, the Republican Party of Minnesota, and others sued state officials responsible for enforcing the code, alleging the clause violated the First Amendment.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the state, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed on the ground that the clause was narrowly tailored to protect judicial impartiality and its appearance.

## Issues

1. Whether a state may, consistent with the First Amendment, prohibit candidates for elected judicial office from announcing views on disputed legal or political issues.
2. Whether the announce clause is a content-based restriction on core political speech subject to strict scrutiny.
3. Whether protecting judicial impartiality (and its appearance) is a compelling interest advanced by a restriction narrowly tailored to that interest.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed, holding 5–4 that Minnesota’s announce clause violates the First Amendment.
- The Court treated the clause as a content-based restriction on speech about candidates’ qualifications, a category at the core of First Amendment protection.
- Applying strict scrutiny, the Court held the state’s asserted interests did not justify the breadth of the restriction.
- The Court concluded the clause was not narrowly tailored to preserve impartiality understood as lack of bias toward parties because it restricted issue-based speech rather than party-based bias.
- The Court rejected “impartiality” defined as absence of preconceptions about legal issues as a compelling interest, noting judges inevitably have views about the law.
- To the extent “impartiality” meant open-mindedness, the Court held the clause was still not narrowly tailored because it broadly suppressed discussion of issues rather than targeting closed-mindedness in adjudication.
- The Court noted the tension between choosing judicial elections and restricting campaign discussion of matters most relevant to voters, and found the clause both overinclusive and underinclusive.

## Legal Principles

- Restrictions that prohibit candidates from speaking on specified disputed issues are content-based limits on core election speech and trigger strict scrutiny.
- A state must show a compelling interest and narrow tailoring; broad suppression of issue discussion is not narrowly tailored to preventing bias toward parties.
- “Impartiality” as lack of preconceptions about legal issues is not a compelling basis for censoring campaign speech in judicial elections.
- Even if protecting judicial open-mindedness is a legitimate interest, a blanket ban on announcing views on disputed issues is not a sufficiently tailored means of achieving it.

## Conclusion

Minnesota’s announce clause unconstitutionally restricted judicial candidates’ speech on disputed legal and political issues; because the state chose judicial elections, it could not impose a broad, content-based ban that failed strict scrutiny under the First Amendment.


Republican Party of Minn. v. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002)