United States Seventh Circuit

In a judge's action for declaratory and injunctive relief against members of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, challenging under the First Amendment certain judicial ethical rules, summary judgment for plaintiff is affirmed in part where the partisan affiliation ban at issue impermissibly acted to prohibit plaintiff's speech on both his political views and his qualifications for office. However, the judgment is reversed in part where, unlike restrictions designed, for example, to regulate federal employees' political activity, restrictions on judicial speech may, in some circumstances, be required by the Due Process Clause, and the solicitation ban was drawn closely enough to the state's interest in preserving impartiality and preventing corruption to be constitutional.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/15/2010
• Published 06/15/2010

Judges

• TINDER, Circuit Judge., Before FLAUM, ROVNER, and TINDER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• James Bopp, Jr., Attorney, Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom, Terre Haute, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellee., Jennifer Sloan Lattis, Attorney, Office of the Attorney General, Wisconsin Department of Justice, Madison, WI, for Defendants-Appellants.