judgesonmerit.org

Lyle Denniston over at Scotusblog offers a short (soon to be expanded) recap of today’s oral argument in Caperton v. Massey:

Tugged between a sense that a constitutional ruling on judges’ duty to take themselves out of cases if bias is suspected should provide very clear guidance, and a sense that it might be written only to apply in the most extreme factual scenarios, the Supreme Court set itself a difficult task. . .

Here lies the big challenge presented by campaign contributions — when do they cross the line from the cost of doing business in a judicial election state to creating an impermissible appearance of bias.   We think that’s a tough line to draw, even for the United States Supreme Court.

That’s why we think the best solution to the money problem is to get judges out of the fundraising business altogether.