David B. Rivkin Jr., and Andrew M. Grossman, January 18, 2015

For years, those who favor restrictions on campaign spending have insisted that their real interest lies in fighting corruption, not limiting political speech. Well, here’s a free-speech litmus test: Can a state block candidates from asking for campaign contributions that are themselves legal?

That’s the issue the Supreme Court will face Tuesday in Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar. Like most states, Florida elects or retains judges by popular vote. Many of those states prohibit judicial candidates from personally soliciting campaign contributions. This restriction, supporters say, prevents corruption, bias and the appearance of bias.

It’s hard to see how. Florida’s law allows contributions of up to $1,000 to judicial campaigns, and that limit cannot be significantly lowered (much less banned) without violating the First Amendment. Florida’s law allows judicial candidates to learn who their contributors are and to ask for other kinds of campaign support, including volunteer work and service on their campaign committees.

But a judicial candidate cannot post a request for support on the campaign website, cannot appear before a local civic group to request contributions, and cannot sign a fundraising letter asking for support. In other words, a candidate can accept contributions, just cannot solicit them. But solicitation is just speech.

That last restriction is the one that bit Lanell Williams-Yulee, a public defender and first-time candidate seeking election to a county court. She made the mistake of signing a letter announcing her candidacy and asking friends to contribute whatever they could. For that, she was reprimanded and fined by the Florida Supreme Court.

Like most campaign-finance restrictions, the speech ban on solicitation places another burden on challengers running for office — particularly those who lack the wealth to finance their own campaigns.

Even if Williams-Yulee had been elected, what would have been the harm of her asking for contributions?

Quid-pro-quo arrangements are already illegal. It is also illegal to fail to disclose contributions, so there’s no possibility of under-the-table dealing. And the Supreme Court has recognized that large expenditures in a judicial election — even if they’re made independently, without any contribution to a campaign — can create an appearance of bias that requires a judge to recuse herself in cases involving the spender.

So the Florida law’s sole purpose is to ban certain political speech. That’s something to keep in mind the next time self-appointed campaign-finance reformers — whose legal briefs unanimously support the Florida law — tell us that their proposed restriction won’t impact our First Amendment freedoms.

David B. Rivkin Jr., and Andrew M. Grossman practice appellate and constitutional law at the Washington, D.C., office of Baker & Hostetler LLP.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/18/judicial-candidates-supreme-court-voters-elections-free-speech-rights-column/21962653/