ABSTRACT
There is no topic more controversial in American politics than campaign fundraising and spending, and the same is true when applied to judicial elections. Indeed, since 2009, three cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court involved campaign spending in judicial elections (either directly or indirectly): Caperton v. Massey (2009), Citizens United v. FEC (2010), and Williams-Yulee v. State Bar of Florida (2015).1 Almost all of the current attacks on judicial elections focus on how judges need to raise money from lawyers and litigants who will appear before them and how expensive these races have become (e.g., Geyh 2003; Skaggs et al. 2011). In the words of Geyh (2005, 887): “The cost of judicial campaigns has skyrocketed as interest groups have challenged the retention or reelection of state judges as never before.”
