Florida Judges Cannot Personally Solicit for Campaign Money

Public debate has recently begun about widening inequality in our society that seems to be gaining momentum. The alarm is being sounded that institutionalized norms have been established in a way that strongly suggests this disturbing trend toward a plutocracy cannot be reversed. A large share of the blame is placed on a political system built around funding for campaigns and the promotion of issues seemingly influenced and controlled by billionaires and mega-corporations. Recent Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC have liberated the moneyed interests from restrictive campaign finance laws aimed to limit the influence of money on the democratic process. Many have concluded that politics is now nothing more than a money game where the individual voices of the financially disenfranchised cannot be heard.

But this week, something surprising has happened that, at least for the moment, interrupts this depressing trend.

In the case of Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, a five justice majority of the United States Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s restrictions on how political campaigns can be solicited by judicial candidates did not violate the First Amendment. Upholding this law, as the Court noted, preserves the integrity of the judiciary. Claimants and litigants who appear before judges in a court of law can feel confident the judge presiding over the case never directly asked for contributions to his or her political campaign for the judicial election from a party or interest aligned with a party to the litigation.

Many commentators and legal scholars are debating how the Supreme Court differentiated the type of free speech claims in this case against the backdrop of the earlier decisions that overturned longstanding precedent and centuries old legislation that attempted to limit the influence of money on the political process. Whatever theories or reasons are expressed for why it’s different for judges who rule in the courtroom than for legislators who write the laws, the ruling seems to acknowledge an understanding of why Lady Justice stands with a scale in one hand and sword in the other, but blindfolded from seeing who is affected by the truth of her judgment.

As a lawyer, I am proud that our Florida courtrooms continue to stand for the sanctuary of fairness and impartiality in the noble application of and protection of the law. I know that the practice of law, by lawyers and judges alike, often falls short of these ideals. But in an ever changing society where access to a fair shot seems farther and farther out of reach, we can still believe in the fairness of the courtroom that is not beholden to the wealthy and the powerful.

Terence Perenich, a founding partner of PERENICH The Law Firm, is a personal injury lawyer who has been practicing law in Clearwater since 1992.