The Ohio Supreme Court adopted the expenditure limits in response to a serious threat to public confidence in the judicial system caused by ever-increasing spending in judicial campaigns. The judicial spending limits were challenged by two Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judges in 1996 in Marshall v. Suster . A federal judge found in favor of the plaintiffs, and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld that ruling. Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant an exception to the Buckley decision equating spending with First Amendment free speech rights. For all other elected offices, impartiality is unnecessary, and indeed discouraged.
Voters have a right to elect representatives biased toward their viewpoints.
But with judges, political-issue bias is unwelcome. In December the National Voting Rights Institute filed an amicus brief on behalf of the many secretaries of state and chief elections officers from across the country who have asked for a review of the Buckley decision. In the meantime, while the appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals was pending, the Ohio Supreme Court set new spending caps in 1998 that were tied to the population size of the jurisdiction in which a candidate is running for judge. The case is now returned to the U.S. District Court in Cleveland, where the court may consider the new limits. Ohio Chief Justice Thomas Moyer has said that Ohio may move to dismiss the case.