Opinion ID: 626146
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Wersal's Electioneering Activities

Text: Stripped to the bare essentials, Wersal seeks to be free to endorse other candidates for public officejudicial or otherwise. He also wishes to personally solicit or accept financial contributions for his campaign (within the legal limits established by the State of Minnesota and subject to all pertinent reporting requirements for campaign contributions), from any qualified contributor, individual or organization. He wants to be free to solicit funds for other political organizations or candidates if he believes that such activities may benefit his own name recognition, financial well-being and electoral needs. In its attack on the justiciability of Wersal's challenge to Rule 4.1(A)(4)(a)which prohibits a judge or judicial candidate from soliciting funds for a political organization or candidate for public office-the plurality contends that Wersal only seeks to solicit[] funds for his own campaign, ante at 1018, and he can do that. This is a substantial misstatement of the record. Indeed, the plurality, after identifying several candidates, states Wersal desired to publicly voice his support for the [listed] candidates through public statements, yard signs, phone calls, endorsement letters, and letters to potential contributors [to the candidates and their sponsoring organizations.] Ante at 1017. These activities proposed by Wersal and restricted by the Appellees are, of course, constitutionally authorized mine-run election activities that may redound, directly or indirectly, to the benefit of his campaign. Accordingly, Wersal's challenge is justiciable. Wisely, the Appellees and the plurality do not contend that any of Wersal's proposed campaign conduct in and of itself is not protected by the Constitution, especially the speech and associational conduct. As earlier noted, Wersal's proposed campaign practices are the very stuff of the First Amendment, White II, 416 F.3d at 748, and are routine in elections to public office. Accordingly, under well established constitutional precedent, such activities may be limited, displaced, attenuated or prohibited by government regulation only if the regulation is narrowly tailored to the advancement of a carefully defined compelling state interest. Id. at 749. In other words, only after careful and concise identification of a compelling state interest by the Appellees may Wersal's constitutionally authorized election activities be regulated at all, but, even then, only in the narrowly tailored manner authorized by the Supreme Court in White I.