Among the states with the highest judicial campaign spending is Michigan, where three justices, nominated at political party conventions, will be elected to a seven-member court.
As the Supreme Court has recognized in other cases, including a major 2009 case from West Virginia that involved a litigant's outsize judicial campaign spending, preserving public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary is essential.
Crist's support for the stimulus bill came to embody what many on the right view as his RINO (Republican in name only) inclinations -- in, among other areas, environmental policy, judicial appointments, spending and small-government orthodoxy.
It is dismaying that two years after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in a case involving judicial campaign spending, few state court systems have put in place rigorous rules for recusal.
Alabama doesn't cap campaign contributions, and its judicial-election spending leads the nation's.
The Republican State Leadership Committee, a group that works to elect Republicans in state legislative and judicial elections, is spending big to support Fischer in Ohio.
Among the issues he said he'll look at are taxes, education spending, judicial reform, economic development and pensions -- as well as maintaining his stance on abortion-related legislation.
One of the important tests was among several challenges to Ohio limits on the amounts that judicial candidates could spend.
British newspapers were flooded last week with coverage of a judicial inquiry that spent several days relentlessly questioning Rupert Murdoch and his son James.
