Siefert v. Alexander’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

19 federal appellate · 4 district · 5 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “While an interest in the impartiality and perceived impartiality of the judiciary does not justify forbidding judges from identifying as members of political parties, a public endorsement is not the same type of campaign speech targeted by the impermissible rule against party affiliation in this case or the impermissible rule against talking about legal issues the Supreme Court struck down in White I. As Judge Siefert notes, “endorsements primarily benefit the endorsee, not the endorser” and endorsements may be exchanged between political actors on a quid pro quo basis. This amounts to a concession that offering an endorsement is less a judge’s communication about his qualifications and beliefs than an effort to affect a separate political campaign, or even more problematically, assume a role as political powerbroker. When judges are speaking as judges, and trading on the prestige of their office to advance other political ends, a state has an obligation to regulate their behavior. We thus see a dividing line between the party affiliation rule, which impermissibly bars protected speech about the judge’s own campaign, and the public endorsement rule, which addresses a judge’s entry into the political arena on behalf of his partisan comrades.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Wersal v. Sexton

2. “A direct solicitation closely links the quid — avoiding the judge’s future disfavor — to the quo — the contribution. We do not mean to suggest that judges who directly solicit contributions are necessarily behaving inappropriately, but the appearance of and potential for impropriety is significantly greater when the judges directly solicit contributions than when they raise money by other means.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 731 F. Supp. 2d 855 - Winnig v. Sellen

3. “A contribution given directly to a judge, in response to a judge’s personal solicitation of that contribution, carries with it both a greater potential for a quid pro quo and a greater appearance of a quid pro quo than a contribution given to the judge’s campaign committee at the request of someone other than the judge, or in response to a mass mailing sent above the judge’s signature.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Wersal v. Sexton