Cite as: 536 U. S. 765 (2002)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
370 U. S. 375, 395 (1962) ("The role that elected officials play in our society makes it all the more imperative that they be allowed freely to express themselves on matters of current public importance." (Emphasis added.))). See O'Neil, The Canons in the Courts: Recent First Amendment Rulings, 35 Ind. L. Rev. 701, 717 (2002) (reliance on cases involving non-judicial campaigns, particularly Brown v. Hartlage, is "grievously misplaced"; "[h]ow any thoughtful judge could derive from that ruling any possible guidance for cases that involve judicial campaign speech seems baffling"). In view of the magisterial role judges must fill in a system of justice, a role that removes them from the partisan fray, States may limit judicial campaign speech by measures impermissible in elections for political office. See Buckley v. Illinois Judicial Inquiry Bd., 997 F. 2d 224, 228 (CA7 1993) ("Mode of appointment is only one factor that enables distinctions to be made among different kinds of public official. Judges remain different from legislators and executive officials, even when all are elected, in ways that bear on the strength of the state's interest in restricting their freedom of speech.").
The Court sees in this conclusion, and in the Announce Clause that embraces it, "an obvious tension," ante, at 787: The Minnesota electorate is permitted to select its judges by popular vote, but is not provided information on "subjects of interest to the voters," ibid.—in particular, the voters are not told how the candidate would decide controversial cases or issues if elected. This supposed tension, however, rests on the false premise that by departing from the federal model with respect to who chooses judges, Minnesota necessarily departed from the federal position on the criteria relevant to the exercise of that choice.1
1 In the context of the federal system, how a prospective nominee for the bench would resolve particular contentious issues would certainly be "of interest" to the President and the Senate in the exercise of their respective nomination and confirmation powers, just as information of that type would "interest" a Minnesota voter. But in accord with a longstand-
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