Cite as: 536 U. S. 765 (2002)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
counter no First Amendment shoal. See generally O'Neil, supra, at 715-723.
II
Proper resolution of this case requires correction of the Court's distorted construction of the provision before us for review. According to the Court, the Announce Clause "prohibits a judicial candidate from stating his views on any specific nonfanciful legal question within the province of the court for which he is running, except in the context of discussing past decisions—and in the latter context as well, if he expresses the view that he is not bound by stare decisis." Ante, at 773. In two key respects, that construction misrep-resents the meaning of the Announce Clause as interpreted by the Eighth Circuit and embraced by the Minnesota Supreme Court, In re Code of Judicial Conduct, 639 N. W. 2d 55 (2002), which has the final word on this matter, see Hortonville Joint School Dist. No. 1 v. Hortonville Ed. Assn., 426 U. S. 482, 488 (1976) ("We are, of course, bound to accept the interpretation of [the State's] law by the highest court of the State.").
First and most important, the Court ignores a crucial limiting construction placed on the Announce Clause by the courts below. The provision does not bar a candidate from generally "stating [her] views" on legal questions, ante, at 773; it prevents her from "publicly making known how [she] would decide" disputed issues, 247 F. 3d, at 881-882 (emphasis added). That limitation places beyond the scope of the Announce Clause a wide range of comments that may be highly informative to voters. Consistent with the Eighth Circuit's construction, such comments may include, for example, statements of historical fact ("As a prosecutor, I obtained 15 drunk driving convictions"); qualified statements ("Judges should use sparingly their discretion to grant lenient sentences to drunk drivers"); and statements framed
809
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