Pledge, Promise, or Commit: New York's Tenuous Limitations on Judicial Campaign Speech

A decade has passed since Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the landmark Supreme Court decision loosening speech restrictions on judicial candidates. White involved the announcements of legal and political views. New York limits speech concerning the extent to which judicial candidates may pledge, promise, or commit to legal or political positions. As these categories partially overlap in their applicability to a given campaign statement, New York judicial candidates must carefully navigate what they can and cannot say to avoid disciplinary censure. This Article sets out to determine the precise delineation of what can and cannot be said in New York and whether the legal speech that remains is a constitutionality valid limit. Ultimately, the restrictions are problematic because of the limited state interest in restricting judicial candidate speech and the false idea that speech that does not favor one set of legal interests or class of litigants over another can be sufficiently meaningful to the electorate to satisfy the relevant First Amendment interests.