The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review will present its 2008 symposium, Judging the Selection Process: The Merits of the Election System for State Judges, on April 18.
Among other issues, we hope to explore the advantages and disadvantages of Arkansas’s election system for state judges, as well as examine recent movements in other states to change its method of selecting judges. Although judicial selection is a perennially hot topic, it has become increasingly debated as states adjust their judicial canons to conform with the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (holding that the announce clause in Minnesota’s Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibited judicial candidates from stating their views on disputed legal or political issues, violated the first amendment freedom of speech).
