On June 8, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Caperton v Massey Coal Company, 08-22. The Court ruled 5-4 that when a judge receives very large campaign contributions from one side in a lawsuit, the judge must recuse himself or herself. Here is the Opinion, thanks to scotusblog. Here is a very interesting commentary about the decision by Professor Rick Pildes. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for that link.

Pildes writes about U.S. Supreme Court Justices who are are willing to take judicial action in extreme cases of unfairness, even when those justices have a difficult time drawing a line between extreme examples of that unfairness and somewhat less extreme examples. Pildes identifies Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy as two such justices. He points out the similarity of the West Virginia judicial recusal case, and cases on partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering. He could also have suggested ballot access examples, because it isn’t always easy for courts to draw a line between too-difficult requirements and requirements that are not too difficult.