The generally conservative 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected challenges to North Carolina's full public financing program for judicial elections and upheld the law that put Clean Elections-style financing of judicial races on the map.  This is great news for North Carolina and the popular public financing program, which this year has been expanded to include three Council of State positions (the state Cabinet).

Next Tuesday Wisconsin voters will be voting on a new state Supreme Court justice and in this article for the Hudson Star-Observer the two candidates for the position present their platforms on a couple of subjects, including the way in which campaigns for the Wisconsin court are financed.

Christine Bremmer Muggli of the Wisconsin Association for Justice (a trial lawyers group) writes in favor of the Impartial Justice bill currently sitting in the state Assembly that would let candidates for the state Supreme Court run for office using public financing (similar to programs in North Carolina and New Mexico) and help control the spending, and partisanship, of judicial elections.

Public financing is contagious! Michigan's gone and caught it from Wisconsin and now a group in Michigan's legislature is pushing for full public financing of state Supreme Court races even as Wisconsin battles to pass a similar bill through their Assembly.

The West Virginia judge who raised eyebrows for vacationing with the CEO of an energy company he'd just decided in favor of (a CEO known for using campaign contributions to influence the outcome of judicial races) has indicated he would support public financing of judicial races, but he has some concerns.

The Daily Cardinal, the student paper for the University of Wisconsin at Madison lends its support to efforts to win full public financing for Wisconsin Supreme Court campaigns.