Welcome to Amicus, Slates Podcasts about the Law and the Courts that Interpret it.

I'm Dahlia Lyswick, Slates Supreme Court correspondent.

It's been a huge week at the Supreme Court, anniversary of Citizens United, anniversary

of Roe v Wade, acceptance of the same sex marriage cases last week, and thank you to a bad

back injury, I missed all of it.

But we have on our podcast today two people who were there this week and they're going

to help fill us in on some of the action.

In a few minutes we're going to discuss a case that was argued on Wednesday that considers

a challenge to the Fair Housing Act, a crucial civil rights law that barred discrimination

in the housing market.

But first we're going to dive into a case that was argued one day earlier on Tuesday.

It's called Williams-Uly versus Florida Bar, and it centers on this foundational question.

When it comes to the First Amendment, should elected judges be considered regular people

or special judicial people, at least when it comes to asking for money?

Here's the background.

39 states elect their judges for at least some offices, and 30 of those 39 states have

some kind of law or ethics provision that prohibits judicial candidates from personally

asking for campaign donations.

Now, this is supposed to discourage that awkward practice of judges seeking campaign

contributions from those who will argue the case before them or parties who may appear

before them.

The paradox in Florida is that a judge can't personally ask for a contribution.

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