Arkansas Supreme Court clarifies new ethics rules for judges

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     (AP) – The Arkansas Supreme Court is clarifying new ethics

rules for judges after getting complaints that the rules are confusing.

     Friday’s clarification includes elimination of a rule that judicial candidates

avoid knowledge of who donates to their campaigns. Legal experts say the rule

was nearly impossible to follow because candidates attend their fundraisers.

     The rules also ban candidates from asking for donations that won’t be reported

by the campaign if it’s used “to influence the outcome” of the election. Legal

analysts say that is aimed at organizations known as “dark money” groups that

are not required to identify their donors and have spent hundreds of thousands

of dollars on state Supreme Court elections since 2014.

     The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that Chief Justice Howard Brill

declined to comment on the revised rules.




   

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