Georgia Supreme Court candidates turn to U.S. Supreme Court for help in dispute over campaign speech

(Georgia Recorder) — Two Democratic-backed candidates for the state Supreme Court have filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in the latest twist in an ongoing lawsuit over their campaign rhetoric.

The candidates, former Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan and personal injury attorney Miracle Rankin, are seeking to vacate an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued Sunday. In the ruling, two Trump-appointed judges sided with a state judicial ethics agency, lifting a district court judge’s temporary order that prevented the agency from issuing public statements about Jordan and Rankin’s comments on the campaign trail. A third judge, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, dissented.

On Monday, the Judicial Qualifications Commission released two public statements declaring that it “reasonably believes” Jordan and Rankin violated Georgia’s Code of Judicial Conduct. The panel flagged Jordan and Rankin’s joint campaign approach, since judicial candidates aren’t allowed to endorse others, and frowned on their appearance at reproductive freedom events and comments saying they would restore abortion rights.

At issue is the timing of the commission’s public statements. They were issued in the gap between the federal appeals court’s action and when a judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, issued her final order preventing the commission from releasing a public statement.

The two candidates are challenging Republican-appointed state Supreme Court justices in a race that has garnered significant attention from political figures and parties on both sides of the aisle, although the seats are officially nonpartisan.

John Barrow, a former Democratic congressman whose state Supreme Court campaign largely centered around protecting reproductive rights, also went through a similar process with the commission when he ran in 2024.

Lester Tate, an attorney with Jordan and Rankin who also represented Barrow in 2024, said the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was aimed at protecting his clients’ right to free speech.

“This is, for me, the second time I’ve represented Supreme Court candidates where the JQC has tried to chill their First Amendment rights,” Tate said. “So we felt like it was important to go ahead and take it to the Supreme Court.”

“We plan on fully litigating it and trying to settle this issue so Supreme Court candidates aren’t subjected to this sort of chilling of First Amendment speech in future races,” he added.