Minnesota state judges?

Are they all elected?

Are there campaign contribution rules?

They are appointed by the Governor if there is an open seat, but after that they have to run for re-election if somebody runs against them. Not sure what the campaign contribution rules are, but there are a lot of restrictions about how they can campaign. I don't think it's as obscenely corrupt as, say, Texas judicial elections.

nt

unless initially appointed by the Governor. Usually they run unopposed, and even if someone runs against them, the incumbent usually wins because the Rules of Judicial Conduct prevent judge candidates from doing much by way of campaigning.

There is a Judicial Selection Board that vets potential candidates and recommends qualified candidates for the governor's consideration. This has been in place since the 1980s. Pawlenty the Pinhead hasn't had the nerve to mess with this very non-partisan process and the general quality of the Minnesota judiciary is quite high. One can also run for a judgeship whether it's held by an incumbent or not, though most contests involve open judgeships.

I work in the court system in the Fourth Judicial District (Hennepin Co), so I know this is the straight skinny. I can honestly say I have never run into an ideologue of any sort on the bench.

though some judges are definitely better than others for different reasons. One nice thing about the Minnesota rules of court is that you get one free "strike" of a judge -- that is, if you are assigned a trial judge that you don't like for some reason you can ask to have your case reassigned to another one -- no questions asked. You can do this only once, and only before that judge actually decides any aspect of your case. So if you suspect a judge of being biased, you can often avoid him or her altogether.

Many years ago I worked as a law clerk in the appellate system, and as far as I could tell, the judges sincerely tried to keep any personal political inclinations out of their decisions. I don't know whether that is still true, considering that it now seems more acceptable for judges to be overtly ideological.