Florida Judge Nets Reprimand for Partisan Comments in Campaign

A Florida judge who made two partisan comments during a campaign for re-election violated professional conduct rules and will be publicly reprimanded, the Florida Supreme Court said April 18.

Judge Ernest Kollra of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit admitted he told an editorial board, in response to a question, that he was a registered Republican. And after receiving the endorsement of a Democratic political organization, he included that fact in a speech.

“That Judge Kollra’s conduct went to both sides of the political aisle does not make the conduct any less violative,” the court said in a per curiam opinion.

The ...