Florida Supreme Court approves new lobbying rules for judges

The supreme court adopted new rules that bar individual judges from taking budget requests and suggestions for revisions to the law directly to legislators without first getting appropriate approval. These rules are in response to judges’ role in lobbying lawmakers for a $50 million courthouse that has been labeled “Taj Majal.” New rules also limit chief judges to eight-year terms and stipulate that they be selected on the basis of administrative, managerial, and leadership capacity.