California Judges In Uproar Over New Ethics Rules

Ruling urges them to limit their free speech in certain kinds of lobbying

Judges up and down the state are shaking their heads over a draft opinion from California's judicial ethics committee that would limit what judges can say.

The opposition to the ethics opinion has to do with the tension between trial judges and a big bureaucracy that sits atop the far-flung California judicial system, as well as the financial pressure on individual trial courts resulting from enormous budget cuts.