Minnesota Lawyer Blog

Justice Paul Anderson is the second most senior of the seven Minnesota Supreme Court justices. He has served on the state high court since 1994. Previously, he was chief judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and, prior to that, an attorney in private practice. His challenger in the upcoming election is Tim Tingelstad, a 9th Judicial District magistrate. (Unfortunately, we were unable to arrange a video interview with Tingelstad for this video series.)

A judicial history buff, Anderson brings a lot of institutional knowledge to the job. He is also extremely active in the court's outreach efforts, and has earned the informal title of the court's "goodwill ambassador."



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Tim Tingelstad, a magistrate in the 9th Judicial District, has filed to run against Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul Anderson in the upcoming judicial election. Tinglestad is the second challenger in the race. As we reported earlier, Maplewood attorney Alan Lawrence Nelson has also declared himself a candidate for Anderson's seat.

In cases such as this where there are more than two people running for the same seat, the field will be whittled down to two in a September primary, with only the top two vote getters proceeding to the general election in November.

I just checked the judicial-elections portion of the Secretary of State's website and so far today it looks like there's not much new to report. It's likely to be a slow day for filings on the eve of the 4th of July holiday, with everyone apparently thinking about barbecues and time on the lake rather than judicial races. In fact, many have trickled out of their offices already, except for, of course, us poor ink-stained wretches and you, our loyal blog reader.

I had hoped to bring you news of the races for the Minnesota Supreme Court. As I mentioned in a prior post, challengers have filed against both justices up for election. Information is easily available on Justice Lorie Gildea's opponent, Rick Gallo, who has worked in the Appellate Division of the Minnesota State Public Defender's Office for more than two decades. However, I was able to unearth very little in my preliminary search for information on Justice Paul Anderson's challenger, Alan Lawrence Nelson.

In order to bring some further illumination on his candidacy, I contacted Mr. Nelson yesterday at the phone number provided on his filing. It went right to voice-mail. This morning, I received the following response via e-mail: "I can appreciate your desire for timely information, but I am deferring all questions until my website is fully active on July 16th. The website will have a full resume/CV and biography section."

He also invited me to shoot him an e-mail with any further questions after that date. In the meantime, here's a link to his website, which currently contains only a sentence stating that it will become active on July 16, which, incidentally, is the day after the filing period ends at the Secretary of State's Office.

We will provide more information on this and other races when we have it. In the meantime, enjoy some well-deserved time off. We will not be posting tomorrow, so enjoy that hot dog or burger, and of course ...

As Minnesota Lawyer reports in its Bar Buzz column this week (password required), state Supreme Court Justice Paul Anderson has already launched his '08 re-election campaign effort. His campaign committee is now soliciting funds and other support for the justice.

Anderson will present an interesting test case for Minnesota judicial elections, which so far have not been much impacted by federal court rulings striking down restrictions on judicial campaigning. Many in the legal community have been worried the rulings -- which were made in the White case -- will lead to the big-money highly politicized judicial races experienced in a number of other states. However, since White, judicial races have thus far remained relatively quiet.

But pro-life interests have publicly stated in the past that they would target Anderson when he came up for election because he was on the high court when it issued Doe v. Gomez in 1995. (In the Gomez case, the court struck down a law limiting state medical assistance for abortion to cases of life endangerment and reported rape and incest.)

Whoever decides to take on Anderson will have an uphill battle to fight. First of all, he is a Republican appointee who, in 13 years on the court, has earned a reputation as a moderate voice. Secondly, the longtime justice is also known as being the most gregarious of the seven justices. In fact, he has frequently been called the high court's "goodwill ambassador" due to his amiable disposition and omnipresence at community events and other outreach efforts. I have heard tell that he will serve as a tour guide for almost any student he happens to run into who expresses an interest in the courts. It's going to be pretty tough for an opponent to come at the popular justice if the only arrow in his or her quiver is a single opinion from 12 years ago (which Anderson didn't even write). "Activist judges" should be made of stronger stuff.

Whatever happens, 2008 is likely to be a watermark year for judicial elections. It brings to mind the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." For judicial elections, we do.

When I spoke with Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul Anderson late last week, he was about to embark for a little R&R in Wyoming. Well, maybe not R&R, since his vacation plans include trekking around on a mountain bike. Not bad for a 64-year-old guy who had a hip replacement not too long ago, he pointed out during the course of our conversation. The justice says he may get some photos from the road, which may find their way into an upcoming edition of Minnesota Lawyer. In the meantime, we wish him good luck on the trip. (For obvious reasons, we won't say break a leg ...)