The Times surveys the landscape of funding for judicial campaigns and the impact of Caperton v. Massey here.

“I wouldn’t think you would find judges panicking” and saying “Whoo! I’d better go over my docket!” said Bradley A. Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, a group that opposes campaign regulations on First Amendment grounds.

Mr. Smith called the ruling “sort of the Bush v. Gore of campaign finance law,” referring to the Supreme Court opinion that decided the 2000 presidential election. That ruling was written in a way intended to give it little value as a legal precedent.

Still, Mr. Smith added, if the first lower courts to apply the case give Caperton a broad reading, “then you would start to see the floodgates open.”