On January 16, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a New York State election scheme that, in practice, has placed control over the selection of judges in the hands of the leader of the political party that is dominant within each of the State’s judicial districts. The decision was a setback for WLF, which filed a brief urging the Court to strike down the election scheme. The Court rejected WLF’s argument that New York’s electoral scheme for Supreme Court Justices violates the First Amendment rights of rank-and-file party members by denying them effective access to the candidate selection process. The Court overturned a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which last year struck down the New York electoral scheme on First Amendment grounds. WLF argued that the New York election scheme was particularly objectionable because, due to the dominance of a single political party within each judicial district, the primary election always determines the final outcome.