Can different groups, with different messages, use the same name to identify their group, during a political campaign?
The question may not be academic, based on comments made late last week connected with Cole County's circuit judge election next month.
For years, a group known as "Better Courts For Missouri" has challenged Missouri's Nonpartisan Courts Plan, and lobbyist James Harris has been their spokesman and executive director for most of that time.
Last week, in a news release on Better Courts' letterhead, Harris questioned Presiding Circuit Judge Pat Joyce's accepting campaign contributions from attorneys who try cases in her courtroom.
But lobbyist Randy Scherr said Harris no longer controls the "Better Courts For Missouri" name.
"It had not been registered since January 2013," he explained. "I represent some groups interested in the quality of judges, so I registered it."
He told the News Tribune business office that, as the new owner of the "Better Courts" name, he would not authorize or pay for any advertising that Harris might publish using that name.
However, Harris said the name is legally "fictitious" - the formal name for his group is "Missourians for Open and Accountable Judicial Selection."
Early on group members thought that was too big a name for people to remember, so they also registered the "Better Courts" name with the secretary of state's office, and used it in various news releases and comments about the way judges are named to the state's supreme and appeals courts as well as some of the trial courts in metropolitan areas.
Scherr registered as the new owner of "Better Courts For Missouri" on Wednesday.
But Harris re-registered the name on Friday, and told the newspaper that even the secretary of state's website says "there may be an infinite number of businesses using the same name as there is no name protection under the Fictitious Name Act."
Harris said any fight or discussion on the group's name is a distraction to a more important issue in the Cole County judges' election race.
He said he thinks the more than 50 attorneys who already have donated to Joyce's re-election campaign "just shows how cozy Judge Joyce is with lawyers."
The Missouri Supreme Court's Code of Judicial Conduct doesn't prohibit or question those donations, and says that any candidate, "including an incumbent judge," is allowed to seek donations in writing from "any person or group, including any person or group likely to appear before the judge."
Joyce's campaign committee noted last week that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that attorneys have a constitutional, free speech "right to support judicial candidates whom they believe will do the best job."
Harris acknowledged Friday that attorneys "are entitled to that opinion."
He didn't talk about the court rules that allow a party to ask for a change of judge at the beginning of a case, without having to give a reason.