Today's news that Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Christopher Dietzen donated $500 this decade to Norm Coleman's Senate campaigns prompts the question: What partisan gifts have the other six justices ladled out?

A scan of federal and state databases, covering 1998 to the present, shows no donations to DFLer Al Franken. However, Dietzen is not the only Coleman donor on the bench; Justice Lori Gildea gave Norm a thousand bucks for his 1998 gubernatorial run.

Is Gildea's contribution less entangling than Dietzen's 2001 and 2004 gifts? Her donation is less recent, and for a different office.

Before Democratic partisans get too excited: Ventura appointee Helen Meyer gave $1,000 in 2001 to Paul Wellstone, who would face off against Coleman the following year. Wellstone, of course, is not a party to this case, but there was little love lost in that race.

Meyer has been a profligate Democratic giver, contributing to three 1998 gubernatorial hopefuls: Mike Freeman ($350), Skip Humphrey ($250) and Mike Hatch ($125). She also gave Mike Ciresi $500 for his 2000 U.S. Senate run. Between 1999 and 2002, she contributed $2,010 to state and national Democratic caucuses, the last contribution coming just weeks before Ventura elevated her to the bench in June 2002.

Two justices, Paul Anderson and Alan Page, have zero state or federal donations in the past 11 years. Coincidentally, they were the two judges who condemned the court's plan to give candidates veto power over absentee ballots during the recount. (Meyer wrote that opinion.)

It's worth noting that no justice gave to a candidate (other than a fellow justice or their own election committee) after ascending to the bench. Page began serving in 1993 and Paul Anderson in 1994, before online database records began.

G. Barry Anderson gave $250 to the state Republican Party in 1998; he represented the party for several years. Chief Justice Eric Magnuson gave $625 to Tim Pawlenty's gubernatorial committee for the 2002 race. Magnuson is a former Pawlenty law partner.

In addition to his Coleman for Senate donations, Dietzen gave $1,400 to U.S. Sen. Rod Grams' 2000 run and $1,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2000. Like Gildea, he gave Coleman $1,000 for the '98 gubernatorial campaign, $625 to Pawlenty's 2002 race, $200 to Pawlenty nomination challenger Brian Sullivan, and $850 to other GOP candidates and caucuses.

As Minnesota Independent's Chris Steller noted, Dietzen has not recused himself from earlier recount rulings. If he changes his mind this time around, Steller adds, we'll probably only know "after the court releases its first order in a case — and even then, it’s ordinarily without explanation."