Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2002 | 9:46 a.m.
In a daylong symposium at UNLV on whether it is better to elect or appoint judges, a panel of judges, lawyers and academicians seemed to agree that neither practice is perfect, and that reforming judicial elections is necessary but highly unlikely in Nevada.
"Money inevitably perverts and corrupts the system," said John Curtas, who recently lost in his bid to unseat incumbent District Court Judge Donald Mosley. "When you hand a dollar to somebody, you alter that relationship.
"And to have that corruptive influence be the underpinning of every election is to ignore that giant pink elephant in the middle of the room."
Testimony throughout the Judging the Judges program, co-sponsored by the Boyd School of Law and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Center for Democratic Culture, centered on how corruptible judicial elections are.
About 30 people attended the session, which was offered for continuing legal education credit.
The rising cost of judicial elections, fueled by television advertising, coupled with judicial canon that prohibits judges from commenting on issues combine to result in negative campaigning, experts said.
"If you don't have issues, what you do have are personal attacks and negative campaigning," said Michael Bowers, a political science professor at UNLV.
Voters don't get comparative information on candidates, he said, and studies show voters opt to not cast ballots in judicial races, or vote for candidates they cannot name after voting.
In Nevada's recent election, for example, 11 percent fewer voters cast ballots in the Supreme Court race between Justice Bill Maupin and Don Chairez than voted for governor.
The Supreme Court race for which only Mark Gibbons ran drew 16 percent fewer voters than the governor's race.
And both of those percentages count the 75,000 people who voted for "none of these candidates" in the race.
Clark County District Court races saw a 30 percent drop-off in voters who had cast ballots for governor.
"It's hard to see how these judicial elections really do hold people accountable," Bowers said.
But his suggested remedy, public financing of judicial elections, is failing in Wisconsin, he acknowledged. Wisconsin's program applies only to that state's Supreme Court races. So far, only 8 percent of taxpayers checking the voluntary box on their income tax to fund the program, he said.
Contributions in the Silver State would be even harder to come by because Nevadans tend to be anti-tax and the state has no income tax to even offer such a program, Bowers noted.
The problems with another alternative, appointment of judges instead of election, include that appointments are subject to political favoritism and that they prevent the public from directly choosing judges.
Family Court Judge Cynthia Dianne Steel said she would never have made it onto the bench after moving to Nevada if she had to win a politician's favor.
"I would never have been appointed," Steel said.
Curtas, who is on the board of governors of the Nevada State Bar, said judicial appointments are as corrupt as elections, and he made a case to keep electing judges provided some type of reform is initiated.
"I think there's a huge number of judges at every level in Nevada that have no business being there," Curtas said.
Bowers pointed to a study he did of the Nevada judiciary from 1860 to 1988 that found that 30 percent of all judges in the state were initially appointed to their posts and later won election as incumbents.
Jackie Glass, the only challenger to unseat a sitting judge this election, said the elective system "opens doors for people who might not otherwise be in the system."
Curtas said that was an argument against elections.
"I'm against inexperienced and unqualified people being elected judges," Curtas said. "We have a supremely unqualified judiciary."
Both Curtas and Bowers pointed out the problem judicial candidates run into when they lend themselves money for a campaign. Glass, for example, loaned her own campaign $155,000 of the $300,000 she spent and has held post-election fund-raisers to try to pay herself back.
Curtas bemoaned the fund-raising aspect of elections.
"You just work the phones day in and day out begging for money," Curtas said. "It's all about getting the money in the door, and it isn't about anything other than buying television ads."
Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker said she would support limiting the period of time in which judicial candidates can raise money.
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