Judge recuses self from case on petition-gathering harassment

Wednesday, June 23, 2004 | 8:50 a.m.

District Judge Kenneth Cory recused himself Tuesday from determining whether the Community College of Southern Nevada's West Charleston Campus violated his order to stop harassing and restricting the rights of Nevadans For Sound Government as the group gathers petitions to get two referendums on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Cory said the matter would be heard by a yet-to-be-determined District Judge on June 28.

Bart Patterson, assistant general counsel for the University and Community College System of Nevada, filed a motion for Cory's recusal, not because he thought Cory would be biased in his ruling, but because if Cory handled the case it would "give the appearance of impropriety."

Joel Hansen, the lawyer for Nevadans For Sound Government, contends recent actions at CCSN's West Charleston Campus constituted a direct violation of Cory's order.

Hansen said on two separate occasions just two days after Cory issued the order, that order was violated by CCSN. First, activist Knight Allen and later Christopher Hansen and George Harris, director of Nevadans for Sound Government, were harassed upon trying to gather signatures for the petitions at the campus, Hansen said.

On June 15, Cory granted a 35-day deadline extension for the group's effort to get referendums on the ballot to repeal last year's $833 million tax increase and another to prevent government workers from serving in the Legislature.

Cory also barred the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Regional Transportation Commission, University and Community College System of Nevada from "intimidating or preventing" the group's petitioners "from the full enjoyment of their constitutional rights to free speech and to obtain signatures of individuals on initiative and referendum petitions."

Hansen said Cory's order was violated, and said he wasn't surprised.

"It's difficult to teach bureaucrats the law because they are slow and they don't want to" follow the law, Hansen said. "But we will teach them. This all comes down to democracy versus bureaucracy and democracy will win."

Patterson wouldn't comment on the alleged violation of Cory's order. He did say the UCCS had not yet determined "if or when" it would appeal Cory's order.

Harris said Cory's ruling reached many Nevadans through media coverage and that helped stir up more volunteers.

Harris said the group had gathered 1,000 signatures on both petitions on each of the past two days. When asked whether his group would have enough signatures to get on the ballot, Harris would say only, "We are the underdog."