Thursday, June 7, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.
Budget juggling gives state's courts much of their wish list
Some ethics-in-government bills got short shrift during this year's Legislature, but two key judicial reform proposals passed. Both measures called into question judicial candidates' increasing reliance on fundraising for their campaigns.
One of the bills had to be brought back from the dead to make it through.
Because of the dedicated efforts of the bipartisan tag team of Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, Nevadans may some day have a chance to change the way its District Court judges and Supreme Court justices are selected.
The measure that eventually passed - based on the "Missouri Plan" to select judges but with some important tweaks added by Raggio - would end the system of open elections for Nevada judges and justices.
In its place would be a process in which the state's Judicial Selection Commission would choose three candidates for vacant judgeships. The governor would select one and the judge would then face the voters in an uncontested "retention election" two years later.
Raggio's plan is different from the Missouri Plan in two respects. First, retention election candidates would need 55 percent of the vote to stay in office, as opposed to a simple majority.
Second, his bill would create the Judicial Performance Commission, which would review the judge's record and issue a public report before the election that would include a recommendation on whether the judge should be retained.
Proponents say change is vital to minimize the influence money has on the system and the attendant conflicts of interest that can arise when campaign donors, often lawyers, appear in court before the judges. The new performance commission, they add, could be an important tool in advising voters on what is acceptable judicial conduct.
The initial proposed plan, which mandated that judges win their retention elections by 60 percent, first appeared headed for easy passage. In April the Senate passed the bill with a bipartisan majority of 15-6.
But it was then voted down, decisively, in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. Several committee members expressed concerns about the 60 percent retention election threshold. Judges would still need to raise money to meet such a burden, they said.
Raggio and Buckley weren't through, however. They revived the measure by quietly signing a special waiver to allow the Assembly Judiciary Committee to reconsider or amend the bill. The committee then passed a slightly amended version, which would require 55 percent of the vote instead of 60 percent for retention . The full Assembly quickly followed suit.
This is just the beginning for Raggio's plan. For the Constitution to be amended, the bill needs to be passed by the Legislature again in two years, and then by the voters in a referendum. In the 1970s and '80s, voters twice rejected similar proposals. But proponents believe that the mood may have changed, and that reform might now stand a better chance.
"I'm pleased," Raggio said, "that it'll have a chance to go before the next Legislature, and then perhaps to the voters. It just seems to me to be a better way to select our judges."
The other judicial reform bill to make it through faced a significantly less rocky voyage.
That bill, already signed into law by Gov. Jim Gibbons, moved up the two-week filing period for judicial candidates from May to the first two weeks of January during election years.
Proponents wanted to make sure judicial candidates, including incumbent judges, would know whether they would have opponents to campaign against - and that if they were running unopposed, that they would no longer need to raise money for their campaign.
The Supreme Court pushed for the bill in an attempt to reduce the amount of money raised by judicial candidates, including those running unopposed.
After Gibbons signed the bill , the Supreme Court last month began its process to change the state's Code of Judicial Conduct to prohibit unopposed judicial candidates from fundraising.
A similar bill was proposed in the 2005 Legislature, but was rejected. This year the measure passed unanimously in both houses.
Craig Walton, president of the Nevada Center for Public Ethics, noted that although other governmental ethics reform bills regarding lobbyist registration and campaign contribution rules failed, judicial reform succeeded.
"I do think that there's beginning to be a sense that we need to pay greater attention to our judiciary and how we select them," Walton said.
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