Tuesday, March 20, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.
Nevada District Court judges and Supreme Court justices are elected every six years in nonpartisan, open elections. A bill recently proposed by Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, would dramatically change the way District Court judges and Supreme Court justices are selected. The bill, currently before the Senate Judiciary Committee, has garnered strong bipartisan support. Following are the differences between the current law, two other plans for change that have been floated in the past and Raggios proposal:
MISSOURI PLAN
The state's Judicial Selection Commission would select three candidates for open seats, and the governor would make the appointment. Thereafter, judges would run in uncontested "retention" elections, in which voters could vote only either to keep or dump the judge.
NEVADA PLAN
A compromise plan proposed in recent years in which a candidate would be appointed by the same process as the Missouri Plan, but then two years later would run in an open, contested race. Then, if elected, the judge would run in retention elections every six years thereafter. This plan, thought to be more palatable to Nevada voters, never gained political traction.
RAGGIO PLAN
Somewhat similar to the Missouri Plan. For vacant District Court and Supreme Court seats, the governor would appoint one of the three names given to him by the Judicial Selection Commission. The judge's initial term would last from one to two years. Then, if the judge wants to stay in office, he would run in a retention election, needing to gain 60 percent of the vote to serve another six-year term. The Raggio Plan also would amend the Nevada Constitution to require each judge or justice to undergo a performance review by the newly created Judicial Performance Commission. This commission, after reviewing the judge's record and interviewing him, would then publicly release a report before the election, including a recommendation on whether the judge should be retained.
Nevada court reform advocates concerned by the growing influence of money in state judicial elections have always banked on proposals such as the so-called "Missouri Plan" and "Nevada Plan" to try to fix the problem.
Those efforts hit brick walls in the form of voters reluctant to give up their Nevada constitutional right to choose their own District Court judges and Supreme Court justices.
But now, a wide and bipartisan array of would-be reformers - from judges and lawyers' groups to academics and veteran legislators - is excitedly touting Senate Joint Resolution 2, their newest, and they say most inclusive effort to change the system.
Meet the Raggio Plan.
The measure, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and currently before the Senate Judiciary Committee, is similar in several ways to the Missouri Plan.
The bill would mandate that the state's Judicial Selection Commission choose the names of three candidates for vacant District and Supreme Court seats, and then pass those names on to the governor, who would make the appointment.
After an initial term of one to two years, the judge would run in a "retention election," in which the only choice would be whether to keep or dump the judge. If retained, the judge would serve a six-year term.
Raggio's bill differs from the Missouri Plan in that the candidate would need 60 percent of the vote to be retained. Perhaps more importantly, his bill also 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.
The Raggio Plan would differ greatly from the current system of nonpartisan, contested elections.
Change is necessary, proponents say, because judicial races too often have become "embroiled by politics," as Raggio said at a March 8 hearing on the topic, and have been tainted by an increasing reliance on fundraising.
"I've always thought the Founding Fathers showed wisdom by having federal judges appointed, and keeping politics out of the system," said Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, one of the bill's co-sponsors. "We need to find a way to get our judges out of politics and just have them concentrating on the law."
The issue of independence among Nevada's judiciary was put in stark relief when the Los Angeles Times last year published a series of articles about conflicts of interest involving several Las Vegas-based judges.
The series called Las Vegas a "juice town" in which attorneys and businesspeople give contributions to curry favor with judges, and it detailed repeated examples of apparent conflicts of interest that occurred when campaign contributors appeared before the recipients in court.
Changing the system would require amending the Nevada Constitution, a lengthy and arduous task. First, the Legislature would need to pass the same bill in two successive sessions. Then, voters would need to approve the change in a referendum. That means that even if passed by this Legislature, the soonest the bill could take effect would be Jan. 1, 2011.
Attempts to change the process by adopting versions of the Missouri Plan have failed twice in Nevada. Voters rejected the changes in 1972 and 1988.
Yet supporters believe momentum has shifted. Just a handful of conservative citizen-activists showed up in opposition to Raggio's bill at the recent hearing. Several prominent reform proponents testified, including Reno District Judge Bridget Robb Peck and UNLV Boyd School of Law Dean Richard Morgan.
"Given the expose of the L.A. Times articles, and given some of the distasteful judicial campaigns of recent years, and because of the increasing amount of money it takes to get elected judge in Nevada, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen now," said Las Vegas lawyer Vince Consul, past president of the State Bar of Nevada.
The current president, Rew Goodenow, wrote in a position paper supporting Raggio's bill that the measure would reduce the number of negative judicial campaigns, reduce the costs to candidates and allow judges more time to do things like "resolving disputes and deciding cases."
Goodenow also noted that Nevada is the only state that allows its elected judges to directly solicit campaign contributions - a more dangerous practice than ever given a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows judicial candidates to state how they would decide individual cases the very same moment they are accepting contributions.
"The issue of independence in the judiciary is rock-bottom vital," said Craig Walton, president of the Nevada Center for Public Ethics and another reform advocate. "If you can't count on the courts to give you a fair shake, then all is lost."
Raggio noted in his testimony that 23 states and the District of Columbia have judges that are appointed to their initial terms. Fifteen of those states also then hold retention elections for successive terms.
His is not a perfect plan, Raggio conceded. Judges would likely still need to raise some money for retention elections, he said, "but they wouldn't have to raise the kind of money they would in a contested election."
Like the jury system, he said, "it may not be ideal, but it's the best system we can get."
Opponents of change say the gubernatorial appointments raise the specter of possible cronyism, and that, more simply, judges elected in open contests are typically responsive to the concerns of voters.
Despite these long-running concerns, change may finally be coming, proponents say. But of course this is Nevada, so they say so cautiously.
"We're not the Wild West anymore," Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, said. "We're trying to grow up here."
