Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Heller should stop blocking judicial nominee

Nevada's appointed Senator, Dean Heller, displays his lack of knowledge about how our legal system works when he continues to block the nomination of the highly qualified Judge Elissa Cadish for the federal court.

Although he is unwilling to publicly state his reason for blocking the appointment, it appears that he succumbed to pressure from lobbyists resulting from Cadish's honest and correct response to a 2008 questionnaire in which she said there was no constitutional right to gun ownership. At that time, old Supreme Court decisions said just that. A judge has a duty to comply with those most recent (albeit old) decisions.

It was only because lower court judges honored Supreme Court precedent, that the recent Washington, DC case was allowed to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, where that precedent was reversed.

So today, individual gun ownership is indeed a constitutional right, as Judge Cadish has acknowledged.

Her opinions are based on an understanding of our judicial system (something Heller apparently lacks) and rather than constituting a flip-flop, it reflects a true understanding of how our constitution must be interpreted.

Heller should admit he was wrong and stop blocking the nomination of this highly qualified judge.

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