Voters can’t be trusted

As the short, unhappy judicial career of Elizabeth Halverson mercifully comes to an end this week — barring a reversal by the state Supreme Court — let’s be clear who deserves culpability for her ever possessing a black robe.

Don’t blame Halverson, removed from the bench Monday by the Judicial Discipline Commission. She is not the problem; she is a symptom. The source of the condition, which will recur, lies with the voters.

Not only the 151,800 voters who elected Halverson in 2006 by less than a percentage point, but also the large subset of the electorate that clings so bitterly to a right most voters don’t take seriously when given the chance to exercise it: the right to elect judges.

What is it going to take for Nevada to adopt a judicial selection system that produces a higher caliber of jurists? How many more Halversons have to be shown to be unfit to serve — and I bet we elected a few more a couple of weeks ago — before the public, the media and private interests realize what is at stake? Do we need a Supreme Court race to be clouded — maybe even decided — by an alleged cash-for-recusal scheme involving the supposed dangling of $200,000 in contributions before we realize that this system is abhorrent?

This is not just about Halverson, who is more of an exception than the rule because she made her shortcomings so manifest. Several incumbents were easily reelected not on the basis of their stellar judicial records (Hey, look, Don Mosley can ride a horse! And some famous attorneys love Jesse Walsh!) but because they had enough money to drown opponents, some of them quite credible, in the mail and on television.

Some of the judges — Walsh was a notable exception — even refused to debate their foes, even though many who challenged incumbents this cycle were qualified for the bench. Mosley, Michelle Leavitt and Cheryl Moss all avoided televised debates with their perfectly reasonable opponents, an arrogant abuse of their positions amplified by their ability to simply run better (i.e., better funded) campaigns. This is how the voters provide not the inoculation for black robe disease but the contaminant that spreads the contagion through the 8th Judicial District.

Let’s be honest: When it comes to voting for judges, most voters — not some, most — have no clue whom they are voting for or, worse, waste the right they have been given.

Halverson was elected in 2006 even though a huge majority of those 151,800 people had no idea who she was. Many probably voted for the woman (that happens a lot in judicial races) or used some other scientific method (her name was first on the ballot, or eenie, meenie, miney, moe, perhaps?).

Consider what happened this cycle when tens of thousands of people did not even cast votes in judicial races because they either were lazy or ignorant — or both. If this right to vote for judges is so precious then why did nearly 200,000 voters skip the Henderson-Hoskin race? And that was the rule, not the exception, as a quarter or more of the electorate skipped the judicial races.

There has to be a better way. And there is.

The 2007 Legislature overwhelmingly passed Senate Joint Resolution 2, which would allow for an appointive system, with retention elections, as many states have adopted. Thanks mostly to the efforts of then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio and given impetus by a Los Angeles Times series that made the Nevada judiciary look like a good old boys club, SJR2 passed overwhelmingly in both houses. It needs to make it through the 2009 Legislature, too, to be eligible for the 2010 ballot, when voters (the weak link again) must approve taking away their right to select judges.

These are the same folks who will not complain that Halverson was removed from the bench this week by an unelected commission. Where is the wailing about a system that allows a group of appointees to be judge and jury over a duly elected official? I thought so.

Yes, an appointive system is the lesser of evils — and could be very evil if not done correctly. But if it is, with proper vetting system in place and populated by qualified, thoughtful people, even a governor committed to cronyism would have little latitude once the finalists are submitted to him or her.

It’s time. We elected more Elizabeth Halversons to the bench a couple of weeks ago — I just have a feeling. Only by supporting SJR2 can we change the system that allows the ignorant and lazy to pass judgment on who should be a judge.