Saturday, October 23, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SUPREME COURT RACE: Partisan views get attention

Tight race for Seat F has third-party candidate Hansen answering critics

Joel Hansen Michael Douglas

As a third-party candidate, Las Vegas attorney Joel Hansen received little attention in his three previous bids for office.

But political observers are taking notice now that poll results place Hansen, former chairman of the Nevada Independent American Party, slightly ahead of Justice Michael Douglas in the nonpartisan race for Seat F on the Nevada Supreme Court.

"The scariest thing about this election to me is that Joel Hansen might become a Supreme Court justice," said Jim Ferrence, senior vice president of Paladin Advertising.

Ferrence, campaign manager for Supreme Court candidate Ron Parraguirre, has worked on numerous judicial races during his career. He called Hansen "a borderline neo-Nazi."

"I think it would be a shame if Election Day comes and goes and he's competitive with Justice Douglas, but I'm afraid that's going to be the case," Ferrence said.

Hansen described Ferrence's comments as ridiculous and insulting.

"My views are probably no more conservative than a typical conservative Republican," the candidate said. "I've just chosen to be a member of a different party."

Hansen said he despises Nazis and what they have done.

"To call me a neo-Nazi would be the equivalent of me calling Mr. Douglas a communist, and he's not a communist, anymore than I'm a neo-Nazi," Hansen said.

Douglas, a former Clark County district judge, is a Democrat. Because judicial races in Nevada are nonpartisan, the party affiliations of judicial candidates will not appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Hansen describes himself as a "constitutional conservative" who believes in the "original intent of the Constitution."

"That pertained only to white males with property," remarked Douglas, the state's first black Supreme Court justice.

Hansen also said he favors lower taxes, less government and "traditional American values."

"While Mr. Hansen's rhetoric has been whitewashed for the Supreme Court race, the IAP's platform is homophobic, xenophobic and bigoted," Ferrence said.

The party's platform, which appears on its Web site, includes the following statement: "Multi-culturalism, paganism, environmentalism, hedonism, homosexual perversion and a spirit of anarchy promoted by government schools, capitalistic exploiters, and a demographic change in the base population fueled by treasonously promoted lax and illegal immigration are redefining American civilization."

Hansen said the party opposes "the homosexual political agenda, such as their attempts to legitimize so-called gay marriage."

In 1993, Hansen testified before the Assembly Judiciary Committee in opposition to repealing Nevada's anti-sodomy law. According to minutes of the meeting, he maintained that homosexuals wanted to legalize pedophilia.

"Mr. Hansen contended homosexuals wanted their rights but were unwilling to respect the rights of others," the minutes state. "He believed homosexuals wanted to take away the rights of others for their right of association while demanding respectability and legality and force others to accept their pervert practices. He alleged homosexuals wanted to recruit children into the homosexual lifestyle."

When asked this week if he thought homosexuality should be illegal, Hansen said, "I think the act of sodomy should be illegal."

He said the repeal of the state's anti-sodomy law has allowed the rest of the homosexual agenda to move forward.

Hansen said he disagrees with a resolution from his party's 2002 state convention that declared the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was "null and void."

The amendment, ratified soon after the Civil War ended, was meant to protect freed slaves from discrimination by the former states of the Confederacy.

It prohibits states from depriving any person "of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" or denying any person "the equal protection of the laws."

"I think everyone's entitled to due process of law, and I think they're entitled to equal protection," Hansen said.

However, Hansen said he thinks the amendment was ratified "under questionable circumstances" and is misused by the federal courts.

"They use it to broaden their jurisdiction and authority beyond the intent of the amendment," he said.

Hansen's older brother, Daniel, founded the Nevada Independent American Party, which is now the state's third-largest political party. His younger brother, Christopher, became the party's chairman this year after Joel's term ended.

Joel Hansen, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the party's platform is based on "traditional Judeo-Christian values, as was the U.S. Constitution."

"Every judge is going to bring with him his beliefs, but the thing I'm so concerned with this year is that the justices on the Supreme Court imposed their personal beliefs in such a way as to throw out a constitutional amendment that had been ratified by the people twice, and that's exactly what I don't think they should do," he said.

He was referring to the court's decision last year in Guinn v. Legislature. The 6-1 decision, which was aimed at ending the budget impasse in the Legislature, temporarily set aside an amendment to the state constitution that requires a vote of at least two-thirds of the members of each house to approve tax increases.

"If my political or moral beliefs are in conflict with a constitutional amendment or any part of the Constitution, then I would be bound by my oath as a judge to follow the Constitution," Joel Hansen said.

Douglas said he finds himself in a "strange incumbency," because he has had to clarify with voters that he did not sit on the state's high court last year when it made the controversial ruling.

Gov. Kenny Guinn appointed Douglas to the Supreme Court in March after the death of Justice Myron Leavitt.

Douglas has said he thinks the justices acted prematurely with their ruling in Guinn v. Legislature. He said they should have told lawmakers "to go back to work and not come back until they passed a budget."

Joel Hansen has made his opposition to the decision a key issue in his campaign. He also represented Nevadans for Sound Government, a group that sought to repeal last year's tax increase.

George Harris, the group's chairman, and Republican activist Tony Dane are Joel Hansen's campaign consultants.

For years, Dane has tried to defeat Nevada's first openly gay legislator, Democratic Assemblyman David Parks, who faces a challenge this year from Christopher Hansen.

Earlier this year, Dane sent thousands of Las Vegans phone messages in which he accused Mayor Oscar Goodman of pursuing a gay agenda. Goodman later likened Dane to a pimple.

Recently, Dane was behind phone calls in the Douglas-Hansen race. Joel Hansen said he paid for the calls and approved their content. Joel Hansen said Dane refused to provide him with a transcript after the Review-Journal requested one.

Joel Hansen said the calls tell potential voters that he has described last year's tax decision as "outrageous" and that Douglas has described it as "courageous." Douglas denies making such a statement and said the calls imply he would have sided with the majority in the case.

"It's false, it's misleading, and I'm flat tired of it," Douglas said.

Joel Hansen said he does not believe Douglas opposes the decision.

"I think he's just saying that he's against it now because he realized it was political suicide to be for it," the candidate said.

Joel Hansen made two failed bids for attorney general before running unsuccessfully in 2002 for Clark County district attorney.

Campaign contribution reports filed in August showed that Douglas had raised nearly $175,000 for his Supreme Court race, compared with $14,500 for Joel Hansen.

Douglas said he hopes the poll results serve as a "wake-up call" to members of the legal community who have not been taking his opponent seriously.

He said he will spend the remaining days of his campaign focusing on the large number of voters who have not made a decision in the race.