CARSON CITY -- Washoe County District Judge Brent Adams followed through Thursday with a proposal to put a buffer between judges and judicial candidates and the business of raising money for their political campaigns.

Adams filed with the Nevada Supreme Court a proposal to amend the Nevada Code of Judicial Conduct to prohibit the personal solicitation and acceptance of campaign contributions by judges and judicial candidates.

Instead, judges and candidates would use committees to perform the task of raising and collecting money for campaigns.

The proposal, which will now be considered by the state Supreme Court as an administrative issue, is verbatim language from the Model Judicial Code of the American Bar Association passed in 1990, Adams said in an interview on Monday.

Only two states, Nevada and North Carolina, have rules permitting judges and judicial candidates to solicit and accept money, he said.

"I think it is time to get judges and judicial candidates out of the money game," Adams said. "It would enhance respect for the law and also contribute to the integrity and independence of the judiciary."

The simple rule change could be made by the state Supreme Court at any time, allowing it to be implemented quickly, he said. Other proposals, such as changing the method of selecting judges, would require a change to the state constitution that would take several years to accomplish, Adams said.

Although the court could act quickly, it probably should not make any change during the middle of the current election season, he said.

"I think with the recent news articles demonstrating the dangerous role of money in judicial politics it's a good time for the leaders of our legal system to bring an end to it," Adams said.

Adams was referring to a recent series by the Los Angeles Times about the influence of campaign contributions in the Nevada judiciary.

The state Supreme Court could adopt the proposal, ignore it or hold a hearing to ask for public comment, he said.

"It's a simple proposal to change the rule," Adams said. "The thing I love about it is, in one day, we can get judges out of the business of begging for money."

Requiring contributions to come through a committee would likely reduce the amount of money a judge or judicial candidate would receive to campaign with, but Adams said that would be a positive. Since judges and candidates cannot talk about cases that could come before the court, there isn't much to campaign on anyway, he said.

The need to raise money is a reason some qualified candidates don't run for the bench, Adams said.

"This would be a positive inducement to good lawyers to seek judicial service," he said.

Chief Justice Bob Rose said Thursday the petition, along with many other suggestions forwarded to the court from judges and attorneys by letter, will be given serious consideration.

"We're going to take all positive suggestions seriously," he said. "We appreciate Judge Adams' interest in improving the system. But we're not commenting on a piecemeal basis."

Other suggestions that have come to the court include giving attorneys the ability to remove a senior judge from a case, called a peremptory challenge, Rose said.

Others are long-term changes to the system that could take five to seven years, such as adopting the Missouri Plan of appointing judges, he said.

The court will likely discuss the proposals, as well as the responses sought by Rose from three senior judges mentioned in the Los Angeles Times articles, in late August, he said.

A public hearing on the various proposals could be held around October, Rose said.

The court will be reacting to the letters submitted by the three senior judges: Joseph Pavlikowski, James Brennan and Stephen Huffaker, he said. All three have responded at Rose's request and the information, kept confidential for now, will be reviewed by the court, Rose said.

"Then we will take the appropriate action," he said. "We have not forgotten."