Ignoring polls, big names get behind merit selection of judges

Recent polling shows more than half of Nevada voters don't want to change their current system of choosing judges and say they will reject a November ballot question to establish a merit selection system to select judges.

End of story, right?

Not exactly.

A ballot advocacy group called Nevadans for Qualified Judges is trying to raise between $500,000 and $700,000 to mount a campaign to persuade voters to vote yes on Senate Joint Resolution 2.

It's no rinky-dink group. The three co-chairs are former Nevada Supreme Court Justice Bill Maupin, state Sen. Bill Raggio and developer Irwin Molasky.

But the name at the top is the grabber. The honorary chairwoman is retired, respected, even revered U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a centrist who for many years was the swing vote on the court, never locked into one unwavering ideological stance.

While she won't be involved in any fundraising, O'Connor has agreed to use her powers of persuasion to help convince Nevadans this change could improve the quality of Nevada judges. The first woman on the Supreme Court, courtesy of President Ronald Reagan, she has forcefully campaigned on behalf of merit selection since retiring from the court in 2006. She launched the O'Connor Judicial Selection Initiative in 2009 to promote merit selection in states that don't have it.

Nevada is the only state in this election cycle where she has agreed to serve as honorary chairwoman of the effort. Supporters in other states are watching to see if Nevadans remain rigid in their opposition after an all-out campaign for merit selection.

O'Connor contends a system with four elements, like the ones in SJR2, may not be perfect, but it's better than judicial elections, which are obscenely expensive and sometimes deteriorate into ugly smear campaigns.

Understand, Nevada already has a merit selection commission to replace judges who leave before their terms are up for whatever reason. A commission of judges, lawyers and lay people screens candidates and the governor chooses from three applicants who make the final cut. Then they run in the next election.

SJR2 would use the commission and the gubernatorial selection and would add two other elements. In each subsequent election, the judge would go through a retention election and unless 55 percent of the voters voted to retain the judge, the judge would be out of a job. The other new element is that a Commission on Judicial Performance would be established to review all the judges and recommend whether they should be retained or not. That would be a public document.

In speeches, O'Connor said this system protects the judicial independence and (mostly) keeps politics out of the courts while still holding judges accountable. Merit selection isn't perfect, she says, but it's better than the alternative.

In a recent column for The New York Times, she addressed one of the biggest concerns from opponents -- that they surrender their right to vote. "The truth is, in those states that elect judges, candidates often run unopposed, so voters are left with no options," she wrote.

Greg Ferraro of the Ferraro Group will manage the fundraising and advertising campaign. He is in the early planning stages, and the campaign won't become highly visible under after Labor Day.

Polling shows the majority of attorneys prefer merit selection. Let's see if they respond to the fundraising letter mailed Monday to every member of the State Bar of Nevada.

If the initiative wins approval, O'Connor, providing the prestige, and Nevadans for Qualified Judges, raising the money, will deserve the credit for changing the minds of some of the 54 percent of voters who say they are opposed.

I wouldn't write off SJR2 quite yet.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.