Supreme Court sets case management hearing

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court announced Wednesday it has scheduled an unprecedented case management hearing for June 13 to organize its response to the many pending election-related challenges, including term limit and ballot initiative controversies.

Chief Justice Mark Gibbons described the hearing as something of a "triage session," to determine how best to address the cases so they can be resolved as quickly as possible.

"We likely will be issuing briefing schedules and setting oral arguments," he said. "We hope we can resolve the issues and still keep the election process on track if our expedited schedule is followed."

The Supreme Court has had several recent filings involving election matters and anticipates there may be more. New cases will be stacked on the calendar as they are filed.

Already set for July 1 oral arguments are cases involving three different initiative petitions that would take Las Vegas room taxes for statewide public education and other state needs and require a two-thirds vote on ballot measures to raise taxes.

Another case set for the same day involves a challenge to the time limits imposed by the Legislature to collect signatures for initiative petitions.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto has also asked the court to resolve the issue of whether more than 20 local government candidates can run for another term under the state's term limits law. No date for argument has been set yet in the term limits case.

"The court must be responsive to the public's needs, but must also provide opportunities for all parties to file necessary briefs and for our court staff to conduct the necessary research," Gibbons said.

The underlying issues that led to the filing of the cases will not be argued except to help the court determine how to proceed, he said.

"This kind of mass case management hearing is unprecedented at the Supreme Court level," Gibbons said. "It has never been done here before."

The case management session will follow three oral arguments before the full court the morning of June 13. Two deal with terms of office for elected officials and the third will address whether candidates for district court judgeships must reside in the judicial district where they are seeking the bench.

The most prominent case was filed by Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Halverson, who is seeking re-election. The seat she originally won in 2006 was for a two year term although district court seats generally are for six-year terms.

Halverson is challenging the Legislature's right to create judgeships with shorter terms, which was done to place all judges on the same election and pay raise cycle.