Not the way to select judges - or politicians

On the surface, this story is simply about whether or not justices selected to sit on Nevada’s Supreme Court, and District Courts, should get there via merit or the ballot box. Should they be appointed after a vetting period and evaluation by their peers - subject to final review by the citizens, or, should they campaign on money solicited from supporters and be elected - just like any other politician.

Watch the following, but there’s more to this.

This sounds eminently reasonable. Let the governor select persons to sit on the Supreme Court or District Court. Let them sit for about two years, at which time they would receive a final peer evaluation and confirmation by the voters of the state.

I love this. I urge you to vote Yes on Question 1 regarding changing the state constitution to allow for this new way of ‘electing’ judges.

But let’s really look at what at what more is being said - at 00:59 seconds into the story, when Retired Nevada Supreme Court Justice Bill Maupin, according to the reporter, says “having judges raise money to get elected doesn’t promote public trust.”

Nah, do you think? It’s all about transparency, and Maupin, correctly, says that we need to improve transparerency in the process and the only way to do that is to provide a different way of populating the Court. Get the money out of the process.

Take this further. Take this to electing any public official.

That’s what we progressives are talking about - get the special interest money (from left or right) out of the process. Publicly fund elections and get persons running that are not beholden to special interests.

Duh! Get it? Of course you do. You’re reading my blog.

It’s all about campaign finance reform.

-maven