(AP) - A debate is building about whether judges in Nevada should be elected or appointed by the governor then stand for re-election for subsequent terms.
Nevadans will vote next year on a proposed constitutional amendment calling for the appointment of judges. Advocates say the change could help limit the influence of campaign contributions on the process.
An increasing number of states have switched from elections to a selection system, Charlie Hall, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Justice at Stake, a nonpartisan judiciary watchdog group, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
From 2000 to 2008, Nevada ranked eighth in the nation for campaign fundraising in state Supreme Court elections, with more than $9.8 million collected, Hall said in the story published Monday.
The $3.1 million raised by Nevada Supreme Court candidates seeking office in 2008 was a record, he added.
Statewide, 64 percent of the judges who sought re-election in 2008 were unopposed, Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice James Hardesty said.
"That is the worst form of rubber-stamped Democracy, to look at a ballot and see only one name," Hall said. "It leaves the voter with no power at all."
Under the proposed Nevada system, judges would have to undergo an evaluation and appear on the ballot within two years of being appointed. They also would have to garner at least 55 percent of the vote to remain on the bench.
Eric Herzik, chairman of political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno, opposes the committee system.
"You're trading one set of bias for another," he said. "You'll end up with a system that favors hometown judges, graduates of the state law school who are well-connected, known commodities, as opposed to a judge who is not involved with the local judicial establishment."