Nevada Bar on Retention Elections
July 14, 2010
Our gavel grabbing friends over at the George Soros Center for an Undemocratic Judiciary – aka Justice at Stake – have a little item from the new president of the Nevada Bar expressing support for scrapping democratic judicial elections in favor of “merit” selection. Why? Because “retention elections would make judges much more accountable to voters” than contested elections.
Come again?
Of the 6,309 judges who ran in retention elections between 1964 and 2006, more than 99% were reelected, according to an article in Judicature by Professor Larry Aspin of Bradley University. Vanderbilt Law Profession Brian Fitzpatrick found that 145 out of 146 Tennessee judges were retained in a recent study he published on that state’s experiment with “merit” selection.
I’m willing to be disproven on this, but are Nevada judges who run in contested elections really returned to office more than 99% of the time, even taking into account the fact that many run unopposed?