In the Nevada Supreme Court race for Seat B, I’m going with “Kris” Pickering. She comes highly recommended by my friend and former Nevada GOP executive director Ryan Erwin, and under normal circumstances that alone would good enough for me.
However, Pickering also made news this week when it was revealed she was offered $200,000 in campaign contributions if she would agree to recuse herself from any future cases involving a wealthy and active eminent domain attorney. To her credit, Pickering declined the cash and reported the incident to the FBI, which is now investigating the matter.
The wealthy attorney, by the way, is raising money for Pickering’s opponent. So this one, folks, is a no-brainer. Kris Pickering all the way.
Now, the Supreme Court B race between incumbent Mark Gibbons and Thomas Christensen is another matter altogether. I don’t know much about either, so I did some research.
Gibbons was first elected to the Nevada Supreme Court in 2002 and became Chief Justice in January of this year. Among some of the more prominent decisions Justice Gibbons has participated in as a member of the Court…
* He voted to throw off the ballot - despite some 150,000 citizens signing the petition - state Sen. Bob Beers’ Tax and Spending Control (TASC) initiative over a “typo” in 2006.
* He ruled that a baseball team could be held liable if a fan is hit by a foul ball despite the fact that injury disclaimers appear on tickets, that warning signs are posted, and that stadium announcers regularly warn people about the danger of possibly being hit by a foul ball. Plus the fact that only an idiot doesn’t know that you might be hit by a foul ball at a baseball game.
* He “concurred in a unanimous opinion that voided the Nevada Tax Commission’s decision to grant a taxpayer a refund of use taxes because the commission violated Nevada’s Open Meeting Law.” Can’t give taxpayers any money back now, can we?
* He authored the majority opinion which reversed the “possession of firearm” conviction of a “fugitive from justice” because Gibbons claimed the phrase “fugitive from justice” was too vague.
* He ruled against “lap-dancing” in strip clubs, even though the conduct is between two consenting adults.
Additionally, Gibbons voted last month to throw three citizen initiatives off the ballot this year - despite the collection of an unprecedented number of signatures in support of the initiatives - over a technicality surrounding a new state law the Legislature passed to make it harder for citizens to participate in the initiative process. Despite the fact that no fraud was alleged in the gathering of the signatures, and the proponents had clearly “substantially complied” with the requirements to place the measures on the ballot, Gibbons ruled to toss them out.
As for Christensen, Judgepedia.com says his decision to run for the Supreme Court “was inspired by the court’s decision in Guinn v. Legislature, a 2003 decision in which the court overruled a requirement that tax increases pass the legislature with a 2/3 majority. In its controversial decision, the court allowed what critics call an unapproved $800 million tax increase for school funding. The court should decide cases ‘based on the Constitution, statute and precedent’, not based on a political agenda, Christensen has said.”
Boy, there’s a novel idea, huh?
Plus he’s got seven kids, so he can’t be all bad.
As I noted, I don’t know either of these two men at all. But based on the above, I’m pretty sure I know which one I’m going to vote for on November 4th.
Posted on October 17th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
In a sad commentary on the intelligence level of the average voter (the folks who swear by ZekeSaysSo), I’ll bet a lot of people are going to vote against Justice Mark Gibbons because they think he’s that awful lowdown scoundrel slimeball that the Rogers family is running editorials against on their TV stations because he’s killing our children by refusing to raise taxes.