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Welcome back from the long weekend! Over the weekend, early voting commenced in Clark County and the RJ published its Voter Guide. More interesting is the RJ’s editorial board’s decision to publish its recommendations for who voters should choose in each judicial race. Sometimes they opted to provide some reasoning for their decision, while other times they just tell you something like Judge Pollock “needs to be replaced. Voters should support either of his Department J challengers.” While this may not necessarily be the wrong conclusion, it isn’t exactly helpful. Other controversial insight from the editorial is that if you can’t research the race, skip voting for it because your uninformed vote risks canceling an informed vote. As is evident from the RJ’s suggestions however, even supposedly “informed” voters can get it wrong. 

What do you think? Is the RJ doing a favor or a disservice to the voting public by publishing their choices for judge? Should they be disclosing who specifically on the editorial board is making these recommendations and what their political alignment is so that the public can confirm or deny media bias? Is there a better way for the RJ to handle the judicial election?
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 3:28 pm

The RJ endorsed Elizabeth Halverson. For that reason alone, no person should ever again read that newspaper let along make a voting decision based on one of the paper's endorsements.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 4:46 pm

It seems that the RJ has a track record of endorsing those individuals who are most likely to generate conflict and headlines in the future, thus giving them something to report on down the road to sell more papers.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 4:50 pm

Just curious, what does everybody think these candidates are making (in terms of $). Last election cycle saw a lot of people whose practices were dying run for judge. I think all the judicial candidates should disclose their tax returns.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 5:50 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

It's very rare for a successful private practice lawyer to be come a District Court judge in Las Vegas. It happens only once in a great while. Examples of judges who actually had successful law practices: Earl, Crockett. I think Tim Williams had a successful practice as well.

What we overwhelmingly see are lawyers who practiced on the fringes (example: Walsh), lawyers who never really held a job or had much success (example: Miley), and others who emerge from the DA's office.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 9:28 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Denton, Gonzalez, Cadish, and Johnson all had strong practices when they went to the bench

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 6:44 pm

I was in court this morning and heard the bailiff and court clerk saying that the election booklets that recently came in the mail did not include some judges (like Herndon) who are up for re-election. I have no idea if this is accurate, but does anyone know anything about this, or was I just being punk'd?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 8:14 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I'm pretty sure that the races with two candidates all appear on the general election ballot, and that the primary ballot just included contested races with more than two candidates and uncontested races.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 8:14 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

IF there are only two candidates they don't go on the primary ballot; they just go on automatically to the general election. I think there are just two in Herndon's race, him and Mike Davidson.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 7:38 pm

RJ had it right on about Marquis. She is unqualified for family court. I was surprised for the Bush endorsement, although that was a toss up.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 9:05 pm

Bad move on Johnson's part. It wouldn't have hurt her to wait two weeks and see if he even makes it out of primary. This just illustrates her petty nature. I mean rules are rules and Hafter needs to comply, but Johnson filing this now is telling.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 9:40 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Serious question – how the hell does a Family Trust owning a law firm not violate the rules against fee-splitting? Either Hafter owns it, in which case the transfer to the trust was a sham, but the contribution is fine, or he doesn't own it, and the contribution violates election rules and the RPC?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 27, 2014 9:40 pm

Johnson is still a far superior choice over Hafter.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 28, 2014 3:32 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Johnson has a condescending/patronizing attitude, a rude and unhelpful staff, and she's frequently wrong on the law. But she's clearly the lesser of two evils in this race.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 30, 2014 5:21 am
Reply to  Anonymous

A rude staff? In all of my experiences in that department, the staff has never been anything but helpful. Maybe, you're just a jerk to begin with and yet expect them to bow before your (obviously) unrecognized greatness.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 28, 2014 11:26 pm

Since both Halverson and Earl are mentioned here, my question is this: why isn't Earl getting as much grief for falling asleep on the bench, as did Halverson?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 30, 2014 8:20 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Because Halvorsen was not recovering from cancer and cancer treatments?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
May 29, 2014 2:53 am

4:26 – because falling asleep was neither the only nor the most egregious issue with Halvorsen