Newspaper column: Courts can’t tell lawmakers to hike education funding

An education advocacy group has filed suit on behalf of nine parents of Nevada public school children demanding that the courts force lawmakers to adequately fund K-12 education — declaring that the students “inhabit one of the lowest-rated and worst-performing state school systems in the United States.”

The suit, filed in the 1st Judicial District Court in Carson City, by Educate Nevada Now asks the court to find that the level of funding of public education in the state has fallen short of the constitutional requirement to “ensure a basic, uniform, and sufficient education for the schoolchildren of this state.”

The 37-page lawsuit cites a litany of woes — including the fact Nevada ranked 50th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in Education Week’s most recent Quality Counts report’s Chance-for-Success Index and has the third largest class sizes and ranked first in the U.S. in class size growth according to the National Education Association.

The suit further noted that in the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) only 34 percent of Nevada fourth graders were proficient in math and only 31 percent were proficient in reading. Both rates were even lower for eighth graders.

Nevada holds “places near the top of every ‘bad’ list, and the bottom of every ‘good’ list, in myriad rankings of public schools systems and student performance across the country,” the suit states.

The Nevada Supreme Court in the case of Guinn v. Legislature in 2003 held that Nevada students have a basic right to a public education under the state constitution, the suit states. In that case the court decided education funding had to take precedent over a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority to raise taxes.

Justice Bill Maupin was the only dissenting vote in the case, citing separation of powers, “Again, we are powerless to order co-equal branches of government to exercise individual acts of constitutional discretion. Our authority depends upon whether extraordinary relief is warranted and in exercising our authority to grant relief, we would be restricted to an interpretation of the Constitution, utilizing recognized tenets of statutory construction.”

The current lawsuit neglects to point out that the justices three years later overturned Guinn v. Legislature, largely for the very reason cited by Maupin.

The Educate Nevada Now suit further quotes the state constitution, which says, “The legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools, by which a school shall be established and maintained in each school district […].” 
The quote is cut off before the part that says such schools must be open “at least six months in every year …”

The suit further notes that the constitution states that the Legislature shall appropriate education funds “the Legislature deems sufficient …” That would seem to dictate that lawmakers are to determine what is “sufficient” rather than
the courts.

The litigation comes despite the fact Nevada lawmakers in 2015 passed the largest tax hike in history, $1.5 billion, largely to fund education, and lawmakers this year approved 3 percent raises for teachers. It also comes while the Clark County teachers union is preparing to circulate petitions seeking to increase sales and gaming taxes by $1.4 billion a year.

The problem with Nevada public education is not so much a lack of funding as it is a deficiency in accountability.

At one time Nevada high school students were required to pass a proficiency exam in order to graduate. That was dropped in 2018.

With the 2015 tax hike came a requirement that third graders who could not read at a certain proficiency level would be held back to repeat the third grade. That has since been dropped.

At one point 50 percent of teacher evaluations were based on pupil achievement growth. That has been cut to 15 percent.

Amanda Morgan, an attorney for Educate Nevada Now, told the Las Vegas newspaper after the suit was filed that the intent of the litigation is to prod lawmakers into addressing education funding.

“The court won’t say you need to put x amount of dollars into education,” Morgan was quoted as saying. “But it will say, ‘What you’re doing right now doesn’t meet your constitutional obligation. Go fix it.’”

The constitution seems clear when it says education funding is whatever “the Legislature deems sufficient …”

A version of this column appeared this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel and the Lincoln County Record — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Newspaper column: U.S. Supreme Court ruling is another push to appoint judges instead of electing them

No doubt about it, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows Florida to bar judicial candidates from personally soliciting campaign funding is not just a blow to free speech, but is another volley in the ongoing campaign to have judges appointed by elite committees of lawyers and judges and not voted into office by ignorant citizens who don’t know a judicial canon from a howitzer.

The court ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s liberal faction, against Lanell Williams-Yulee, a 2009 county court judge candidate in Tampa. The Florida’s Supreme Court reprimanded her for a mailer asking for donations.

Though the Florida Bar code does not allow candidates to solicit funds, they may set up committees to seek funding, and the candidate may send personal thank you notes to donors, which seems to obviate the whole concept of separating judicial candidates from the squalor of being beholding to donors. It is all a ruse.

Campaign flier.

The dissent in the case by Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, makes clear the court’s ulterior motives.

Scalia wrote that the Florida code “scope suggests that it has nothing to do with the appearances created by judges’ asking for money, and everything to do with hostility toward judicial campaigning. How else to explain the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to ban all personal appeals for campaign funds (even when the solicitee could never appear before the candidate), but to tolerate appeals for other kinds of funds (even when the solicitee will surely appear before the candidate)? It should come as no surprise that the ABA (American Bar Association),whose model rules the Florida Supreme Court followed when framing Canon 7C(1), opposes judicial elections — preferring instead a system in which (surprise!) a committee of lawyers proposes candidates from among whom the Governor must make his selection.”

Thirty-nine states elect judges, including Nevada. An effort in 2010 to have Nevada judges appointed failed by a 58-42 margin, despite a vigorous campaign on its behalf.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former Nevada Supreme Court Justice Bill Maupin and former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor appeared at a Las Vegas newspaper editorial board seeking support for the ballot measure. The newspaper editorially opposed it, and I wrote a column against the idea.

“I think Americans want and expect to have one safe place in government, and that’s the court,” Justice O’Connor testified before the assembled journalists, “where somebody with a legal dispute can go and have somebody deciding the issue, based on the law, who is fair, independent and qualified. And I think your best chance of getting that is with this kind of a system. And it doesn’t take away people’s right to vote, it postpones it for whatever time is set in the legislation, one or two years. And then the voter can receive the information about the judge, the performance record, and cast a more intelligent ballot. Do you want to keep the person on the bench? Yes or no.”

She was dismissive of my argument that it is harder to bribe a million voters than one governor, even though I personally knew a governor who went to prison for that.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out at the time, “States using this so-called merit selection method have had their judicial selections manipulated by lawyers and bar associations that nominate guild favorites. In most cases this has pushed courts to the activist left.”

Yes, there is a problem with voters not being well enough informed about judicial candidates, but that is partly the fault of the legal community, which sets itself up as some bastion of virtuous objectivity, prohibited from sullying its robes in the mud wrestle that is electioneering.

Scalia also noted that the Florida ruling “banning candidates from asking for money personally ‘favors some candidates over others — incumbent judges (who benefit from their current status) over non-judicial candidates, the well-to-do (who may not need to raise any money at all) over lower-income candidates, and the well-connected (who have an army of potential fundraisers) over outsiders.’ … This danger of legislated (or judicially imposed) favoritism is the very reason the First Amendment exists.”

The court majority danced around so many precedents in law — using speculative phrases like “possible temptation,” “might lead” and “even unknowingly” — that Scalia at one point exclaimed: “This is not strict scrutiny; it is sleight of hand.”

Let’s hope this ruling doesn’t give anyone in Nevada ideas.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Court ruling gagging judicial candidates really a ploy to stop electing judges

“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”

— Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820

No doubt about it, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows Florida to bar judicial candidates from personally soliciting campaign funding is not just a blow to free speech, but is another volley in the ongoing campaign to have judges appointed by elite committees of lawyers and judges and not voted into office by ignorant citizens who don’t know a judicial canon from a howitzer.

The court ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s liberal faction, against Lanell Williams-Yulee, a 2009 county court judge candidate in Tampa. The Florida’s Supreme Court reprimanded her for a mailer asking for donations.

The offending flier

Though the Florida Bar code does not allow candidates to solicit funds, they may set up committees to seek funding, and the candidate may send personal thank you notes to donors, which seems to obviate the whole concept of separating judicial candidates from the squalor of being beholding to donors. It is all a ruse.

The dissent in the case by Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, makes clear the court’s ulterior motives.

Scalia wrote that the Florida code “scope suggests that it has nothing to do with the appearances created by judges’ asking for money, and everything to do with hostility toward judicial campaigning. How else to explain the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to ban all personal appeals for campaign funds (even when the solicitee could never appear before the candidate), but to tolerate appeals for other kinds of funds (even when the solicitee will surely appear before the candidate)? It should come as no surprise that the ABA (American Bar Association),whose model rules the Florida Supreme Court followed when framing Canon 7C(1), opposes judicial elections — preferring instead a system in which (surprise!) a committee of lawyers proposes candidates from among whom the Governor must make his selection.”

Thirty-nine states elect judges, including Nevada. An effort in 2010 to have Nevada judges appointed failed by a 58-42 margin, despite a vigorous campaign on its behalf.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former Nevada Supreme Court Justice Bill Maupin and former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Ruth McGregor appeared at a Las Vegas newspaper editorial board seeking support for the ballot measure. The newspaper editorially opposed it, and I wrote a column against the idea.

“I think Americans want and expect to have one safe place in government, and that’s the court,” Justice O’Connor testified before the assembled journalists, “where somebody with a legal dispute can go and have somebody deciding the issue, based on the law, who is fair, independent and qualified. And I think your best chance of getting that is with this kind of a system. And it doesn’t take away people’s right to vote, it postpones it for whatever time is set in the legislation, one or two years. And then the voter can receive the information about the judge, the performance record, and cast a more intelligent ballot. Do you want to keep the person on the bench? Yes or no.”

She was dismissive of my argument that it is harder to bribe a million voters than one governor, even though I personally knew a governor who went to prison for that.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out at the time, “States using this so-called merit selection method have had their judicial selections manipulated by lawyers and bar associations that nominate guild favorites. In most cases this has pushed courts to the activist left.”

Yes, there is a problem with voters not being well enough informed about judicial candidates, but that is partly the fault of the legal community, which sets itself up as some bastion of virtuous objectivity, prohibited from sullying its robes in the mud wrestle that is electioneering.

The current ruling in Florida case runs counter to a Supreme Court ruling in the case of Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, in which the court said judicial canons limiting judges’ ability to address legal and political issues violates the First Amendment. Asking for money is also a free speech right.

If selection panels are needed to help a governor appoint and evaluation panels are needed to give voters information about whether or not to retain a judge, why not create them informally and present the information directly to the voters? I asked at the time.

Scalia also noted that the Florida ruling “banning candidates from asking for money personally ‘favors some candidates over others — incumbent judges (who benefit from their current status) over non-judicial candidates, the well-to-do (who may not need to raise any money at all) over lower-income candidates, and the well-connected (who have an army of potential fundraisers) over outsiders.’ … This danger of legislated (or judicially imposed) favoritism is the very reason the First Amendment exists.”

The court majority danced around so many precedents in law — using speculative phrases like “possible temptation,” “might lead” and “even unknowingly” — that Scalia at one point exclaimed: “This is not strict scrutiny; it is sleight of hand.”

This 2010 commercial supported appointing judges: