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| Judge Catherine Ramsey |
By ERIC HARTLEY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
A North Las Vegas municipal judge
is trying to end an effort to remove her from the bench, arguing judges cannot be recalled by popular vote under the Nevada Constitution.
Judge
Catherine Ramsey filed an emergency petition Thursday in Clark County
District Court, asking a judge to issue an injunction barring a recall
election.
A hearing on that request is scheduled for Monday.
“Nevada
has been a state for 151 years,” Ramsey’s attorney, Craig Mueller,
wrote in the petition.
“Never in the 151 years has a judge been removed
from office relying on voter recall.”
The court filing says Ramsey’s “political adversaries” a
re
behind the recall and are wrongly relying on a provision in Section 2
of the state Constitution that says “public officers” may be removed by
popular vote.
That provision says an elected public officer
can be removed if 25 percent of the voters who cast ballots in the
original election sign a recall petition — and if a majority of people
then vote for removal.
But Ramsey, who was elected in 2011, says
several other provisions of law make it clear that a judge is not a
“public officer” for those purposes and can only be removed by the state
Commission on Judicial Discipline.
“ ‘Public officer’ does not
include any justice, judge or other officer of the court system,” reads a
section of the state’s Ethics in Government law.
A recall
committee launched in March said it gathered 2,717 signatures, more than
the required 1,984. The Nevada secretary of state certified last week
that number is sufficient to trigger a recall, though the city clerk
still has to verify the signatures are valid.
A spokeswoman for
the secretary of state’s office, Catherine Lu, said officials there
discussed legal issues surrounding the recall with the state attorney
general’s office Thursday. But she said they could not comment further
because of the pending litigation.
Ramsey’s court complaint names
the city, the city clerk and members of the committee Remove Ramsey Now,
asking the judge to bar them from continuing the recall.
The
recall committee has accused Ramsey of misappropriating city funds to
pay for a private lawsuit, asking employees to perform personal errands
on city time, and reducing defendants’ sentences arbitrarily, causing
the city to lose out on revenue.
Ramsey has said through her
attorney that the political vendetta against her stems from her effort
to protect court funding when city officials tried to spend the money on
other projects. Ethics complaints filed by city employees in March say
city officials, including Mayor John Lee and his chief of staff, are
pulling the strings for the recall. A city spokesman has denied that.
One
of the ethics complaints says the mayor and Chief of Staff Ryann Juden
met with Ramsey. In that meeting, the complaint says, Juden told the
judge he could “make a pamphlet of half-truths, and those stupid
low-income citizens wouldn’t know what to believe.”
Ramsey’s
lawyer, Mueller, said the campaign against her is a perfect illustration
of why the law doesn’t allow judges to be recalled. Judges are sworn to
follow the law regardless of public opinion, and that can mean making
unpopular decisions, he said.
Also, judges are ethically
prohibited from speaking publicly on many issues, which Mueller said
makes it hard for them to respond to political attacks.
David
Thomas, a political consultant working with the recall effort, said he
expected Ramsey to raise arguments like the ones she did Thursday.
Thomas said he’s confident the judge will lose, helping clear the way
for an election.
Thomas said the recall committee has raised about
$30,000, $5,000 from himself and $10,000 from the city police officers’
union. He called many of the other donors “regular employees of the
city.”
Thomas had repeatedly said he would release the full list
of recall donors. But on Thursday he refused, saying he would not make
it public until the Las Vegas Review-Journal sought and published a list
of Ramsey’s campaign contributors.
Thomas then hung up on a reporter and didn’t respond to a follow-up question.
If
there is an election, both the judge and the recall organization will
be required to file campaign finance reports that include names of
donors. But they can keep secret the name of anyone who gives $100 or
less.
Full Article & Source:
Judge Ramsey petitions to halt recall, cites state law
