Another layer of judicial bureaucracy?

Twice before, proponents of an appellate court for Nevada — a new layer of judges between the district courts and the state Supreme Court — have managed to put their proposal on the ballot.

Both times, in 1980 and again in 1982, they failed to convince voters that such a preliminary court of appeals was necessary and — more important — that it could be established without opening a permanent chow line for a vast and waddling mass of new court “support” bureaucrats, housed in quarters out of an eastern potentate’s dreams.

In a compromise to expand capacity, the Legislature a decade ago authorized the addition of two new Supreme Court justices, bringing their number to seven.

Now they’re back.

Supported by Supreme Court Justices Bill Maupin and James Hardesty — though Mr. Hardesty said he opposed the new court when he campaigned for office in 2004 — the current Senate Joint Resolution 9 calls for the election of the first Nevada Appeals Court judges in 2012, under a schedule which envisions SJR9 winning legislative approval both in 2007 and 2009, and then winning popular support at the polls in 2010.

An Assembly panel got the ball rolling Monday when it voted unanimously in favor of the proposed constitutional amendment.

In a study mandated by the 2005 Legislature, the Supreme Court looked at itself and found that in 2006 the seven-member bench heard more than 2,000 cases. Nevada is one of 11 remaining states without an appellate court. The study argues such an intermediate appeals court “will ensure that the citizens of Nevada continue to have access to justice at all levels.” The sponsors of SJR9 estimate the new appeals court — holding its hearings in an existing Las Vegas courtroom that’s used only occasionally by the Supreme Court — would cost about $1.2 million a year.

Chief Justice Bill Maupin recently told Senate Judiciary Committee members he believes that with a strong, professionally run campaign, proponents could make a better case to voters than they have in years past.

Can they?

Certainly a better argument can be made now — based simply on the state’s growth — than could be made in 1980. It’s also in the proponents’ favor that the high court has been doing better with what it has. Great strides have been made in caseload management over the past decade — fast-track programs and breaking up the justices into three-member panels have allowed the court to hear more arguments with fewer delays.

But the first caveat is that the question must indeed be decided by the voters and taxpayers who would end up paying for it. And the second hurdle proponents must clear is the presentation of some reasonable estimate of costs, with a mechanism to prevent the new court bureaucracy from promising frugality — cross their hearts — right up to the day the furniture catalogs and the new credit cards arrive in the mail.

Look at the bill for cost overruns that our Clark County District Court judges handed the taxpayers for their new Justice Center — with inadequate elevators, seating so limited that attendance at a coroner’s inquest is now “by invitation only,” without even adequate parking in a building endlessly circled by a squadron of meter maids like sharks at a shipwreck.

Nevada’s voters may have been born at night.

But it wasn’t last night.