A bad ruling on special House election

Simply put, Carson City District Judge James Todd Russell is flat wrong about the special election for the 2nd Congressional District. Which is why it’s a good thing that Secretary of State Ross Miller announced late Friday he would appeal this wrongheaded ruling to the state Supreme Court.

In the meantime, candidate filings schedule for next week will be postponed while the appeal is prepared.

Some background: After Rep. Dean Heller was appointed to John Ensign’s Senate seat, a special election was called to replace Heller in the House of Representatives. Miller issued regulations for that special election — a first in Nevada history — based on a 2003 statute that appears to allow a wide-open, anybody-can-run, no-primary, winner-takes-all election.

The Nevada Republican Party sued, claiming political parties should nominate candidates for the special election.

The only problem? They’re wrong. And so is Russell, who agreed with the GOP on Thursday and issued an injunction stalling the election until the parties can pick their nominees.

Here’s the relevant passage from NRS 304.240(1): “Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, a candidate must be nominated in the manner provided in chapter 293 of NRS and must file a declaration or acceptance of candidacy within the time prescribed by the Secretary of State pursuant to NRS 293.204, which must be established to allow a sufficient amount of time for the mailing of election ballots. A candidate of a major political party is nominated by filing a declaration or acceptance of candidacy within the time prescribed by the Secretary of State pursuant to NRS 293.204” (emphasis added).

Under normal circumstances, an election consists of a primary (where all members of the same political party run against each other to produce a single nominee) and a general (where the nominees of the various parties run against each other to determine an overall winner). But the law for this special election provides specifically that there will be no primary.

That’s important, because much of the law cited by the GOP has to do with filling a vacancy after a primary when the party’s nominee somehow becomes unable to run. But since there is no primary, those laws don’t apply here.

Instead, an alternative method of nomination for major-party candidates was created: Filing a declaration or acceptance of candidacy with the secretary of state. And that’s precisely how Miller and the attorney general’s office read the law, which has the virtue of being exactly what the law says.

There are plenty of good arguments against this method: Any person could switch parties and run as a Republican or Democrat, even if he or she has never been registered with the party before.

Since anyone can run (and there is no filing fee) the ballot could be crowded with candidates both serious and facile. A person could win with, say, just 20 percent of the vote. And political parties have no control over who carries their banner.

All of those things are true. But all of them are allowed under the law. Remember, the Legislature could have provided for a primary and general, or specified nominees were to be chosen by the parties, but in its wisdom did not.

And just because the Republicans don’t like what the law says (after all, the gruesome prospect of a Sharron Angle victory looms with a free-for-all!) is not reason enough to overturn Miller’s regulations.

Miller’s been accused of partisanship in his ruling, since an open election with multiple Republican candidates splitting the vote is virtually the only way a Democrat could win this GOP-heavy seat. But that’s nonsense: Miller’s rules are honest and comply exactly with the law as it’s written.

Russell simply got it wrong. And it’s right that Miller is appealing.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.