JOHN MASON'S CAMPAIGN FOCUS
While there are other issues I look forward to discussing throughout this campaign, for now I choose to concentrate on this first, most critical issue:
Bringing the Nevada Supreme Court back to the fundamental purpose it was established to pursue.
The primary responsibility of the court is to interpret the constitution and laws of our state, not to remake them. Our constitution is quite clear - the first and foremost governmental power in Nevada is the people. Specifically, the Nevada Constitution states:
"All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it." (Article I, section 2) I believe strongly in those words, and I am troubled, as I know many others are, by the lack of effect those words have had in some recent Nevada Supreme Court decisions.
Specifically, I am uncomfortable that our Supreme Court:
- Casually set aside a constitutional amendment passed twice by nearly three quarters of Nevada's voters in its ruling regarding the legislature's failure to pass a tax plan last year within the proper timeframe.
- Empowered the legislature to take the very action the people, through their lawfully-passed constitutional amendment, prohibited.
- Clearly and blatantly undermined the constitutional guarantee that, "....all political power is inherent in the people."
Fortunately, the legislature's conscience ruled and they acted in accordance with the people's will.
Thomas Jefferson warned in 1825 that while our courts were originally considered..."the most harmless and helpless... organs of government, their power to declare what the law is, by sapping and mining, slyly, and without alarm, the foundations of the constitution can do what open force would not dare to attempt." (From a letter on the Supreme Court to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825).
My promise
As a Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, I vow to give the plain meaning of our constitution its full judicial force.
Ronald Reagan, a president of great wisdom and plain speaking said: "Why is the constitution of the United States exceptional?... just three words: We the people. In other constitutions the government tells the people.... What they are allowed to do. In our constitution, we the people tell the government what it can do. (Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 27, 1987).
The Nevada Constitution begins with those same words - "We the people, of the state of Nevada...."
Bringing the Nevada Supreme Court back to the fundamental purpose it was established to pursue is the primary focus of my campaign.
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