It got worse, Pridham said. Since the election, he said, regardless of when his cases are scheduled, some judges "call the lawyers around me, even if it's out of order, until I'm the last private attorney left in the courtroom."
Some lawyers are particularly critical of the way judges use leftover campaign money.
Thirteen of the 17 incumbent judges in 2002 ran unopposed, but they collected $967,000 anyway, in both cash and checks, according to fundraising reports. After the election, 11 of the unopposed judges reported they were sitting on a total of about $634,000 in unspent contributions.
"It's scandalous how much unused campaign money is allowed to pile up," said Sobel, the former judge who was defeated. "There's no limit on how much you can keep.... There is no watchdog and no real definition of what exactly is or isn't proper. You can return [unspent money], or save it for a future campaign, or you can give it to a charity, or spend it for some political purpose.
"That leaves a good deal of room for interpretations of all kinds. You could argue that [having] dinner on the Strip gives you a chance to talk to waiters and maitre d's -- so, technically, you're campaigning."
Disclosing the size of an unspent bankroll is mandatory, said Dean Heller, Nevada's secretary of state and chief elections officer. But the requirements for specifying what happens to it, he said, are vague. "It's pathetic ... a system designed by politicians to work for them."
Heller said the Legislature gave him only seven people to monitor elections and the campaign reporting of up to 1,000 candidates statewide. Worse, he said, legislators "won't give us authority to audit or even look for reporting irregularities unless we receive a complaint in writing. We get a lot of complaints over the phone, but not many want to put it in writing."
He said the Legislature had rejected his attempts to toughen requirements to disclose unspent contributions. "They want to raise as much money as possible," Heller said, "and tell the public as little as possible."
The public information officer for state courts in Las Vegas, Michael Sommermeyer, advised judges to say nothing in response to questions from The Times. "My recommendation is for all of the judges to refuse to comment," he said in an April 28 memo to Saitta.
