Becker wins majority in Supreme Court primary, will face Backus

Incumbent Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker collected an overwhelming majority of the votes in Tuesday's primary and will face White Pine County District Attorney Gary Backus in November.

Becker raked in 107,424 votes, nearly two-thirds of the total cast in her home county Clark County. She collected more than half the votes cast for Supreme Court in Washoe County as well and more than half the Supreme Court votes cast in the rural counties.

With more than half the ballots counted, Backus had a solid lead over Carson City lawyer Day Williams. With more than 800 of the 1,205 precincts reporting and more than 187,000 votes tallied, Becker had just under 60 percent of the total ballots. Backus was second with 31,577 votes and nearly 17 percent and Williams had 19,404 votes - 10.4 percent.

Becker said she would campaign hard despite the large victory in the primary.

"I don't take the races for granted and my whole emphasis has been that it's very important for the voters to know my record," she said.

She said she would continue walking precincts and working to meet as many voters as possible.

"If they know about me and my record of community service and experience, I will be their choice in the election," said Becker, who previously served two years as a municipal judge and 10 years on the district court bench in Las Vegas. She is completing a short two-year term on the Supreme Court, which was expanded by two seats two years ago.

Backus said he still hasn't raised contributions but plans to campaign on what he sees as key issues.

One major change he said he wants to see is some time limits on how long judges should take to decide cases.

"Many years ago the Legislature tried to put a limit on how much time judges had to decide cases and the Supreme Court said that was unconstitutional," he said. "We'll, it's not going to be unconstitutional if the Supreme Court sets the rules.

"We have a problem in this state of the Supreme Court sitting on cases for years and they can destroy somebody's case by not doing anything about it."

He said there's no excuse for taking that long to decide an issue.

Williams said he was disappointed but, "I'm glad I went out there."

"I met a lot of people and enjoyed the experience," he said.

Williams also said he expected to continue to be involved somehow in the race.

Backus is the former Eureka County District Attorney and is presently in private practice in Ely.