Clark County: Bigger is better

Friday, Oct. 22, 1999 | 11:18 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- In a few years the sheer numbers of Clark County representatives to the Legislature will add up to the potential for sheer power.

If they all agreed to vote in a block -- a big if -- Clark County legislators would be able to overturn any gubernatorial veto after the 2001 reapportionment.

For decades, the Clark County delegation to the Legislature has held the majority. But the 2000 Census is expected to show Clark County has more than 68 percent of the population.

That means that in redrawing the political boundaries to reflect the population change, a process known as reapportionment, the 2001 Legislature will have to give Clark County 68 percent of the seats in the Senate and Assembly.

It takes a two-thirds vote in both branches of the Legislature to overturn a veto by the governor. As 68 percent slightly exceeds two-thirds, the governor would have to acquiesce to the will of Clark County any time all of the county's representatives voted as a block.

If Clark County, for example, wanted to push through a redistribution of taxes, bringing more money to Southern Nevada, a governor could not stop it. During the 1991 Legislature, Southern Nevada representatives undertook such an initiative under the rallying cry "Fair Share" and succeeded even without a two-thirds majority.

And the university and community colleges in Southern Nevada could get a lot bigger share of the money allocated to the system, ending complaints of being short-changed.

This increased political power won't happen until the 2003 Legislature. The new boundaries for legislative districts will be drawn by the 2001 Legislature for the 2002 election.

Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, who chairs the legislative committee on reapportionment, said this will be an awesome power. But she notes Clark County has seldom been united in the past.

"We have such a diverse difference in the Rs and Ds (Republicans and Democrats) that I don't know that we can get together and use it," O'Connell said. "That's the safeguard."

Political scientist Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno, agreed with O'Connell.

"You can make a scenario that this can create mischief or problems," Herzik said. "The underlying root assumes Clark County is unified. That's not been true in the past.

"Dina Titus (D-Las Vegas) and Ann O'Connell (R-Las Vegas) singing from the same sheet of music? I don't think so," Herzik said. Senate Minority Leader Titus is liberal and O'Connell is one of the state's leading conservatives.

He suggested the only time Clark County lawmakers might join together is on "truly regional issues like Fair Share. That's where I see the only threat."

O'Connell wants to encourage the Legislature to take a global look at the issues. "We can't afford to think regionally. We have to think of the health and welfare of the entire state."

Clark County legislators will be "walking a fine line" in representing Southern Nevada but at the same time tackling the problems of the whole state, O'Connell said.

Bob Erickson, director of the research division in the Legislative Counsel Bureau, said this amount of political power being amassed in a single county is "not unique but it's unusual."

His research showed that only one other county in the country -- Honolulu County in Hawaii -- is able to overturn a governor's veto. It has about 80 percent of the population.

Clark County has 13 of the 21 seats in the Senate and 26 of the 42 slots in the Assembly. Senators from Clark County are chairmen of five of the nine committees. In the House, eight of the 11 committees are headed by Assembly members from Clark County.

If the present size of 63 members is retained in the Legislature, Clark County will gain 1.5 Senate Districts and three Assembly Districts. The 1.5 Senate Districts mean an extra seat in Clark County, which would also have to share a second one with rural counties.

The 1990 census set Nevada's population at 1.2 million. The 2000 Census is expected to show that Nevada's population has exceeded 2 million. Most of the growth has occurred in Clark County.