Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Lingering odor from ‘89

Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999 | 9:28 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

THE STENCH of the 1989 Nevada Legislature continues to hang in the air of Carson City. The state capitol and the legislative building have been cleansed of the odor, which now has been blown into the new Supreme Court building. The foul odor is coming from Assembly Bill 820, which provided a 300 percent retirement increase for legislators. It also cost several of them their jobs and created a public backlash that required a special session of the Legislature to undo the mess.

Among the most irate Nevadans were the state employees and their representatives, who have continued their quest to gain justice and demand any money paid out under AB820 be returned and further payments stopped. They see through the thinly veiled raid on the treasury by people who seldom provide state employees with reasonable salary hikes.

AB820 was the biggest rip-off ever passed by any legislative body. Reporter Cy Ryan sent our readers the first warning of the scam. It provided a retirement of up to $36,000 a year for Nevada's part-time legislators who served 30 years. That's five or six months every other year during that period of time. Not a bad second retirement for them when considering that it's more than double the largest amount most Americans receive from Social Security.

Not everybody participated in this rush to the pig's trough. That's not everybody in the Senate, where Sens. Bill Raggio, Ann O'Connell, Bob Coffin and Bill O'Donnell voted against the bill. The Assembly voted a perfect 42-0 to cash in on this special retirement allowance. Gov. Bob Miller vetoed the bill and the Legislature overrode it in a matter of minutes. Soaking Nevada taxpayers $750,000 extra every year made no difference to the money grabbers.

The public outcry was so loud that the legislators begged Gov. Miller for a special session so they could repeal the law they passed in June. That's exactly what they did in 133 minutes that fall. This made little difference to some of the legislators who had voted for AB820 and then resigned to load up on the money of taxpayers. Most of their claims have been rejected by the courts.

Now 10 years later, two former legislators who had left the Legislature prior to 1989 still want the 300 percent increase because they jumped on the cash bandwagon between the time it was passed and its repeal. Although already rejected by two lower courts, David Nicholas and Robert Craddock have elevated their pleas to Nevada's highest court. When serving, both were likeable, adequate and experienced legislators. The voters retired Craddock in a Democratic primary in 1988 and Nicholas didn't run.

Judges in district courts easily saw through the claims made by both former legislators. In 1995 a Reno judge wrote, "David D. Nicholas has not proven detrimental reliance. David D. Nicholas was a sophisticated lawmaker who took the steps he felt necessary to take advantage of the newly passed amendments to the Legislative Retirement System. These steps constituted a calculated risk which included the act of David D. Nicholas' early retirement. A court should not intervene in a situation where such acts were designed to take advantage of an equitable principle. Calculated reliance is not detrimental reliance."

So it appeared in 1995 that the final stench created by the 1989 Legislature and several former legislators who tried to profit from its actions was settled. Well, it wasn't settled because four years later the mess has been dragged into the Nevada Supreme Court in hopes that the two litigants can claim almost an extra $1,000 monthly the rest of their lives.

No matter how the justices rule on this attempt to participate in the fruits of a legislative scam, Nevadans know it was wrong. So do the two "sophisticated" former lawmakers reaching for the spoils. Gov. Miller called it "bad public policy" 10 years ago when he vetoed AB820 and it hasn't improved with age.

Everybody in Nevada knew that the provisions of AB820 were outrageous and wrong. Even the people who voted for it knew it was wrong. After the public outcry one of them whined, "We were let known that if we voted against the increases that our own bills would never see daylight ..." Big deal, no guts and greed overcame common sense and the responsibility candidates promise voters. This kind of thinking encouraged some former legislators to also grab the dollars before they could be repealed in a special session.

The stench has moved from the Legislature into the governor's office and then into our lower courts. All of them have turned on the fans and cleared the air. Now Nevadans are waiting to see if the fans are also working in the Supreme Court building.