Adding seats would be costly

Monday, Oct. 2, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Enlarging the Legislature -- an idea pushed by Northern Nevada lawmakers to keep from losing seats in the upcoming reapportionment -- carries a hefty price tag.

Adding one member to the Senate or Assembly would cost $315,000 over two years -- $250,000 in staff costs and $65,000 for the legislator's salary and expenses -- a legislative committee was told.

The 2000 Census will trigger the realignment of the state Assembly and Senate, most likely, estimates forecast, favoring Southern Nevada. The 2001 Legislature will have the job of redrawing the district boundaries, and some representatives of Washoe and the rural Northern Nevada counties have proposed expanding the size of the Legislature so they don't lose representatives.

A number of Clark County lawmakers want to keep the present size, which would leave rural Nevada and Washoe County with fewer legislators.

There are now 63 legislators. The state constitution permits as many as 75.

Lorne Malkiewich, director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau, outlined the potential costs of expansion on Friday to a legislative committee on reapportionment. He said these estimates were a "rough idea" of what the costs would be.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said he found "it hard to accept these figures." Malkiewich's figures estimate an additional legislator would require one more person in the legal department and one more administrative secretary plus a half-time researcher.

Malkiewich said he did not want to mislead the Legislature to believe it could add members without additional staff. But he stressed the extra staff would still have to be decided by the budget committees of the Legislature. And he said these costs would not come on line until 2003-2005.

The committee also did not reach agreement on setting a deadline for passage of the reapportionment bill. Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, pushed for a firm date for final approval of the bill.

"If we don't make a rule, you keep going and we end up in a special session. That would be a mistake," she said.

But Raggio argued against a deadline. Reapportionment, he said, is going to be contentious and it would be impractical to adopt a formal ending date. The Legislature now has deadlines for passage of bills and if they fail to meet the schedule, the bills die.

In this case, Raggio said, the lawmakers are required to pass a reapportionment plan in 2001. So if the bill didn't meet the deadline, it still would have to be approved.

Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, agreed with Raggio. This issue is emotional and "everybody gets wound up in it, trying to protect your district." He said he represents three counties and he has to talk to the people in those areas to see how they feel.

The committee did agree that the largest deviation in population between the biggest and smallest districts in the Legislature should not exceed 10 percent, a standard set by the courts. In the 1991 reapportionment, the largest deviation in Assembly districts was 4.5 percent and in the Senate 2.6 percent.

Titus said that although the rule permits a 10 percent difference, the Legislature should make the districts as close as possible in population.

A 1 percent deviation in population is allowed in districts for Congress.