Columnist Mike O’Callaghan: Ignoring voters and Constitution

Friday, June 8, 2001 | 4:53 a.m.

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

Twice in the last two months the alert citizens of Boulder City have gone to the polls and told the mayor and City Council they can't give themselves pay raises without first facing the voters. In fact, 61 percent of the voters also decided that some of the other goodies the city fathers had voted for themselves should be removed.

While the people of Boulder City were watching the store, their legislators in Carson City were participating in a political scam that has been in the political sausage grinder for years. What the 2001 Legislature accomplished was to spit in the eyes of Nevadans by subverting their expressed will and the Nevada Constitution.

The story began back in 1970 when voters answered the pleas of District Court judges and justices of the Nevada Supreme Court and extended their terms of office from four to six years. This was the right thing to do, but within the next two decades the beneficiaries of the term extension began to complain about waiting six years for pay raises. So they played illicit games of hiding money to be paid for "additional duties." These dollars were made available to justices who didn't benefit immediately from pay raises. It is, according to the Nevada Constitution, required that elected state officials must face the voters again before getting a pay increase. This requirement was being ignored by both the legislators and justices.

Then the justices and judges went to the Legislature to get a Joint Resolution passed that proposed to amend the state Constitution and allow increases in salaries of justices and judges during their terms in office.

Less than seven years ago, in the 1994 general election, the state's voters got a crack at the request. Question No. 3 asked, "Shall the Nevada Constitution be amended to allow an increase in the salaries of justices of the Supreme Court and District Court judges during their term of office?" Nevada voters answered with 309,137 NO votes to 58,363 YES votes. The justices, judges and legislators had their question answered.

Not being easily persuaded, some of the justices went back to the old game of special "extra duty' payments. That's when the court's conscience, then-Chief Justice Tom Steffen, told them it was unconstitutional.

During the 2001 Nevada Legislature the justices and judges went back to their legislative pals, some of them lawyers, for help in getting around the state's Constitution and the will of the people. Two justices and one Las Vegas District Court judge spent more time in the Legislature this spring than they did in their offices or on the bench.

From their efforts came Senate Bill 184, which says that certain justices shall be appointed to "the Supreme Court commission on law libraries" and be entitled to receive $32,400 yearly above their base salaries. The recipients of the extra dollars would be those who don't become eligible for pay increases granted by the Legislature because they don't face the voters for another few years. The same arrangement is made for some District Court judges.

Very simply, the Legislature has, along with the state's judicial system, created a scam to get around the will of the people and the state Constitution.

No doubt that the pay raises also provided by the 2001 Legislature are both healthy and deserved. The justices got raises from $107,600 to $140,000 and district judges from $100,000 to $130,000. These increases are earned and most proper. It's just a shame that the keepers of our precious legal system stooped so low to get under a barrier wisely written into our highest legal document and strongly supported by the people of Nevada.

Boulder City voters jerked the chain on their runaway city officials. Now it's time for every Nevadan to ask their legislators why they treated the Nevada Constitution so shabbily. Why didn't they send the justices and judges back to the voters for a constitutional change? Because they knew that such a change isn't what Nevadans want or would approve. Now it's on the governor's desk.

Voters, your legislators sent you a message. Did you get it?