Columnist Erin Neff: Lawmakers must wrest Legislature from lobbyists

Erin Neff

Friday, Dec. 6, 2002 | 3:59 a.m.

YOU KNEW STATE lawmakers had become emasculated by lobbyists when the best effort they could muster at reforming the corporate mouthpieces last week was to simply start enforcing the rules of play.

Forget about setting new limits on what the paid representatives can do in Carson City, the Legislature is just now getting around to telling the lobbyists what the old rules were supposed to be.

Legislative Counsel Bureau Director Lorne Malkiewich asked a committee of key lawmakers last week how it wanted to rein in lobbyists after the circus ending to the 2001 session that proved who really runs the Legislature.

The Committee to Consult the Director told him basically to enforce the laws on the books, the ones that were proven unsuccessful in 2001 when the Legislature and its leaders ignored them.

During Monday's meeting lawmakers agreed only that Malkiewich should inform lobbyists next year that he's going to start enforcing the rules.

If there was ever any doubt about who really crafts the agenda in Carson City, the "new" way of controlling lobbyists proves power broker Harvey Whittemore and his ilk will be up to the same old tricks come February. But this time, with a gaping $800 million deficit to close, the stakes have never been higher.

Lobbyists are a critical part of the legislative process, explaining how legislation will impact either their clients or the state, and flexing the right muscle to sway obstinate leaders to -- sometimes -- make the right decision.

But they're hired guns who shoot their mouths off for their clients, and in the process, often overstep bounds and push the process beyond its ethical limits.

They also crowd into bill drafters' offices, suggesting not only language, but legislative intent, taking over the law-writing process from the 63 folks the state's voters have hired to do the job.

In a tight 120-day session, legislators have neither the time, nor staff, to do much of the legwork on issues and instead rely too heavily on the paid consultants. Committee chairmen often look to the back of the room like a deer in the headlights, searching for the golden child lobbyist to supply the latest version of whatever compromise is being hammered out.

As the 2001 session drew to its midnight adjournment, Whittemore, Pete Ernaut and Billy Vassiliadis literally ran bills onto the Assembly floor, dropping them on Majority Leader Barbara Buckley's desk and telling her what she needed to do.

That was out of bounds, not only ethically, but under the Legislature's own rules -- only the elected officials, official staff and guests with special visitor designation are allowed on the floor during the session.

During Monday's meeting with Malkiewich, lawmakers actually asked how they could keep the lobbyists off the floor.

It's simple! Enforce the rules, the lawmakers say.

Lobbyists are not supposed to be in the bill drafter's office unless that attorney or a lawmaker has summoned them to help sort something out. And while lobbyists certainly can mill about, like the press, from desk to desk before a session, they should know to take their seats behind the glass when the gavel comes down.

Part of the reason the Legislative Building was renovated a few years back was to put a glass partition between lawmakers and the gallery. That was designed, in part, to keep lobbyists from shuttling notes to lawmakers right before key votes.

But the presence alone of some of the big cats who carry their stature the way they carry themselves, can sway a decision.

Combine the height and weight of Whittemore, Ernaut, Vassiliadis, Sam McMullen and Greg Ferraro, and you can rival the old Washington Redskins offensive line with equally offensive results.

McMullen is the one who promised a few days before the end of the 2001 session that the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce was willing to be a part of any broad-based tax solution.

We've seen recently how willing the chamber is to run from that promise.

Whittemore, the gaming industry's mouthpiece, is the one who single-handedly killed a proposal that would have banned tobacco smoking in grocery stores despite a young asthmatic girl's weepy testimony about how she can't buy milk with her mother.

Grocery stores need slot machines, you see, and slot players need to smoke, argued Whittemore, who also represents R.J. Reynolds.

Ernaut is more concerned about protecting Gov. Kenny Guinn, whom he formerly served as chief of staff, than about any particular legislation. And Vassiliadis is typically looking out for the Democrats in a similar fashion.

But it's the lawmakers who are supposed to look out for the state's best interests.

That means enforcing the rules with penalties, fines and suspensions of lobbyists' licenses when they break the laws.

It's time for the legislators to take the Legislature back. Handing over much of that control to lobbyists won't help plug a deficit, won't help improve our schools and certainly won't help restore public faith in the legislative process.