Editorial: Time’s a wasting in Legislature

Tuesday, July 9, 2002 | 8:53 a.m.

Triage is a system used during medical emergencies involving large numbers of casualties, when decisions have to be made quickly depending upon the severity of injuries and availability of resources. It's also a value applied generically, whenever there's an urgent need for prioritizing. With about 250 bill draft requests already submitted for the 2003 Legislature, and with another 1,250 to come, the need for triage in Carson City is readily apparent.

As the Sun's political reporter Erin Neff pointed out in a column Sunday, it would be difficult to recall a time of so many crises facing Nevada lawmakers. The trauma center at University Medical Center has closed because of the medical malpractice issue. There is an immediate budget shortfall of $250 million that could grow to $1 billion in a few years. Power bills are way up but confidence in a steady energy supply is way down. Education spending is low and, not coincidentally, so are standardized test scores. Legislation addressing the widespread problem of construction defects isn't working. Prescription drug prices are breaking senior citizens and the Medicaid budget. Labor is restless. Water worries and air pollution are mounting. The state's continuing strategy must be readied if Congress approves Yucca Mountain as the nation's dump for high-level n uclear waste.

We look to the Legislature for answers to these and other major problems. The medical malpractice crisis will be the subject of a rare special session this summer. The other problems will be debated in the 120-day regular session beginning Feb. 3. We call upon all legislators to respect the gravity of the issues and avoid the debacle of the 2001 session, during which valuable time was frittered away in the early weeks and near panic was experienced at the end, with exhausted legislators wondering what they had even voted for during the final, frenzied minutes.

A look at the bill drafts is cause for worry, however. There's one to repeal the motorcycle helmet law, another to end daylight savings time, another to study obesity and many, many others of even less importance. Because the quality of governmental time has such an effect on the quality of life, we call upon our legislators to think the T word. That's triage, not trivia.