Editorial: Legislature should get cracking

Monday, April 7, 2003 | 8:59 a.m.

Last week the Senate took up President Bush's controversial nomination of Miguel Estrada to be a federal judge -- not the U.S. Senate, but the Nevada Senate. Our august upper chamber passed, by a party-line vote of l3 to 8, a Republican-written resolution in support of Estrada. The majority party senators felt it necessary to score partisan points with a resolution on a subject not in the state's jurisdiction and that no one in Washington likely will ever read.

Equally time-wasting, but more cynically so, is the legislation introduced by Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, that would allow lawmakers to receive their legislative pensions at the same time they're receiving their legislative salaries, something that currently, and properly, is prohibited. No action has been taken yet on this self-serving, double-dipping bill but, as the Sun's Cy Ryan reported, it didn't meet any opposition during the committee hearing where it was discussed.

Then there is the bill by Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, that would make it harder for the Board of Medical Examiners to revoke doctors' licenses. In the last year the doctors have drawn many sympathizers to their battle against the high cost of malpractice insurance, which threatens to drive many of them out of business. Now here they are getting a legislator to front an out-of-left-field effort to make it harder to root out the bad physicians who are one of the reasons premiums are going up -- an ill-thought-out effort that threatens to undermine the legitimacy of their cause.

What is going on here? Where is the attention to the budget, to taxes and to finding a real answer to the medical malpractice insurance crisis? Our legislators need to quit the posturing and fooling around and get to the business of addressing the real issues. Their progress so far, halfway through the session, is a glass half empty. Sixty days from now the people of Nevada expect the glass to be full of problems solved.