Knecht author of bill draft renaming Nevada ‘East California’

Erin Neff

Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2003 | 12:54 p.m.

CARSON CITY -- Assembly freshman Ron Knecht admitted this morning that he submitted the anonymous bill draft request to change the name of Nevada to East California and replace the existing state song and state animal.

"I didn't ask that anybody draft it, and as (Assembly Minority Leader) Lynn Hettrick said, it didn't cost anything," Knecht, R-Carson City, told the Sun when confronted about the bill draft request this morning.

"You asked the right question and I'll be honest," Knecht said. "I've got nothing to hide."

The anonymous bill draft, BDR 1158, was submitted Feb. 10 and made public Monday on a list of proposed bills.

The proposal to rename the state East California, designate the state song as the Beatles hit "Taxman" and make the "RINO" (an acronym for "Republican in Name Only") the state animal drew immediate criticism from Gov. Kenny Guinn's office.

Guinn, a Republican, has proposed a $1 billion tax package to erase an expected $704 million deficit and current deficits. The "Republican In Name Only" reference is seen by many as a slap to Guinn.

Knecht said he intended the bill draft request as a joke. But he was not laughing at the response he got from Guinn's spokesman Greg Bortolin, who said that the lawmaker who submitted the request was a coward.

"It seems to me that people who call other people cowards and heartless and irrelevant frivolously are skating on pretty thin ice to take umbrage at a joke like that," Knecht said.

Many had suspected Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, had submitted the request due to his recent criticism of Guinn and his comments that many in Nevada long to be like our state neighbor to the West.

Beers steadfastly denied submitting the BDR, and Hettrick said repeatedly he did not know who submitted such a measure.

Knecht defended his actions, saying that the bill cost nothing to submit since it wasn't drafted. He said listing the three-line bill on a list of all of the BDRs probably resulted in "about 15 pages of ink."

"That's something less than a dime," Knecht said, reaching into his pocket and fiddling with his change. "I would be happy to repay it."

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said today that lawmakers probably would not take any action to punish Knecht for his actions.

She said the Legislature could pass a law requiring names on all bills, a practice she keeps for her own proposals, or it could ban submitting BDRs as jokes.

"Then it becomes you're passing laws regulating common sense," Buckley said. "You either got it or you don't."

Erin Neff covers politics for the Sun. She can be reached at (775) 687-5037, (702) 259-4062, or by e-mail at erin@lasvegassun.com.