Democratic lawmakers criticized for vote

Friday, Jan. 3, 2003 | 11:11 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Although they were highly critical of a conservative national legislative organization, two Democratic state senators have voted several times for the state to pay dues to belong to it, a check of records shows.

Last month, Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus of Las Vegas and state Sen. Joe Neal of North Las Vegas said four Republican legislators should not have taken a trip to American Legislative Exchange Commission meetings in Washington.

Titus said the lawmakers should not have gone because of budget constraints. Neal complained that ALEC supports policies that favor big business, and expressed concern that the legislators who attended the organization's meetings would bring the organization's agenda to Nevada's state government.

But legislative records show both Titus and Neal have voted for budgets that include the membership to ALEC. The most recent vote came Dec. 17 when Titus, as a member of the Legislative Commission, approved a proposed budget that included $1,000 membership fees to ALEC. She did not raise any objections.

"I guess I did. I don't remember," Titus said when asked about her vote in light of her comments about the trips. "I got tired of fighting it. It's a done deal."

The dues to ALEC were listed in a 35-page budget document presented to the Legislative Commission. It showed the state did not pay any dues last fiscal year but is paying $1,400 this year and will pay $1,000 in each of the two coming fiscal years.

Neal, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, voted in 2001 for a budget that included the membership dues. Neal said it was part of the legislative commission's budget.

"We can't separate it," Neal said.

Records show he did not raise any objections when the legislative commission's budget came before the finance committee.

The dues for ALEC were buried in a massive $3 billion budget bill approved by the Legislature in 1999 without dissent. Titus and Neal were both in office at the time.

Thursday, however, they recalled they initially fought the proposal several years ago for the state to pay dues to ALEC, which backs conservative issues.

"I spoke against it and voted against it," Titus said.

Neal said he still thinks it is a "bad idea" to belong to the organization. He said the policies of ALEC have been a "disaster," and he cited deregulation of the electric and the telephone industries as specific examples. Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, defended ALEC. Raggio, who was the group's president in 1994 and has been a member of its board of directors since 1977, said ALEC espouses free enterprise, fair trade and states' rights.

"This is not a far right, crazy outfit," Raggio said. Raggio said the other two major national legislative organizations -- the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments -- are too liberal for his liking.

Raggio said Titus and Neal were just "mouthing" the views of "far left liberal organizations."

ALEC supports the principles of Thomas Jefferson, Raggio said. "I didn't realize that was un-American," he said.

Raggio said he attended the group's Washington meeting last month at no expense to the state.

Raggio said Titus and Neal should be worried about solving the state's financial problems rather than "mouthing this kind of gibberish."

Neal and Titus said the plan for Nevada to join ALEC was proposed by Raggio in 1995 when Raggio was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which builds the budget.

They said Raggio at that time threatened to withhold money for membership to the other national legislative organizations, including the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Council of State Governments.

"We had that fight," Neal said. "We took (ALEC dues) out and Raggio put it back in. We didn't want to lose everything. NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures) provides good information."

He said Raggio "won that argument and we have supported it every since."

Titus said she wasn't opposed to legislators going to meetings but to the timing due to the tight budgets. She said the Legislature won't pay for lawmakers to attend conventions of women's groups or liberal groups.

Neal said he wanted money to attend meetings of the Black Caucus. But he said he would have had to approach the Legislative Commission to get specific permission and funding to go.

The four lawmakers who attended the ALEC convention in Washington were Assembly members Barbara Cegavske and Dennis Nolan, both of Las Vegas, Sandra Tiffany of Henderson and Don Gustavson of Sparks. They were on an ALEC scholarship that paid for the travel and lodging at the conference.

The state paid $175 for each of the four for registration. None has submitted a claim for the $130 per diem payments from the state for the time they spent at the convention.

Cegavske, Nolan and Tiffany have been elected to the Senate.

In the proposed budget for fiscal 2004-05, more than $550,000 has been set aside for dues and registration fees for various organizations. For instance, $194,000 is allocated for the National Conference of State Legislatures and $158,000 would go to the Council of State Governments.

Among the corporations that support ALEC are Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Enron, Chevron and Coors Brewing.