Several other issues could step to forefront

Erin Neff

Friday, Jan. 31, 2003 | 5:15 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Feb. 2, 2003

Budget discussions will make the 2003 Legislature taxing for anyone who doesn't follow numbers.

But a host of other issues could gain major status as the 120-day session progresses.

Lawmakers and officials who have failed in past attempts to bring change to a wide variety of laws, ranging from campaign finance to teen driving, have vowed to give their ideas another go.

Gov. Kenny Guinn and Secretary of State Dean Heller will both attempt to win support for signature programs and ideas.

Guinn is asking lawmakers for an additional $5 million to expand his Senior Rx program. His budget includes a total of $47 million for expansion of health and welfare programs.

Heller has requested numerous election reforms, including statewide voter registration, Election Day registration and electronic filing of contributions and expense reports.

Many requested reforms will inevitably get shelved in money committees. Any time a bill has a fiscal impact, it is sent for financial study. And since there's no money to spare those reforms could be stopped in their tracks.

Guinn has earmarked $2.4 million for the voter-registration reform, but that number will be trimmed.

Renee Parker, deputy secretary of state for elections, said her office submitted its budget before the federal government released its figures. Nevada actually needs closer to $1.1 million in an effort to get 5 percent of the total money available from a new federal law.

"It is in order to receive $20 million in federal funds that our state is eligible for under the Help America Vote Act," Parker said.

Major news stories of 2002 will help shape other policy discussions.

Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, plans to reintroduce a graduated teen driver's license program that has failed three times before. But this session, she'll have some powerful testimony.

Ashley Biersach, 17, who lost her right leg and two best friends in a May 9 accident near Las Vegas High School, will provide testimony.

"Ashley asked me if I would put this in there for her," Cegavske said. "She's been working with me on it."

Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, will again try to reduce Nevada's blood alcohol content standard for drivers to 0.08 from 0.10.

Manendo has an added hammer this time. Nevada stands to lose federal highway money if it doesn't reduce the standard.

Other areas for potential change in Nevada include ideas that are gaining ground nationwide.

The death penalty gained national attention recently when the outgoing governor of Illinois commuted all of the death sentences in that state. The governor cited the findings of a widely publicized study of bias and errors in the Illinois capital-punishment system.

Nevada lawmakers studied similar issues last year and are recommending several changes, including ending the state's use of three-judge panels by going back to trial juries in the penalty phases of capital cases. Panels are used now if the trial jury cannot reach a unanimous decision during the penalty phase.

The study committee also recommended prohibiting death sentences for mentally retarded defendants and adding mental illness to the list of mitigating factors juries weigh against aggravating factors during the penalty phase.

"The study committee was well-balanced, representing the major viewpoints of the death penalty discussion, both pro and against," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, who chaired the committee. "I think any recommendations that the committee could agree upon would deserve very serious consideration."

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, has submitted a bill-draft request to prohibit anyone under 18 from being sentenced to death. Nevada law currently allows those 16 and 17 to be sentenced to death.

Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, has also vowed to submit a bill imposing a moratorium on the death penalty.

Neal will also enter the racial-profiling debate this session with a measure that would impose penalties on police who are proven to have based traffic stops on racial profiling.

Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-North Las Vegas, will also submit a racial-profiling bill. In 2001, his bill passed requiring law enforcement agencies to provide data on traffic stops.

Metro Police never warmed to the idea of a study, and refused to identify the officers in the traffic stop reports or to videotape the stops.

"A lot of people are looking at the results of it, who doubt the validity of the results based on things they wouldn't agree to do," Williams said. "Why are you afraid to put a camera on a car?"

Williams said that prior to the study police, particularly in downtown Las Vegas, mostly stopped blacks. Now, he said, they mostly pull over whites and Asians.

"It just proves they're racial profiling," Williams said.

Williams and Neal, both black, are now serving in a legislature with the highest percentage of blacks of any state legislature nationwide.