Letter: Only voters can change provision

Wednesday, July 16, 2003 | 9:02 a.m.

In her July 13 Las Vegas Sun column praising our Supreme Court's recent decision rescinding an inconvenient provision of the Nevada Constitution, Erin Neff demonstrates surpassing ignorance of law, reason and history.

"Constitutions work ... because they change and ... are interpreted," Neff condescendingly informs us. What's more, if not for such changes, "women still wouldn't have the ... vote and slavery would still be just fine."

Neff is apparently unaware, however, that the changes to the U.S. Constitution that banned slavery and enfranchised women resulted not from judicial rewriting, but from a democratic process of constitutional amendment, the procedures for which process are set forth in the document itself.

Through a similarly democratic and constitutionally validated process, the Nevada constitution was likewise amended to require a two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the wisdom of that amendment, its legitimacy as Nevada constitutional law has yet to be challenged.

By blithely rejecting that amendment, the Nevada Supreme Court has declared itself above the very same document that creates the job of Nevada Supreme Court justice in the first place.

Neff thinks that's just fine because she agrees with the outcome. But would she be lecturing us on the importance of judicial changes and interpretations to constitutions if the U.S. Supreme Court were to similarly throw out the 13th or 19th Amendments? Obviously not.

D. CHRIS ALBRIGHT

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