Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003 | 11:23 a.m.
A group of Nevadans who want to ban public employees from serving in the Nevada Legislature filed a petition this morning to get their initiative on the state's 2004 general election ballot.
The group, Nevadans for Sound Government, also planned later today to file a separate petition in Carson City to have voters repeal $705 million of the $836 million state tax increase that was approved by lawmakers earlier this year for the period that runs through June 2005.
Political activist George Harris and six fellow group members gathered at the Sawyer State Office Building today, where their first petition was filed with the secretary of state's office.
The petition reads: "No employee of the government of the state of Nevada or any of its political subdivisions including but not limited to: counties, cities, the state university and community college systems and school districts; whether full or part-time employees or whether on leave of absence from such employment; may hold elective office. This section is not applicable to federal employees or offices. This section shall take effect immediately upon final approval of the voters."
The 63-member Legislature includes 14 public employees, many of whom hold key leadership positions or chair legislative committees.
"When a private industry legislator votes to increase taxes, he is taking it out of his own pocket," Harris said. "When a public employee legislator increases taxes, he's putting it in his own pocket.
"When you put the fox in the henhouse the fox will always take more chickens."
Harris and other critics of public employees who serve as lawmakers argue that those legislators have conflicts of interest because they lobby for their employers -- including city and county government, public schools and institutions of higher education -- all of which receive state funding.
"I want to ban government employees because they're inherently conflicted," Harris said. "If they want to serve, they can do one thing -- resign their job and serve in the private sector."
Defenders of the current system that allows public employees to serve in Carson City say that as long as Nevada chooses to have a part-time "citizen" Legislature, all eligible residents should have the opportunity to serve.
Both petitions need 51,234 valid signatures to get on the November 2004 ballot. The petition seeking to reduce most of the tax increase needs to meet the signature requirement by May 18.
In order to ban public employees from serving as legislators, Harris' group will need to collect the required signatures for that petition by June 15. That initiative would then need to be approved by voters in both 2004 and 2006 because it would amend the state's constitution.
Public employees have been permitted to serve in the Legislature since 1971, but Secretary of State Dean Heller is seeking a new opinion from the attorney general's office to determine whether that provision should be overturned. The initial ruling was issued by then-Attorney General Robert List, who later became governor of Nevada.
Harris, who also chairs the conservative Nevada Republican Liberty Caucus, already has grist for his petition drive to remove public employees from the Legislature. Harris said 27 other states already ban public employees from serving as lawmakers.
Two Las Vegas Democrats, Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson and Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, were fired last week from their Clark County government jobs after allegedly receiving on-duty pay improperly while they were serving this year in Carson City. Both have appealed their firings.
Assemblyman Wendell Williams, another Las Vegas Democrat who is an administrator in the Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department, was suspended for two weeks for improperly using a city cell phone for personal use. He is also subject of a probe to determine whether he, too, was improperly paid by the city while serving in the Legislature.
Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, also had to defend himself from accusations that he was paid improperly as a deputy Henderson police chief while serving in the Legislature.
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