Legislature to experience major turnover

Kirsten Searer

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

Josh Griffin's baby was three weeks old last year when Griffin left for his first term in the state Legislature.

When Griffin returned, the boy had lived much of the first six months of his life without his Dad.

It was one of several reasons that prompted Griffin, a young father of four who comes from a political family, to not seek re-election this year, even though he was seen as a rising star in the Republican party.

"From my standpoint, it was becoming increasingly challenging," Griffin said of his one-term legislative career.

He is now running a lobbying firm that promises to provide much more income than the $7,800 he would make for each legislative session.

In all, nine legislators have decided not to run again this year for their Carson City seats -- one-seventh of the entire Legislature. Even more seats could change hands after this election season, which promises several competitive races.

But while several of the departing legislators, including Griffin, were criticized for their tax vote, not a single legislator says his or her reason for leaving is last year's contentious tax debate.

In fact, this year could prove to have less turnover than average, depending on the outcome of several key races.

Since 1983, an average of 18 new legislators have taken office in the biennial sessions. Of those, an average of 13 were legislators who ran for open seats vacated by the former incumbent.

The other five defeated an incumbent either in a primary or general election.

Incumbents fared poorly in several elections, particularly in 1990 and in 1994, which was one session after a tax increase.

But typically incumbents win if they decide to run. Most turnover results from lawmakers who decide not to run again for their Carson City seats.

For many of those legislators, the cause is mostly "the family factor," said Erik Herzik, head of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno.

"It's not like Nevada has an atypical or meanspirited Lesiglature, or that issues are driving these folks out," Herzik said.

Legislators leave their full-time jobs for at least 120 days to work in Carson City, which is at least a seven-hour drive or an hour plane ride away from jobs and families.

Griffin wasn't the only legislator whose young family was 435 miles away -- Assemblymen William Horne, D-Las Vegas, and Chad Christensen, R-Las Vegas, both had wives who gave birth during the last session.

And Nevada legislators received the ninth lowest pay in the nation last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.

All of these factors helped Nevada's Assembly develop the 15th worst turnover rate in the nation compared with other lower houses in the 1990s, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.

All but one of the legislators departing voluntarily this year serves in the Assembly.

Three Assemblymen are running for the Clark County Commission, where they would start at a base pay of $54,000 a year and exercise power over the Strip -- and the state's largest industry.

Longtime Sen. Joe Neal also is leaving to run for the County Commission.

Another Assemblyman, Bob Beers, is running for the state Senate, and two others have cited personal reasons for leaving the Legislature.

Some say there are advantages to having a fresh crop of legislators each session.

"It's good that you're always getting new people and new ideas," said Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas. "It reflects a citizen legislature."

Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno, is leaving the Legislature after three and a half terms to spearhead the Education First initiative, a constitutional amendment that would require legislators to fund the education budget first.

"We don't make it too complicated in Nevada," Gibbons said of the state Legislature. "People have access. I think it works well.

"There were times last session that we didn't do our jobs the way we should have done, and shame on all of us," she said. "I'm including myself in that. I think a breath of fresh air is not a bad thing."

On the flip side, legislators have just a few months from their election to the beginning of the session to learn issues.

And since they don't have staff members to help brief them, they often turn to lobbyists for help in making votes and writing bills. In the 2003 session, there were 842 registered lobbyists for the state's 63 legislators.

Turnover, Titus said, "does give the lobbyists more power."

Many of these lobbyists have the most institutional memory around, said Carole Vilardo, president of the Nevada Taxpayers Association.

Even with lobbyists, legislators sometimes felt like "you never get caught up," Griffin said.

"That may have been unique to the last legislative session because of the budget and taxes, but every session is going to have dozens of issues," he said.

"The budget is a pretty daunting document," Griffin said. "I really tried to learn it, and I think I have a pretty good conversational grasp of the budget. But it's obviously hundreds of pages and a lot of detail."

When she was in the Assembly leadership, Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, helped train new lower house members with basic lessons on the major issues and how to research them, she said.

"We have people who run for office who have never made a trip to Carson City and who have never been involved in state or local government," she said.

Cegavske noted that, starting in 2010, veteran legislators will begin to phase out of office under the state's new term limits, which limit Assembly and Senate members from serving for more than 12 years.

That caused problems in the California Legislature when the Golden State instituted term limits and freshmen ended up running committees.

"We've seen it in our state," Cegavske said. "I do think when you have the turnover that the lobbyists and the staff are going to be the ones that wield the power."