Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Jeff German: Titus right to challenge Sandoval

She is the defiant one -- that Dina Titus.

How dare she run for a fourth term in the state Senate and hold onto her job as a political science professor at UNLV in the face of an attorney general's opinion telling her she can't keep both jobs?

How dare she ignore the legal advice of an elected official from another party who doesn't serve in the Legislature? How dare she let the voters of her district decide whether she can handle the two jobs she has been handling the past 16 years?

Where does she think she lives? In America?

"I'm running for re-election. I'm really fired up now," the Las Vegas Democrat said bright and early Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours after Republican Attorney General Brian Sandoval issued a legal opinion saying the state's separation of powers doctrine forbids her and five other lawmakers who work in the executive branch to serve in the Legislature.

Titus said she'll give up her university job only if a court says she has to do it.

Her case is an example of the absurdity of Sandoval's opinion, which was supposed to clear up discrepancies over whether public employees could serve in the part-time Legislature, but which instead has muddied the waters.

From the day she was elected to the Senate in 1988, Titus has played by the rules, always taking a leave of absence from UNLV when the Legislature was in session. She estimates she has lost $200,000 in salary alone over the years.

But according to Sandoval, because she's on the state's payroll and technically part of the executive branch, she has a conflict serving in Carson City, even though her constituents who have re-elected her twice approve of her job performance.

Local government employees, however, are not bound by the separation of powers doctrine, Sandoval said.

In other words there's nothing to prevent Assemblyman Wendell Williams, who was fired at City Hall after double-dipping the taxpayers during the Legislature, from finding another job in local government and ripping off the taxpayers again.

The attorney general didn't even bother to address an obvious conflict of another executive branch employee, Howard Rosenberg, a University of Nevada, Reno professor who serves on the Board of Regents, which oversees his institution.

So who can blame Titus for defying Sandoval?

Who can blame her for preferring to listen to the more logical legal advice of the Legislative Counsel Bureau, the research arm of the legislative branch, which believes Titus can teach at UNLV and make laws in Carson City?

Unlike Sandoval, who believes there's an absolute ban on all state employees from serving in the Legislature, the bureau contends an employee's job description should be considered. Since a professor plays no role in the decisions of the executive branch, the bureau argues, Titus is allowed to serve in the Legislature.

But if you follow Sandoval's advice, not only would Titus be barred from serving in Carson City, so would the janitor in Sandoval's office.

Fortunately, Sandoval isn't the last word on this subject.

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