State workers enter court battle over legislative service

Thursday, May 6, 2004 | 9:51 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Police, firefighters, state workers, university professors and school administrators have told the Nevada Supreme Court that public employees are entitled to serve in the Legislature.

Organizations representing these groups filed an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, brief Tuesday in the dispute over whether it is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine for public employees to serve in the Legislature.

The Nevada Constitution says no person who exercises power in one of the three branches of government "shall exercise any functions appertaining to either of the others." The three branches are the executive, legislative and judicial.

Daniel F. Polsenberg, lead attorney in the amicus brief, argued that does not prevent regular employees from serving.

"A well-established body of case law holds that only public officers, not mere employees, can exercise the core or 'sovereign' functions of state government," he wrote.

Secretary of State Dean Heller, through Attorney General Brian Sandoval, filed a petition asking the court to rule on whether state or university employees should be allowed to be seated in the Legislature.

Sandoval petitioned the court to make a decision by May 14, the close of political filing in Nevada.

Polsenberg argued that those who wrote the Constitution wanted a part-time Legislature with the lawmakers holding other jobs in which to make a living.

"Given this economic reality, it is likely that the framers (of the Constitution) fully expected that state employees, like other citizens, would be members of the Legislature, especially since most of the most qualified and dedicated citizens of the community often occupy positions of government employment," Polsenberg wrote.

The brief was filed in behalf of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the Nevada Association of School Administrators, the Nevada Faculty Alliance; the Nevada State AFL-CIO; Professional Firefighters of Nevada; Retired Public Employees of Nevada and the Nevada State Employees Association.

Public employees who now serve in the Legislature are Assemblyman Ron Knecht, R-Carson City, who works for the state Public Utilities Commission; Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Assembly members Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, and Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, both employed by the Community College of Southern Nevada; and Jason Geddes, R-Reno, an employee of the University of Nevada, Reno.

The amicus filing comes on the heels of an answer filed Monday by legislative attorneys who said the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction in the case. It said the Legislature is the judge of the qualifications of its own members.