Vote on whether government workers should hold offices would be close

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004 | 8:49 a.m.

Nevadans won't have a chance in the November general election to decide whether government workers should be prohibited from holding elective office, but it would be a close vote if the issue was on the ballot.

A statewide Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll of 600 very likely voters found that 43 percent would support a prohibition and 46 percent would oppose it.

The poll, taken Sept. 20 through Sept. 28 by the Washington-based polling firm Belden Russonello & Stewart, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The issue of government employees serving in elective office came to the forefront last year when some state legislators were accused of "double dipping" by accepting pay for government jobs in Southern Nevada while serving in the Nevada Legislature in Carson City.

Democrat Wendell Williams of Las Vegas, a city employee, was fired from his job and then lost his Assembly seat in the September primary. As the longtime chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, Williams was one of the state's most influential and controversial lawmakers.

The poll found a sharp partisan split on this issue. Likely voters who identified themselves as Democrats, by a 50 percent to 39 percent margin, would have voted against a measure to ban government employees from holding elective office. Voters who identified themselves as Republicans would have favored a prohibition 49-40. Most government employees who hold elective office in Nevada are Democrats.

Clark County residents also would have backed a prohibition, 48-42, but it would have been opposed in Washoe County (53-37) and in the rural counties (51-32).

Kate Stewart, a partner in the polling firm, said the publicity about the so-called double dipping scandal in Southern Nevada may have been the reason why a prohibition would have received more support in Clark County than elsewhere.

"They don't want people double dipping or involved in corruption," Stewart said.