It’s his last session; he’ll be sarcastic if he wants to

By David McGrath Schwartz

Thursday, March 26, 2009 | 2 a.m.

One of the small pleasures of this Legislature has been watching Sen. Randolph Townsend serving his last session.

Townsend — his first Legislative session was in 1983 and because of term limits this will be his last — is showing little patience for those who don’t know better and taking advantage of his lighter duties as a member of the minority.

He will occasionally get up and wander the Legislative Building, ducking into committees unrelated to his assignments. He can also be seen reading the newspaper during particularly boring testimony.

On Wednesday during an Infrastructure Committee hearing, Sen. Shirley Breeden, D-Henderson, began reading testimony for her Senate Bill 240, which would lower the speed limit on the route through the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area to 45 mph.

She was explaining where Red Rock Canyon is, when Townsend interrupted.

“Right now, you have seven votes. You keep talking, you’re going to have six,” said Townsend, a veteran of the seven-member committee. “We kind of get it. You have a problem out there, you want to change the speed limit. That’s good enough for me.”

He continued: If you keep talking, “you’ll lose me. Then you might lose someone else and you’ll have five votes. Before you know it, it’ll be four to three and you don’t know which way this committee will go.”

(Four votes are needed to get a bill passed out of committee.)

Breeden looked stunned.

“Well, OK there,” she managed.

Townsend tried to reassure her. “Read whatever you have there.”

Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, jumped in.

“He did the same thing to me when I was a freshman,” she said. “Congratulations. You’ve been indoctrinated.”