Lawmaker tales bound for libraries have action

By Cy Ryan (contact)

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Drinking, death threats, bragging and fisticuffs. New oral histories from several longtime lawmakers read like a rowdy night on the town in Carson City.

The research division of the Legislative Counsel Bureau has collected accounts from 16 former legislators that will be available in public libraries statewide beginning this week.

Among them is Ray Rawson, who spent 20 years in the state Senate from 1984 until 2004. He tells of his family receiving threats over proposals to tighten the state’s seat belt law and regulate steroids.

The Republican said that on several occasions his children answered the phone at his Las Vegas home and heard the caller say: “Your dad is dead meat. Don’t expect him to come home after the session.”

“There were occasions when we had the family under protection,” Rawson said.

Rawson takes credit for being a prime backer of the movement to reduce class sizes in grades 1-3, writing the bill to establish the state’s rainy day fund and leading reform of the state’s Medicaid program.

“You don’t put your names on bills. You don’t have buildings named after you. You don’t spend all your time in the press. You get things funded and let others take credit,” he said.

Jack Jeffrey, who served 16 years in the Assembly, contributed an oral history in which he recalls hosting a biennial cocktail party for the press. Reporters would attend for the free drinks, but it didn’t stop them from criticizing lawmakers in print for spending too much time in bars, he said.

Sometimes, Jeffrey said, the frustration over budget talks boiled over. “It wasn’t unusual for Floyd Lamb and Don Mello to go to fisticuffs over the budget,” he said. Lamb was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Mello headed the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

He recalled one morning, in particular, when Mello came to work with a bruised face.

Jeffrey, an assemblyman from 1974 to 1990 who served as majority leader for several sessions, said, “Generally the Legislature is kind of like the labor movement. Whoever gets up first and speaks the loudest usually wins unless somebody gets up to argue with them and a lot of people don’t like to do that.”

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Only five state employees will sign up for domestic partner health benefits when the state health plan opens enrollment in July, according to consultants’ estimates.

Aon Consulting based its prediction on studies of other public and private employers that offer similar coverage. There are 60,000 members in the Public Employees’ Benefits Program.

The primary reason for the low estimate is the high cost of premiums. The state won’t provide subsidies for domestic partners of government workers.

A couple who now pays $232 a month for coverage of a spouse receives a government subsidy of more than $500. To receive similar coverage for a domestic partner, an employee would pay more than $700 a month. The cost could go higher, as much as 50 percent higher, according to Timothy Nimmer, a consultant with Aon.

As a result, Nimmer said, employees in domestic partnerships will likely sign up only if they have no other option.

The 2009 Legislature enacted a law allowing domestic partners to register with the secretary of state beginning Oct. 1. Secretary of State Ross Miller has offered early registration and 250 couples have signed up.