New batch — not the last — of laws to take effect

By Cy Ryan (contact)

Friday, Sept. 25, 2009 | 2 a.m.

More than 160 new laws passed by the 2009 Legislature will take effect Thursday.

The bills passed by lawmakers, who adjourned June 1, become law on staggered dates. Some took effect immediately after Gov. Jim Gibbons signed them, others on July 1, at the beginning of the fiscal year. Thursday brings another batch. And more will become law Jan. 1.

Lorne Malkiewich, director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau, said legislative work is carried out this way to give Nevadans a chance to examine the new laws before they become effective.

Among the new laws Thursday are measures that:

• prohibit restraining a dog using a chain or rope that is less than 12 feet long and for a period of more than 14 hours during a 24-hour period. Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, who owns four dogs and sponsored the legislation, said he received a lot of complaints of dogs being chained on a short leash with a choke collar on hot days.

• allow victims of child pornography, 16 and younger, to sue any person who promotes or views the pornography for at least $150,000 for suffering personal or psychological injury. Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said victims can “recover damages against any person who promoted, possessed or used the Internet to view any images of the sexual conduct.” Cortez Masto said research shows “as many as 85 percent of child pornography viewers and collectors eventually commit sexual offenses against children.”

• grant domestic partners (same sex or opposite-sex) who register with the secretary of state’s office the same “rights, responsibilities and benefits” as married couples in such things as community property, debt and the right to seek financial support after a breakup. More than 400 couples have filed early and 2,000 are eventually expected to sign up.

• allow constables to cite individuals who fail to register their vehicles after residing in Nevada for 60 days. As an incentive, constables will receive $100 for each person they catch driving without Nevada license plates. The present law requires a person to purchase Nevada license plates when he gets a driver’s license.

• allow judges to assign criminal defendants to treatment programs if they have committed a crime to feed a gambling addiction. During a hearing on the bill, Douglas Crawford, a Las Vegas attorney who was suspended because of compulsive gambling problems, testified: “Compulsive gambling impacts bad check cases, it impacts cases in family court, it impacts domestic violence cases and all of these cases could benefit by early intervention and treatment.”

• increase the penalty for soliciting a child for prostitution from a misdemeanor to a felony.

• establish the Vivid Dancer Damselfly as the state’s official insect. It was selected through a contest open to the state’s fourth graders.

•••

The state Energy Office has received more than $36 million in federal stimulus money but has hired only three people, legislative Democrats said Thursday, as they continued their long-running criticism of the executive branch’s handling of the stimulus.

Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said the agency has been lagging in supplying information and making money available for projects. “We’re not seeing any activity or getting money out on the street,” he said.

Horsford made his remarks during a meeting of the Legislative Subcommittee on Federal Stimulus Oversight.

James Brandmueller, the energy program manager who has been on the job 30 days, said Nevada isn’t the only state still waiting for money. Only about half of the governments have been awarded money so far, he said.

Transportation Director Susan Martinovich also made an appearance before the committee and emerged relatively unscathed. She told lawmakers that the department has awarded 15 jobs to seven contractors and that has resulted in 403 workers either being retained on the job or being hired. She said the department was on schedule to have the $201 million spent within one year.