How a Gang of 63 cedes authority to Gang of 3

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Imagine that the Nevada Constitution mandated the Legislature consummate an act that will have more impact on the state’s political future than any other.

Imagine that the Legislature, being a biennial cut-and-run exercise anyhow, elects not to do the job the state’s most sacred document has instructed it to carry out.

Imagine the governor, who has served in all three branches and apparently likes the judicial best, is of no help and apparently believes a jurist should decide this monumental legislative exercise.

And, finally, imagine that judge takes it upon himself to appoint three citizens accountable to no one and with little expertise to accomplish this Herculean task — and refuses to decide the most fundamental and important legal issues.

Did I mention that this single act could well alter the course of Nevada history, determining who are the state’s most powerful elected officials for a decade and thus affecting public policy from Washington, D.C., to Carson City to Las Vegas, and all other points on the state map?

Alas, this is Nevada and no imagination is required for bizarre, illogical chains of events. Nor is it a place where abdication of responsibility is the exception and not the rule.

So be not surprised that because of the Legislature’s failure and Gov. Brian Sandoval’s refusal to make it perform its constitutional duty, a Carson City judge has left the question of who voters can elect to Congress and the Legislature to three men who are relatively unknown to most Nevadans.

Judge Todd Russell’s decision to appoint a trio of “special masters” to perform redistricting has no foundation anywhere in the Constitution or the Nevada Revised Statutes. And even though they are all estimable men — attorney Tom Sheets, Carson City Recorder Alan Glover and retired legislative research chief Bob Erickson — who died and made them boss?

Answer: Nobody. But state lawmakers surely played possum pretty well and Sandoval looked the other way as they scurried home from Carson City after the governor twice vetoed Democratic plans and lawmakers folded their tents.

This is no optional duty, folks. The Constitution (Section 5) is clear: “It shall be the mandatory duty of the Legislature at its first session after the taking of the decennial census of the United States in the year 1950, and after each subsequent decennial census, to fix by law the number of Senators and Assemblymen….”

What part of “mandatory duty” do you think they didn’t understand?

Russell’s decision to appoint the three wise men to draw the maps came without any substantive direction last week, after he ignored all pressing legal issues, including the one that has caused both parties to genuflect quite shamelessly to the Hispanic community: How should the state’s burgeoning minority population be apportioned?

The Republicans, saying without a hint of irony that they care deeply about Hispanics and want to ensure there is a Latino congressman, coincidentally snatched all of the Hispanics from GOP Rep. Joe Heck’s district and created a majority-minority district.

The Democrats, surely never taking for granted the population who saved Harry Reid and Barack Obama, want to spread the Latino population around the Las Vegas Valley.

Forget the legal issues of “packing” vs. “fracturing” minorities in the Voting Rights Act, which governs redistricting and could well bring this into federal court later. Despite the spin, each party cares about one thing and one thing only: Control.

But beyond the patronizing from both parties — it is a little harder to take the sudden GOP Hispaniclove now that there are so many Latino voters — is the reality that this process is goofy even for our fair state. There is no legal or logical authority for what Russell has done, preceded by lawmakers and the governor thumbing their noses at the Constitution.

Granted, about a quarter of states have commissions appointed to draw the decennial lines. And that makes sense, removing this hopelessly political process from the partisan circus.

But Nevada has not passed a law appointing such a panel, and Russell should not be allowed to do so unilaterally. The judge has given these three amateur cartographers the power to set the baseline for the political maps that will govern Nevada for the next decade.

Even though there are likely to be court fights — perhaps state and federal — the Sheets-Glover-Erickson map will be the starting point. And even if these three gentlemen are the quickest studies on the planet, their authority is suspect and their work product ripe for a legal challenge.

There’s only one remedy. And I never thought I would hear myself saying the two, always-frightening words necessary to stop this travesty before it’s too late: Special session.