Lawmakers’ duties too often being handled by Nevada court

In my dreams, I see Donald Trump flipping his hand and telling Nevada’s legislators, “You’re fired!”

After all, they didn’t do their job this year. Most of us would get the boot for sloughing off duties clearly specified in our job description.

But the 2011 Nevada legislators, for the first time in state history, failed to agree on how 63 legislative and four congressional districts should be drawn to guarantee an equal number of people per district, thus protecting the important concept of “one man, one vote.”

I don’t think the lawmakers ever intended to draw new districts. That’s why the two parties filed lawsuits before anything was even passed. Instead of reaching compromises, the Democratic lawmakers rammed and jammed a set of maps through, just to say they had done something, knowing it was meaningless because Gov. Brian Sandoval would (and did) veto them.

The governor is smart not to call legislators back into a special session for reapportionment. This intractable group wouldn’t make any headway, and it would be just a waste of time and money.

But legislative leaders of both parties deserve sharp knuckle-rapping for not doing what they are paid to do.

Granted, part of the legislators’ abandonment of duty was the rush to get out by the 1 a.m. June 7 deadline, the silly extension of one hour they take because they lost an hour in daylight saving time, one more of their absurd little games.

The partisanship obvious in Nevada and across the nation is another reason. If you don’t know how to negotiate and compromise, then obviously why try?

But every other Nevada Legislature has done the job after the release of decennial census numbers. A special session in 1965 had to be called to redo the 1961 redistricting plan after it was deemed unconstitutional. But not once did Nevada legislators fail to fulfill their redistricting duty. Until now.

Would former Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, and former Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, have failed to get the job done? Now admittedly, in 2001, Gov. Kenny Guinn had to call a special session for lawmakers to finish redistricting, but they didn’t just throw up their hands and say: “We can’t.”

I was there. It was rough and tumble, but it got done.

This year, legislators just dumped one more job on the judicial branch. Inevitably, reapportionment will end up in the Nevada Supreme Court. This isn’t a job the judges want. They know it brings nothing but grief.

Seeking historical perspective, I spoke with retired State Archivist Guy Rocha, and we agreed we have never seen the Nevada Supreme Court being asked to play such a pivotal role in so many political issues.

The court’s unanimous May 26 ruling on the state taking locally generated Clean Water Coalition funds essentially changed the way the budget was shaped this year and likely eliminated the state’s pirating of local government money to balance the state’s budget in future years.

The next political issue the seven justices must handle stems from former Secretary of State Dean Heller’s failure in 2003 to write regulations determining how a congressional vacancy should be filled in Nevada. How the candidates should be chosen was never addressed. Now that’s creating uncertainty in a special election for Congressional District 2. The Nevada Supreme Court hears arguments from the two major parties at 9 a.m. June 28.

That’s the case most likely to raise questions of any judicial partisanship because four of the justices are registered Democrats — Chief Justice Michael Douglas, Michael Cherry, James Hardesty and Nancy Saitta — and three are registered Republicans — Mark Gibbons, Ron Parraguirre and Kristina Pickering. All run as nonpartisans.

Budget issues, elections and redistricting are now the court’s responsibility.

At least nobody is accusing the justices of kissing off the jobs they’re paid to do.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.