OFF THE WIRE
By Ed Vogel
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY - It was hardly surprising that after state Sen. Don Gustavson introduced his motorcycle helmet repeal law on Feb. 21, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki joked, "It sounds like déjà vu all over again."
The Sparks Republican has introduced a helmet repeal bill almost every legislative session since he was first elected to the Assembly in 1996. So this session's bill was inevitable.
The results are always the same: Rejection.
But Gustavson continues to propose the same legislation.
The helmet bill is one of several bills legislators continually introduce although they know that history is not on their side.
They are willing to put their colleagues through the time and expense of countless committee hearings and induce dozens of witnesses to fly up to Carson City to make their pro and con arguments.
"There wouldn't be a legislative session without a helmet bill," Krolicki quipped on Thursday
As lieutenant governor, Krolicki is president of the Senate, largely a parliamentarian position, and one he often uses to make humorous comments.
Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, said he does not favor any restriction to prevent legislators from introducing bills, even if they certainly will fail.
"That's what they think their constituents want," he said. "It's important to them. Sometimes these bills don't get hearings."
Denis noted there really is no staff legal expense to redraft helmet law bills, since Gustavson introduces essentially the same bill every session.
STATE LOTTERY
The worst example of the try-and-try-again attitude of legislators are the constant resolutions to implement a state lottery.
Nevada's founding fathers in 1864 put an anti-lottery clause into the state constitution. There it has remained even as Nevada became the nation's first and premier gaming state and 44 states have authorized lotteries. Legislation to repeal this law has failed at least 25 times.
So far, a state lottery repeal proposal is not on the docket for the 2013 Legislature. But wait. Someone will hear from constituents, tired of driving to the Arizona or California borders to play Powerball or Mega Millions, that Nevada will earn a fortune through a state lottery.
But the state's gaming industry invariably objects to a lottery, considering it competition that would reduce play in casinos.
In 2007, a study by Boyd Gaming and Station Casinos found a lottery would raise $48 million a year and create 316 jobs but would eliminate 595 jobs in the gaming and hospitality industry. Then in 2009, state Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, refused to hear a lottery bill because of his belief that poor people would waste their money trying to win.
"When somebody goes to the store to buy two gallons of milk, they end up buying one and spending the rest on lottery tickets," Lee said. "The kids go to school hungry. Wealthy people aren't going to use a lottery to get ahead. The people who have nothing else to grasp for are going to be attracted to it."
PRIMARY SEAT BELT LAW
Driver safety advocates frequently strive to make the seat belt law a "primary offense," and fail largely because of a libertarian streak in some legislators. These lawmakers believe such the law isn't necessary because studies show most residents already voluntarily wear seat belts.
Nevada required people to wear seat belts starting in 1987, but the law is a "secondary offense." A police officer cannot cite you for not wearing a seat belt unless he first sees you make another traffic offense. Make it a primary offense and he can.
Just last week Tracy Pearl, the administrator of the Office of Traffic Safety, said a primary law would increase seat belt usage - now 90.5 percent - and lead to reduced fatalities.
Her office finds that in fatal accidents, just 50 percent of drivers are wearing seat belts.
At its peak year, seat belt usage in Nevada reached 94 percent.
While fatalities in Nevada have increased in the past two years, they still are far below the peak year of 432 deaths in 2008.
ANNUAL SESSIONS AND HIGHER PAY
Once again legislators are looking at a proposed constitutional amendment to require annual legislative sessions and to increase their pay.
Yet as recently as 2006, voters rejected an amendment to increase legislators' pay. Less than 30 percent of voters favored higher pay.
In the same election, 44 percent backed legalizing marijuana.
People in Nevada apparently like pot more than pay.
State Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, has introduced the latest doomed-for-defeat resolution calling for 90-day legislative sessions one year and 30-day sessions the next. The Legislature now meets for 120 days every two years.
Segerblom also wants to increase legislative pay, now $8,777 per 120-day session, to a minimum of $2,000 a month year-round. His proposal, however, also would allow legislators to continue to keep their current per diem allowance, now $152 per day. So, under his plan, the compensation legislators would receive, now about $27,000 every two years, would increase to $66,000.
Voters in 1958 actually approved annual sessions, only to quickly change their minds in 1960. A move to implement annual sessions lost 2-to-1 in 1970, and then in 1998 by almost a 3-to-1 margin. A check of the voting on legislator pay increase propositions since 1970 shows they fail by 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 margins.
Odds of Segerblom's bill winning voter support might be slightly better than winning a big keno payoff.
APPEALS COURT
Then there is the intermediate appeals court. The state Supreme Court once again is trying to win legislative approval to put before voters in 2014 a proposal to create an intermediate appeals court.
Voters defeated the plan in 2010, but Supreme Court justices - who have been trying since 1980 to create the appeals court - won't give up.
Last week they won approval in a legislative committee for putting a proposed constitutional amendment to establish a three-member appeals court before voters.
They are convinced another question about judges on the ballot in 2010 somehow caused voters to vote against their appeals court proposition. But voters rejected the same proposal in 1992 and 1980.
Justices just aren't taking no for an answer. Lynn Chapman, a Reno lobbyist for conservative causes, perhaps said it best last year:
"How many times do we have to say no? They are not listening, and that is insulting to people."
HELMET LAW
But no one receives as much publicity for his futile efforts than Gustavson. He maintains that he will introduce a helmet repeal bill for as long as he remains a legislator.
He considers riding with your hair blowing in the wind a matter of "personal freedom," and noted that in recent years 31 states have repealed their helmet laws.
But Gustavson's bills goes nowhere once doctors testify in hearings. Their view is that the medical costs of treating brain injuries suffered by helmetless riders often exceed $1 million each, and usually the state or a local government hospital must absorb their unpaid bills.
John Johansen of the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety testified in 2011 that University Medical Center ate $45 million of the motorcycle rider treatment costs in 2008-09.
When asked if motorcyclists should carry a higher amount of insurance coverage, he said they shouldn't be required to pay more money just because they ride motorcycles.
Unfortunately for him, though, the enthusiasm for his bill seems to drop once paralyzed former motorcyclists are wheeled into the hearing rooms.
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.
The Sparks Republican has introduced a helmet repeal bill almost every legislative session since he was first elected to the Assembly in 1996. So this session's bill was inevitable.
The results are always the same: Rejection.
But Gustavson continues to propose the same legislation.
The helmet bill is one of several bills legislators continually introduce although they know that history is not on their side.
They are willing to put their colleagues through the time and expense of countless committee hearings and induce dozens of witnesses to fly up to Carson City to make their pro and con arguments.
"There wouldn't be a legislative session without a helmet bill," Krolicki quipped on Thursday
As lieutenant governor, Krolicki is president of the Senate, largely a parliamentarian position, and one he often uses to make humorous comments.
Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, said he does not favor any restriction to prevent legislators from introducing bills, even if they certainly will fail.
"That's what they think their constituents want," he said. "It's important to them. Sometimes these bills don't get hearings."
Denis noted there really is no staff legal expense to redraft helmet law bills, since Gustavson introduces essentially the same bill every session.
STATE LOTTERY
The worst example of the try-and-try-again attitude of legislators are the constant resolutions to implement a state lottery.
Nevada's founding fathers in 1864 put an anti-lottery clause into the state constitution. There it has remained even as Nevada became the nation's first and premier gaming state and 44 states have authorized lotteries. Legislation to repeal this law has failed at least 25 times.
So far, a state lottery repeal proposal is not on the docket for the 2013 Legislature. But wait. Someone will hear from constituents, tired of driving to the Arizona or California borders to play Powerball or Mega Millions, that Nevada will earn a fortune through a state lottery.
But the state's gaming industry invariably objects to a lottery, considering it competition that would reduce play in casinos.
In 2007, a study by Boyd Gaming and Station Casinos found a lottery would raise $48 million a year and create 316 jobs but would eliminate 595 jobs in the gaming and hospitality industry. Then in 2009, state Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, refused to hear a lottery bill because of his belief that poor people would waste their money trying to win.
"When somebody goes to the store to buy two gallons of milk, they end up buying one and spending the rest on lottery tickets," Lee said. "The kids go to school hungry. Wealthy people aren't going to use a lottery to get ahead. The people who have nothing else to grasp for are going to be attracted to it."
PRIMARY SEAT BELT LAW
Driver safety advocates frequently strive to make the seat belt law a "primary offense," and fail largely because of a libertarian streak in some legislators. These lawmakers believe such the law isn't necessary because studies show most residents already voluntarily wear seat belts.
Nevada required people to wear seat belts starting in 1987, but the law is a "secondary offense." A police officer cannot cite you for not wearing a seat belt unless he first sees you make another traffic offense. Make it a primary offense and he can.
Just last week Tracy Pearl, the administrator of the Office of Traffic Safety, said a primary law would increase seat belt usage - now 90.5 percent - and lead to reduced fatalities.
Her office finds that in fatal accidents, just 50 percent of drivers are wearing seat belts.
At its peak year, seat belt usage in Nevada reached 94 percent.
While fatalities in Nevada have increased in the past two years, they still are far below the peak year of 432 deaths in 2008.
ANNUAL SESSIONS AND HIGHER PAY
Once again legislators are looking at a proposed constitutional amendment to require annual legislative sessions and to increase their pay.
Yet as recently as 2006, voters rejected an amendment to increase legislators' pay. Less than 30 percent of voters favored higher pay.
In the same election, 44 percent backed legalizing marijuana.
People in Nevada apparently like pot more than pay.
State Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, has introduced the latest doomed-for-defeat resolution calling for 90-day legislative sessions one year and 30-day sessions the next. The Legislature now meets for 120 days every two years.
Segerblom also wants to increase legislative pay, now $8,777 per 120-day session, to a minimum of $2,000 a month year-round. His proposal, however, also would allow legislators to continue to keep their current per diem allowance, now $152 per day. So, under his plan, the compensation legislators would receive, now about $27,000 every two years, would increase to $66,000.
Voters in 1958 actually approved annual sessions, only to quickly change their minds in 1960. A move to implement annual sessions lost 2-to-1 in 1970, and then in 1998 by almost a 3-to-1 margin. A check of the voting on legislator pay increase propositions since 1970 shows they fail by 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 margins.
Odds of Segerblom's bill winning voter support might be slightly better than winning a big keno payoff.
APPEALS COURT
Then there is the intermediate appeals court. The state Supreme Court once again is trying to win legislative approval to put before voters in 2014 a proposal to create an intermediate appeals court.
Voters defeated the plan in 2010, but Supreme Court justices - who have been trying since 1980 to create the appeals court - won't give up.
Last week they won approval in a legislative committee for putting a proposed constitutional amendment to establish a three-member appeals court before voters.
They are convinced another question about judges on the ballot in 2010 somehow caused voters to vote against their appeals court proposition. But voters rejected the same proposal in 1992 and 1980.
Justices just aren't taking no for an answer. Lynn Chapman, a Reno lobbyist for conservative causes, perhaps said it best last year:
"How many times do we have to say no? They are not listening, and that is insulting to people."
HELMET LAW
But no one receives as much publicity for his futile efforts than Gustavson. He maintains that he will introduce a helmet repeal bill for as long as he remains a legislator.
He considers riding with your hair blowing in the wind a matter of "personal freedom," and noted that in recent years 31 states have repealed their helmet laws.
But Gustavson's bills goes nowhere once doctors testify in hearings. Their view is that the medical costs of treating brain injuries suffered by helmetless riders often exceed $1 million each, and usually the state or a local government hospital must absorb their unpaid bills.
John Johansen of the Nevada Office of Traffic Safety testified in 2011 that University Medical Center ate $45 million of the motorcycle rider treatment costs in 2008-09.
When asked if motorcyclists should carry a higher amount of insurance coverage, he said they shouldn't be required to pay more money just because they ride motorcycles.
Unfortunately for him, though, the enthusiasm for his bill seems to drop once paralyzed former motorcyclists are wheeled into the hearing rooms.
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.