End the War on Freedom

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED FEB. 11, 2002
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
$116,000 here, $116,000 there ... it's only tax money

Nevadans are supposed to be represented in the state capital not by some new class of full-time, law-making bureaucrat, but rather by ranchers and miners, storekeepers and barbers and accountants who live next door and share the taxpayer's plight. It was never intended that a citizen should have to give up his regular line of work to seek such a seat.

Nonetheless, Clark County Manager Thom Reilly faced an obvious problem when one of his employees, Terry Lamuraglia, recently declared he'll be running as a Democrat for a state Senate seat also being sought by GOP Assemblyman Dennis Nolan.

You see, Mr. Lamuraglia's current job for the county is to lobby the members of that very Legislature for which he'll now be campaigning.

The potential conflicts are blatant. ("Hi, Mr. Republican lawmaker, I'm here today to ask your support on behalf of Clark County taxpayers -- forget that speech I made last night at the Democratic fund-raiser, calling you a greedy agent of Satan. ...")

So, did Mr. Reilly regretfully inform Mr. Lamuraglia he'll have to go on unpaid leave?

Oh no. Rather, Mr. Lamuraglia is being assigned new duties. Instead of wooing the legislators and negotiating union contracts for the county, he'll now be supervising the park police, code enforcement and animal control -- filling a reorganized position which has been vcacant for 10 months.

Furthermore, since Mr. Lamuraglia's new "park safety" job is only authorized to pay $92,148, he'll be assigned some "extra responsibilities" to get his salary back up to the current $116,080 so he won't have to take a pay cut, Mr. Reilly says.

Thanks heavens. I've seen some folks try to scrape by on $92,000, and it's not a pretty sight.

Of course, if most Nevadans wanted to take on "an extra $24,000 worth of responsibilities," that would mean another full-time job. Does this mean after he wraps up his daily brunch with the county no-piles-of-dirt-in-the-yard inspectors, and then drops by the animal shelter to count the flea collars, Mr. Lamuraglia will be sweeping the floors and emptying trash cans down on Grand Central Parkway till 1 in the morning?

Or is the nature of county "administration" such that an extra coxswain can always be loaded in the shell, his "new administrative duties" consisting of the occasional memo reminding everyone to fold the boxes flat before they're put in the dumpster?

Fact is, not only will Mr. Reilly beef up this "vacant position" into a six-figure job for Mr. Lamuraglia, he will also now hire Dan Musgrove, already a legislative lobbyist for the city of Las Vegas (no conflict there), to handle Mr. Lamuraglia's lobbying duties. So not only will taxpayers still be paying Mr. Lamuraglia $116,000 while he doesn't do his job -- they now get to turn around and pay up to $92,000 to someone else, to do his job (assuming county taxpayers should be required to pay someone to go "lobby" their own elected delegates, in the first place.)

Fortunately, Nevada's Founders foresaw such conflicts, and barred some citizens from serving in the Legislature.

Nevada's Constitution clearly states that government shall be divided into the legislative, executive and judicial departments, "and no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any functions, appertaining to either of the others. ..."

As late as May 9, 1955, a state attorney general's opinion from Harvey Dickerson held that a part-time public school janitor, having been elected to the state Assembly, could not assume that legislative seat until he retired the executive branch position -- be it ever so humble -- foreswearing any income whatsoever from the school district.

Yet the last time we counted, back in 1999, 28 out of 63 Nevada legislators were either public employees or married to public employees. (In at least four cases, both the legislator and his or her spouse held executive branch jobs.)

Are these the "citizen legislators" we used to talk about? Of course not. Government employees routinely refer to a tax cut not as something that "leaves more money in our pockets," but rather as something that "costs us money," whereupon they routinely demand with a snarl, "And how are you going to pay for that?"

Of the 50 states, only Nebraska still shows the common sense to do what Nevada's Constitution firmly requires -- barring all public employees, including government schoolteachers and lobbyists, from serving in the Legislature.

At the very least, Mr. Reilly should inform the well pampered Mr. Lamuraglia that -- should he win the office he seeks -- he will then have to choose.

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Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. For information on his monthly newsletter and on his next book, "The Ballad of Carl Drega," dial 775-348-8591.

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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken