THE TENTH DAY

Carson City(Wednesday), February 10, 1999

Senate called to order at 11:09 a.m.

President pro Tempore Jacobsen presiding.

Roll called.

All present except Senator O’Donnell, who was excused.

Prayer by the Chaplain, Louie Locke.

Lord, we give You thanks for this beautiful day, for Your abundant goodness and mercies that are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23). We pray for protection and blessing on our Governor in Washington, D.C. today, as well as upon this body of Senators, staff and their families. May the LORD give to each one wisdom and understanding to effectively and rightly serve the people of Nevada. In the Name of the Most High God, we pray.

Amen.

Pledge of allegiance to the Flag.

Senator Raggio moved that further reading of the Journal be dispensed with, and the President pro Tempore and Secretary be authorized to make the necessary corrections and additions.

Motion carried.

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES

Mr. President pro Tempore:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which were referred Senate Bills Nos. 18, 19, 63, has had the same under consideration, and begs leave to report the same back with the recommendation: Amend, and do pass as amended.

Mark A. James, Chairman

MESSAGES FROM THE ASSEMBLY

Assembly Chamber, Carson City, February 8, 1999

To the Honorable the Senate:

I have the honor to inform your honorable body that the Assembly on this day adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 7.

Susan Furlong Reil

Assistant Chief Clerk of the Assembly

Assembly Chamber, Carson City, February 9, 1999

To the Honorable the Senate:

I have the honor to inform your honorable body that the Assembly on this day adopted, as amended, Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 2.

Susan Furlong Reil

Assistant Chief Clerk of the Assembly

MOTIONS, RESOLUTIONS AND NOTICES

By Senators Coffin, Amodei, Care, Carlton, James, Neal, Schneider, Shaffer, Titus and Wiener:

Senate Joint Resolution No. 5—Proposing to amend the Constitution of the

State of Nevada to authorize the Legislature to convene temporarily at places other than the seat of government.

RESOLVED BY THE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF NEVADA, JOINTLY, That section 1 of article 4 of the Constitution of the State of Nevada be amended to read as follows:

Section[.] 1. The Legislative authority of this State shall be vested in a Senate and Assembly which shall be designated “The Legislature of the State of [Nevada” and the]Nevada.” The sessions of such Legislature shall be held at the seat of government of the State[.]of Nevada, except that the Legislature may convene for not more than 20 days during any session at such other places in this state as the Legislature may designate.

Senator Coffin moved that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Legislative Affairs and Operations.

Motion carried.

Senator Coffin moved that the Senate recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Motion carried.

Senate in recess at 11:14 a.m.

SENATE IN SESSION

At 11:16 a.m.

President pro Tempore Jacobsen presiding.

Quorum present.

Senator Coffin moved that the action whereby Senate Joint Resolution No. 5 was referred to the Committee on Legislative Affairs and Operations be rescinded.

Remarks by Senator Coffin.

Motion carried.

Senator Coffin moved that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Government Affairs.

Motion carried.

By Senators Neal and Shaffer:

Senate Joint Resolution No. 6—Expressing support for and the desire to cooperate with the Federal Government in its research of safety requirements for the transmutation and storage of high-level nuclear waste in a proposed nuclear repository in the State of Nevada.

Senator Neal moved that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Human Resources and Facilities.

Motion carried.

By Senator O’Connell:

Senate Joint Resolution No. 7—Urging the members of the Nevada Congressional Delegation to support legislation requiring a portion of the United States Constitution to appear on the $1 Federal reserve note.

Senator O’Connell moved that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Government Affairs.

Motion carried.

By Senators Neal, Amodei, Care, Carlton, Coffin, Jacobsen, James, Mathews, McGinness, O’Connell, O’Donnell, Porter, Raggio, Rawson, Rhoads, Schneider, Shaffer, Titus, Townsend, Washington and Wiener:

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 10—Commemorating African-American History Month.

WHEREAS, African-American History Month will be celebrated in Nevada throughout the month of February; and

WHEREAS, During this month, Nevadans will have an opportunity to become aware of the influence of African-Americans on the history of Nevada; and

WHEREAS, Although African-Americans have made significant contributions to the development of the State of Nevada, little significant study has been accomplished in the area of western African-American history, especially in Nevada; and

WHEREAS, When the West was first settled, African-Americans, although legally free and legally citizens, were nevertheless effectively disenfranchised throughout many states and subjected to various types of discrimination and segregation, legal and extralegal, throughout most of the other states; and

WHEREAS, The small but active population of African-American settlers in northern Nevada included Benjamin Palmer, who purchased his freedom from slavery and moved to the Carson Valley where he became a successful cattle rancher on his 400 acres, and James P. Beckwourth, who operated a ranch in the Sierra Valley and after whom a mountain pass north of Reno is named; and

WHEREAS, In southern Nevada, Lorenzo and Dow Barton, two brothers who settled in Caliente in 1857, were responsible for the early development of this town; and

Whereas, African-Americans in this state have a long and active history of protesting against racial prejudice and social injustice through writing, community organization and oration and have had among their leaders people such as the Reverend Bill Stevens of Las Vegas, who, in the 1940’s went daily to restaurants that discriminated against African-Americans to attempt to order a meal or a cup of coffee, and Alice Smith, who founded the Reno-Sparks branch of the NAACP in 1945 and organized many religious and community activities throughout her life; and

WHEREAS, History has demonstrated that the African-American residents of Nevada have maintained a solid social, religious and cultural identity while aggressively asserting rights to legal and educational equality; and

WHEREAS, While there continues to be a need to acknowledge the importance of minorities in both the history and future of this state, our recognition and observance of

African-American History Month is a step in that direction; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEVADA, THE ASSEMBLY CONCURRING, That the month of February is hereby designated African-American History Month; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the residents of this state are encouraged to join in this observance and celebration of the history of African-Americans in the United States and especially in the State of Nevada.

Senator Neal moved the adoption of the resolution.

Remarks by Senators Neal and James.

President pro Tempore Jacobsen requested that the following remarks be entered in the Journal.

Senator Neal:

Thank you, Mr. President pro Tempore. One can not adequately address the history of Black people in this country unless they do it from a political and legal perspective. After having said that, I would like to further comment that the legal history of Blacks coming into this country began in the year 1619. Even though many of them came here before that with Columbus and the Vikings, they did not have any recognized type of legal status at that time. Even though, in the early sixteenth century, we did have one or two Blacks who resided on the coast of Virginia and worked as indentured servants. We had a few Blacks, strangely enough, who owned slaves during that particular period of time.

I speak today in reference to the legal and political history because, when we look at the history of Blacks in this country from that perspective, it speaks a lot about our political system as it has evolved over the years. We can think back to the year of 1789, when the Constitution was adopted, and all of the problems that Blacks actually caused in terms of adopting that particular document and how they were classified as three-fifths of a person. The document itself did not address the question of slavery, but through inferences Blacks were considered to be slaves. We noticed that, some years prior to the adoption of the Constitution, we already had the Declaration of Independence that was penned by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, being a man of letters and one who had studied the Romans and Greeks, had some idea as to what was needed in that Declaration to serve the purpose of the future that individuals and groups could become a part of this nation. All of us recognize the words recited on the Fourth of July—“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with.” Of course, the Congress changed the next words which Jefferson used “inherent rights” to certain inalienable rights among these, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Jefferson knew that any individual, person or group that would ascribe to this particular document would have problems keeping any person a slave in this country. In that doctrine, where those few words were stated “we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator,” this simply represented the fact that certain rights came from God, an almighty being. If you subscribe to that particular viewpoint, anyone who makes the claim that “I am a free person and that I am endowed by my Creator with certain inalienable rights” then you have to recognize that that person shares the same rights under the Constitution as anyone else. Why then, did we continue slavery if Jefferson was so profound in these particular statements? Well, for one reason, encompassed in that Declaration of Independence were two thoughts. The transcendental thought of the high order and the empiricist view point which means that you have to research certain rights outside of those that were stated “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” So groups, who shared political power and common thinking in order to achieve their own satisfaction of happiness, interpreted their standard from a group point of view to include slavery for their own benefit which had them to work the fields where indigo was grown, to work the fields where tobacco was grown, to work the fields where cotton was grown. All of this referred to a wealthy class of people who were in control. You have heard about Mr. Jefferson’s dalliance with Sally Hemings and what that relationship created. I don’t want to paint Jefferson in a bad light for sleeping with his slave and producing children, but because I believe and surmise that situation gave him a type of thinking to enable him to write a Declaration of Independence that people in the future, such as Martin Luther King, could subscribe to many, many years later and cause them to bring about change in this country.

When I speak about the transcendental view versus empiricist thinking, that is still with us today. Some of us become angry with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Some of us don’t even know the reason why we do because if they, in turn, want to set a standard by which all of us are going to live by through the transcendental thought and have that be codified into law, then we as a Nation become no different than the Ayatollah who forced the women to wear a headdress and tell them that, under the Koran, they could not become lawyers, doctors or anything of a civil nature of which males are supposed to be the rulers. But when you connect the transcendental talk along with the empiricist view, then you must research how you are going to function in this particular society.

For many years, the white community learned very distinctly how to manage those particular viewpoints. In many instances, the schools and universities you attended taught that viewpoint. Many slaves were left with the transcendental ideas. They went to church. They wondered how whites could do things that didn’t seem to be what God had ordered. But empiricist thinking would lead you to think in terms of your profession, whether you wanted to be a lawyer and go out and win all these cases and become wealthy by utilizing the law, by changing the law for your own benefit. That is what it means today. You see this developed in the South, and I see it exemplified with those thirteen people we call the managers in Clinton’s impeachment trial one writer described as the prison dilemma. If you get caught violating the rules, you don’t rat on one another. You stick together because it becomes part of your benefit. You know if one person tells on another, you all go down, so nobody tells. You stick together. Some writers have referred to this as managing the difference between cooperation and defection. I’ve seen some of that on this floor, and it takes a high intelligence to do that. As my good friend, Floyd Lamb, used to say in the early days of the session of this legislature, when you did not vote as the committee voted, he said you abandoned the herd. So, it is this type of thinking that leads to xenophobia racism, drawing the circles to keep others out and not drawing circles to bring them in. But, Jefferson left us with rules to overcome all of that because when that thinking became so sound in its terms of its own aggressiveness that reaches the point of leaving others out. Jefferson said that, “I can appeal to a higher order and re-establish my rights as a citizen.” I don’t give Mr. Jefferson a bad rap here today, but to say that those of us who are here that sometimes it is good to take a step backwards and look at where we are and where we are going and the type of judgments we are making to get us there. Whether or not we are doing damage to society as a whole or whether or not we are trying to uplift society and bring others along.

The Englishman, John Dunne, made a very famous quote, “No man is an island to himself, each man is a part of the continent, a piece of the main, ask not for whom the bell tolls, they toll for thee or for you.” So, my dear friends, as I talk about this resolution, the message is to understand where we are headed. My personal point of view it is not where those managers in Clinton’s impeachment trial are trying to point up there or because they talk about the rule of law, but their rule of law would have ascribe us to the transcendental viewpoint and codifying that taking the ought and not making it into what is. I laughed the other day when our President was talking and asked the question “what is” and a lot of people laughed at him. A lot of jokes were made about that, but those of you who have had an opportunity to study some of the philosophical viewpoints of our scholars understood exactly what he was talking about. The “ought” comes from wherever and where it became the “is” of our day. The empiricist will ask what is “is”? What is it?

Ladies and gentlemen, whenever we start looking at our history, I think in terms of the Paleolithic hunter who goes out in groups of four or five and challenges the lion. They use their shields and knowing the lion is going to attack your throat. When the lion comes after one, he covers himself with the shield over his face and the other one sticks the lion with the spear. It says something about our nation. When an individual tries to fight a lion by himself, you could not do it, and you could not survive it. But together, we can do a lot of things. It is not necessary to try to create those divisions whether they are based on color, hair texture, color of your eyes or your height. We are all here together, as my good friend Jesse Jackson has said. We might have come over here in different boats, but we are in the same boat now and have to recognize that. I think that people like you who sit here have a greater degree of responsibility to recognize that.

There is no need for the equal rights commission to go without funding because we want to suck up to an industry that might not want it. But if there is right to be gained, if there is right to be protected, then we must fund such agencies as the Commission on Equal Rights.

As I close, I don’t have any animosity towards anyone. During my years in the Legislature, you know that I have spoken my piece. I’ve said what I wanted to say. I’ve supported the bills I wanted to support irrespective of whether or not we had other sponsors on them. I am a person who likes to deal with ideas. I know, the other day, I might have been a little harsh with the Senator from Las Vegas by criticizing his legislation, but I am a person who likes to deal with the truth. I think if we put forth the truth, then people can very well understand that. This is why we come forward with this type of resolution because we don’t want people to get the misunderstanding that Black people just got off the turnip truck. Or that they just arrived in this state and this country. Even though we have not had our population fed by any immigration laws, since they did not apply to us for many years. Yet under the Constitution and the amendments that were added to it, it made it very clear that Black people have as much right, under that document, as anyone else to be here. You know, old Jefferson helped to get us that, without him the abolitionists would not have had a particular cause. The Declaration of Independence, that doctrine gave birth to a new nation and did not leave anybody out. When the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were added to the Constitution, my full rights and citizenship was established. Many people have talked about the tenth amendment which pertained to states’ rights. That used to be a grand thing in the South. Somehow, we forgot about the ninth amendment to the Constitution. No one speaks about the ninth amendment. I see some in this body who are lawyers frowning as if wondering what the ninth amendment is. The ninth amendment to the Constitution gave the same rights and privileges to individuals as the tenth amendment gave to the states. No one wants to talk about that provision. Here again, Jefferson’s statement that “all men are created equal” was realized.

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for signing on to this resolution. I thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you. This will probably be the last time that I will ever say anything on this floor about Black History Month. Again, thank you for signing on Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 10.

Senator James:

Thank you, Mr. President pro Tempore. I rise in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 10. I would like to commend the sponsor of the resolution for bringing it forward. It is fully appropriate that we commemorate African-American History Month and also that we actually designate February as African-American History Month. Especially fitting is the part of the resolution which urges the residents of this state to join in the observance of the contributions and to celebrate the history of African-Americans in the United States and especially in Nevada. In fact, last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a function held at the Doolittle Center that was both commemorating African-American History Month and the African-American History Museum in Las Vegas, which is now in its third year. The benefit was for that museum. I had little certificates printed for each of the honorees. When I got there, I was the only public official present so I was invited to go up on the stage and hand out the certificates. I was not real proud of my certificates, since they had to be printed on a limited budget. However, when handing out the certificates, I was tremendously impressed by the great contributions that Blacks in Nevada have given everything from Federal judgeships to the first Assemblyman in this Legislature. There were probably approximately 25 honorees, from political leaders to local members of the Metropolitan Police Force, who were all honored at this gathering.

There were booths setup where African-American art was displayed that were actually from Africa. I bought a sculpture for our house. It is both a sculpture and a place for storing CD’s, so I now have a nice place to store my CD’s.

I really had a tremendous time at the event. I wished I had taken my children with me.

I had thought it was only going to be a ceremony, but it lasted for two days. I know there are also a number of other things going on this month to commemorate African-American History Month.

I wanted to rise to say how important I think the resolution is and again to commend its sponsor. As he was speaking, a few things came to mind. With respect to the ninth amendment, I know that amendment. In fact it says “the enumeration herein of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The courts have never picked it up and actually applied it. But if you think about that amendment for a minute, it means that you have constitutional rights to other things that are not in the Bill of Rights. The courts have been very shy about adopting that and giving those because then they know you would be able to insist on constitutional rights that are not necessarily in the written words of the Constitution. I very much agree with the sponsor regarding that amendment.

Secondly, as he spoke, I am now in my fourth legislative session, I have sat here and listened to his speeches on different matters—both for and against things that I have brought to this House. Frankly, one of the most enjoyable parts of serving in the Senate has been listening to the esteemed Senator from Southern Nevada speak on different measures. If he wasn’t here, giving those talks, this would not be nearly as enjoyable. He holds a mirror up to us sometimes. He makes us think. He makes me think about the things that I am doing, and I have tremendous respect for him.

He made a remark about the boat. I want to say that, if you look at this Senate as a boat, I am very proud to be in the same boat as the sponsor of this resolution.

Resolution adopted.

Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 2.

Senator Rawson moved that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Motion carried.

Senator Raggio moved that the following person be accepted as an accredited press representative, and that she be assigned space at the press table and be allowed the use of appropriate broadcasting facilities: Ande Engelman, RENO NEWS & REVIEW.

Motion carried.

INTRODUCTION, FIRST READING AND REFERENCE

By Senator Neal:

Senate Bill No. 147—AN ACT making an appropriation to the Life Line Pregnancy Assistance and Vocational Training Center for the continuation of its nonprofit pregnancy assistance, educational and vocational training center; and providing other matters properly relating thereto.

Senator Neal moved that the bill be referred to the Committee on Finance.

Motion carried.

By the Committee on Judiciary:

Senate Bill No. 148—AN ACT relating to sentencing; revising the penalty for commission of a category E felony; allowing the court to require a person convicted of a category E felony to serve a term of confinement in the county jail as a condition of probation; and providing other matters properly relating thereto.

Senator James moved that the bill be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Motion carried.

By the Committee on Judiciary:

Senate Bill No. 149—AN ACT relating to prisoners; creating a crime for the commission of certain acts by a prisoner against an employee of a correctional institution; requiring the person in charge of administering a correctional institution to investigate any such crime that is reported or suspected; requiring an offender believed to have committed such a crime to submit to an examination and testing for communicable diseases; providing a penalty; and providing other matters properly relating thereto.

Senator James moved that the bill be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Motion carried.

By the Committee on Judiciary:

Senate Bill No. 150—AN ACT relating to family law; revising the provisions relating to the calculation of child support; and providing other matters properly relating thereto.

Senator James moved that the bill be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Motion carried.