MINUTES OF THE meeting
of the
ASSEMBLY Committee on Elections, Procedures, and Ethics
Seventy-Second Session
May 31, 2003
The Committee on Elections, Procedures, and Ethicswas called to order at 4:36 p.m., on Saturday, May 31, 2003. Chairwoman Chris Giunchigliani presided in Room 3138 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Ms. Chris Giunchigliani, Chairwoman
Mr. Marcus Conklin, Vice Chairman
Mr. Bernie Anderson
Mr. Bob Beers
Mr. Tom Grady
Ms. Kathy McClain
Mr. Bob McCleary
Ms. Valerie Weber
COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:
Mr. Chad Christensen
Ms. Peggy Pierce
GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:
Senator Joseph Neal, District No. 4, Clark County
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Michelle Van Geel, Committee Policy Analyst
Kelly Fisher, Committee Secretary
OTHERS PRESENT:
None
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
[Roll called] We have three of the Senate’s recommended interim committees. Since Senator Joe Neal has graced us, we will take his up first.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 31 (1st Reprint): Directs Legislative Commission to conduct preliminary feasibility study of long-range mass transit within State of Nevada and to large urban areas in neighboring states. (BDR R-1136)
Senator Joe Neal, District No. 4, Clark County:
[Introduced himself] The resolution that you have before you today is a resolution to direct a study of the transportation needs of the state. This started out as a levitated train that will travel from Las Vegas up through White Pine, to Wendover, to Elko, and Winnemucca and all of those places, down to Reno, to Carson City, to Yerington, back to Tonopah, and on in to Beatty and to Las Vegas. That was the general idea.
The committee, as you can see, has amended this and put in on the second page, along with the levitated train, buses and motor vehicles and commuter trains and monorails and other needs for which they would like to have a study. They wanted to take a look at this in terms of long-range transportation needs of the state.
As indicated, when the bill was introduced, the thought was to have some type of system that would bring the rural and urban community together in some type of transportation system that could be utilized to connect these various communities. The idea was that it would happen in a very short period of time, because if you have any knowledge about the levitated trains that operate in Europe, they are very fast. Some of them run up to 300 miles an hour. It was that particular idea that brought this proposal before you today. Since they have added these other issues, I think we could also take a look at those, and I do not have any objection to the placement of the other needs that were stated by the committee that heard the bill. As long as we are also able to look at the magnetic levitation train.
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
Thank you. I love the idea. I think it would be great, at least in the urban areas. We were pushing [carpooling]. I think we have the highest numbers of cars and transport with one person. If they actually looked at a plan for transportation on how to do it, rather than just doing eminent domain and taking people’s houses down to build more lanes. If you build more lanes, more cars will come. This is probably quite needed.
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
Thank you very much, Senator Neal. We appreciate you taking the time to come down.
It seems like the others may not be able to be here with conference committees, so let’s take a look at S.B. 292.
Senate Bill 292 (2nd Reprint): Directs Legislative Commission to appoint committee to study impact of Nevada’s industrial insurance program on injured workers, employers and insurers and authorizes Commissioner of Insurance to conduct study to review pricing mechanisms for medical professional liability insurance. (BDR S-784)
If anybody sees Senator Schneider in the halls, we would love to hear from him, because I don’t understand what page 2 was talking about. S.B. 292 includes a study of privatization of industrial insurance, like what happened after we privatized the former SIIS [State Industrial Insurance System]. But then it’s administered pricing mechanisms for medical professional liability insurance, and that’s the one I don’t understand. That starts around (b) on page 2. Rating systems I understand. Bob, do you have any ideas?
Assemblyman Beers:
I would read this as an exploration of the impact of insurance company policies on our medical malpractice problems.
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
Is that what you think? That might be interesting, then.
Assemblyman Anderson:
We were in the process of doing that in a special study that we had in the last session when we went to the medical malpractice, and we curtailed that last hearing. That was one of the questions that was left open, which has some unusual aspects to it in terms of price-setting and whether it could be a potential rollback. In fact, the bill that we passed out of this house, which the conference committee removed, and which the Senate did not agree to, would have done some of those things. I know Ms. Buckley has done some of the studies on it.
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
Are there any other comments or questions? Is there anyone in the audience that wants to testify on S.B. 292? We’ll close the hearing on S.B. 292 and open the hearing on S.C.R. 32.
Senate Concurrent Resolution 32 (1st Reprint): Directs Legislative Commission to conduct interim study of criminal justice system in rural Nevada and of transitional housing for released offenders. (BDR R-1215)
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
This was the interim study of criminal justice in rural Nevada and transitional housing. They’ve inserted Senator Titus’s—they kind of rolled one of her bills into this on the transitional housing for halfway houses, I believe.
Mr. Anderson, as Chair of Judiciary, we looked at the issue of rurals. Is this appropriate? I know it doesn’t conflict with the study that we passed.
Assemblyman Anderson:
It doesn’t conflict with anything we’ve done. The rurals do have a unique set of problems. Since the Second and the Eighth Judicial Districts have so many multiple judges, most of our court processes are kind of designed for those two court systems. The rurals often get left out of the overall discussion, particularly some of the alternative sentencing plans. It’s become a very big problem. It probably isn’t inappropriate.
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
Are there any questions or comments? [There were none.] Is there anyone who wishes to testify on S.C.R. 32? Seeing none, we will close that hearing as well.
A couple of our bills, our last two, were heard this afternoon. There are some problems. An unnecessary fiscal note of $432,000 was placed on our A.C.R. 19, the telecommunications study, which is a bogus fiscal note. I’m working to try to correct that bogus fiscal note. We’ll be taking up some of these as they consider working with us on that area, just to give the Committee a heads-up. I think there’s some infighting going on, and unfortunately our study is being held hostage. Not being held hostage, but $432,000, they haven’t spent that much on any one single litigation case ever in the history of the state of Nevada. It was like five staffers had to be put on it just to assist the committee in its work, which is ridiculous. I’ll keep you posted of how that moves along.
We can take up Senator Neal’s, I think, because I don’t think that there’s conflict with that. Why don’t we at least do a do pass on S.C.R. 31.
ASSEMBLYMAN CONKLIN MOVED TO DO PASS S.C.R. 31.
ASSEMBLYWOMAN McCLAIN SECONDED THE MOTION.
THE MOTION CARRIED. (Mr. Christensen and Ms. Pierce were not present for the vote.)
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
I guess we could take action on all of these, and I just don’t have to turn them in yet, if the Committee wishes me to do that, as I try to negotiate with the other situation.
Assemblyman Anderson:
It seems to me it’s almost a courtesy to the Senate. These are the three studies they want. I’d be happy to suggest, however, that in light of the fact that they seem to be having problems of not paying us the courtesy of letting us study what we want to study, maybe we should meet behind the Bar to do the other two.
Chairwoman Giunchigliani:
That’s fine with me. Is that okay with the Committee? All right. We are recessed. I’ll adjourn from the other day [May 29] just in case. We’re going to recess today.
[The meeting was recessed at 4:48 p.m.]
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
Kelly Fisher
Committee Secretary
APPROVED BY:
Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, Chairman
DATE: