Legislators seek changes anonymously

"It's a concern, absolutely," said Jan Gilbert, northern Nevada coordinator for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "I don't understand why lawmakers won't put their names on bills."

Gilbert said knowing the author allows people to call a lawmaker and find out more about an issue. It also could allow legislative staff to coordinate on drafting a single measure rather than creating several bills on a related topic, she said.

Of the 1,364 bill requests submitted for drafting through a Dec. 15 deadline, 732 were requested by lawmakers. Of those, 363 have lawmakers' names attached.

The other 369 have been asked for anonymously, as permitted by state law. The author of a bill is only required to be identified if an anonymously requested bill draft is introduced in a legislative session.

In the 1997 legislative session, lawmakers requested 814 measures. Of those, 713, or 88 percent, had names of sponsors included.

Assemblyman Bob Price, D-North Las Vegas, a long-time champion of opening all aspects of the legislative process to the public, said he was surprised at the increase in anonymous requests.

"I can't believe those statistics, I really can't," he said. "It just seems like a lot."

In past legislative sessions, Price has requested bills to end the process of anonymous bill draft requests, but his measures have always run into opposition in the Senate, primarily from Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno.

Raggio has said lawmakers should be free to request bills anonymously so the proposals can be examined in bill draft form, and shouldn't be required to account for a proposal that may never be introduced.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, has supported the elimination of anonymous requests. She says the worse abuses occur when a lawmaker requests a bill only as a threat to someone or some agency with no intention of introducing the measure for debate.

Many of the 369 anonymous requests for the 1999 session seem routine, such as a draft to allow local governments to establish disaster relief funds.

But others are more controversial, such as a measure to give state employees the right to collective bargaining. The issue has come up in numerous sessions of the Legislature and involved serious debate. A collective bargaining bill passed once, in 1991, but was vetoed by Gov. Bob Miller. The veto was upheld by the 1993 Legislature.

Another that might be viewed as controversial would require the city of Las Vegas and Clark County to consolidate some government services.

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