MINUTES OF THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS AND OPERATIONS
Sixty-seventh Session
Tuesday, February 2, 1993
The Senate Committee on Legislative Affairs and Operations was called to order by Chairman Mike McGinness, at 1:30 p.m., on Tuesday, February 2, 1993, in Room 227 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Meeting Agenda. Exhibit B is the Attendance Roster.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Senator Mike McGinness, Chairman
Senator William J. Raggio, Vice Chairman
Senator Raymond D. Rawson
Senator R. Hal Smith
Senator Dina Titus
Senator Diana M. Glomb
Senator Matthew Q. Callister
GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:
Senator Ernest Adler
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
John Crossley, Director, Legislative Counsel Bureau
Bob Erickson, Research Director, Legislative Counsel Bureau
Lorne Malkiewich, Legislative Counsel, Legislative Counsel
Bureau
Mavis Scarff, Committee Secretary
OTHERS PRESENT:
Robert L. Seale, Treasurer
Donald Klasic, University of Nevada
Robert May, Common Cause, Nevada
Jim Richardson, Faculty Alliance
Susan Haase, Secretary of State
Chairman McGinness introduced Lorne Malkiewich who gave a briefing of the functions of the legal division.
Mr. Malkiewich stated for the record that he was Lorne Malkiewich, Legislative Counsel. He indicated he would walk the committee through a biennium to provide an idea of what the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) does throughout a two-year cycle. His paraphrased testimony follows:
Beginning July 1, following session, LCB begins the process of codifying the laws of the just finished legislative session. They are also very busy with the first wave of new regulations. Executive branch agencies are not allowed to submit proposed permanent regulations during session but once session ends, or as of June 15 of an odd numbered year, these agencies can begin submitting regulations.
During the summer of odd numbered years, LCB staff reviews a number of proposed regulations needed to carry out new legislation recently enacted by the legislature, work on codifying the statutes that have just passed, and produce the Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS). By early September, they finish the legal work on codifying the NRS and the rest is mechanical: printing the pages and distributing the NRS to subscribers. The timing of that works out pretty well.
By the time they are finished with their legal work, most of the interim studies have formed and they usually assign two attorneys (one senior attorney and one junior attorney) to every interim study. The senior attorney helps train the junior attorney on how to handle an interim study. By the fall of the odd numbered year, they are working almost exclusively on reviewing regulations and staffing interim studies.
One of LCB's constants is that any time the legislature is in court, LCB will be there; anytime there's a legal opinion requested, they will write it.
By November everything on the reprint of NRS is finished. Once the statutes are sent to the printing office, the next job is to index or map all the new sections of NRS on the computer and then start drafting bills. This sequence provides that prior session amendments are in place before any drafting is done.
Beginning with the following even numbered year, they begin drafting. However, the load of regulations, together with other duties (staffing, studies, providing legal advice and representation in court) have gotten so great that they have only been able to draft one to two hundred bills prior to August or September of the even numbered year.
The deadline for Bill Draft Requests (BDRs) for interim study is July 1. August 1 is the deadline for agencies submitting proposed permanent regulations. After that date LCB does not review regulations until the session is over. Consequently, they receive a lot of regulations at the end of July and spend the month of August finishing those. Theoretically, on September 1 they are able to start drafting bills full time.
September 1 is also the deadline for local governments and state agencies to submit bill drafts, and various other agencies, approved by the Legislative Commission, can also submit bills. This means by September 1 when LCB is able to start drafting full time they already have a substantial backlog. Of the 700 to 800 bills received, they may have completed 100 to 200.
From September through the beginning of January, LCB starts working overtime, pushing to get 1000 bills ready for the first day of session. This year, two or three days before session they signed out the most recently requested bill. By January 15, every requested bill had been assigned out for drafting.
During the first ten days of session, LCB gets another 400 bill draft requests from individual legislators. From then, until the end of session, they receive another five or six hundred from various standing committees.
From September 1 preceding session through March their entire staff is devoted almost entirely to drafting and reviewing bills. During this period, two staff (Jan Needham, Senate bill drafting advisor, and Kim Morgan, Assembly bill drafting advisor) handle the drafting of amendments. By March people are switched from drafting to amendments. Though there may be an occasional bill to be drafted, by the end of session virtually their entire staff is working on amendments. June 15-July 1 rolls around and the cycle starts again.
Mr. Malkiewich indicated he would answer any questions the committee might have.
Senator Raggio voiced his appreciation of Mr. Malkiewich's overview. He asked him to share briefly a couple of matters which he reported to the Committee to Consult with the Legislative Council regarding the publication of the NRS, the fact they no longer do the digest, the discussion with outside publishers, such as Miche, and his comments on the limitation of the number of bills. Senator Raggio commented that compared to other legislatures around the country, Nevada processes an inordinate amount of bills.
Mr. Malkiewich indicated that last session they processed about 1800 measures and about 1500 bills. The measures include resolutions drafted and, therefore, is a better indication of work load than just bills.
Senator Raggio stated that currently each assembly member has five individual requests, each senator ten individual requests, as well as limits on agency requests.
Regarding publication and competition with the Miche Company, Mr. Malkiewich replied that eight years ago the Miche Company was invited by the State Bar to publish a statute in competition with the Nevada Revised Statutes. Previously, the state was the only publisher of statutes and the bar felt they were not responsive enough to their needs so they looked for a group to publish the statutes the way they wanted. Two major differences between the two publications were: 1) Miche Company had annotations following the sections whereas the state had them printed separately. 2) Miche Company published a hard bound set with pocket supplements rather than our loose leaf set which is updated and replaced entirely every two years. Originally, the state lost a large number of customers.
When Mr. Malkiewich became Legislative Counsel, he had the annotations put back in the NRS rather than publish separately. This move, plus other problems in switching format, led to a delay in publishing the reprint following the 1987 session. A "nasty" incident occurred when the Miche Company got tired of waiting for the state to publish and since they had assured the bar they would publish more quickly, they went ahead and published without waiting for the state to indicate the numbers and lead lines of the new sections. This resulted in two sets of statutes with completely different numbering for the new sections. "It was a mess." Eventually a deal was made with the Miche Company that the state would provide them with clip sheets as soon as the state finished them if the Miche Company would promise to use them and to print their statues similar to the states. The state now charges the Miche Company $1,350 for the service of providing them with the our clip sheets as they are finished. The Miche Company gets the information from LCB at the same time LCB starts typing it.
Whether the Miche Company should take over has been the focus of LCB for the last few years. Rather than dividing a market that totals $2500-$3000 between two publishers, which limits the profitability of both, the Miche Company would like to take over the publication. The Committee to Consult decided not to recommend switching to the Miche Company as the publisher. LCB recommended against it due to its effect on their workload and the impact on staffing level. In the period immediately following session, bills cannot be drafted until everything is codified. The work put into preparing the reprint for NRS is good training for attorneys. Also without that responsibility, it might be difficult to justify a full time staff throughout the biennium. LCB feels they can be competitive. They now have cross references to publications of the West Publishing Company which the attorneys in the state will appreciate as it hooks them up to a nation-wide research system. The fact that one-third of the LCB budget next year is authorized expenditures from the sale of NRS has spurred the making of improvements.
Publication of the digest was discontinued several years ago because it was expensive and LCB did not have the time to do it accurately. It hadn't been printed in several years. Pocket updates were printed but it was so far out of date that it was dangerous. LCB did not have time to maintain it and did not want to produce a bad product. They have tried to get other companies to publish it but none are interested. The basic reason is that the Nevada market is just too small to be cost effective.
Regarding the limitations on BDR requests, in addition to the ten request senators get and the five requests assemblymen get in the first 10 days of session, for the last two sessions there have been limits during the interim. (Senators - 20 requests, Assemblymen - 10 requests.) With these limitations, we have started both the 1991 and 1993 sessions with about 1400 or 1450 requests. This has limited substantially the number of bills submitted before session. However, there are still a great number of requests: 1400 before session, 400 the first ten days, 700 by the end of session. This makes 2500 bill draft requests. Physically LCB can only finish about 2100-2200 requests by the end of session. It would help if there was more time in the interim before September 1 to draft requests. Since the last session three of their best drafters have left, citing work load as their reason for leaving. The decision on limitation is a policy issue but, Mr. Malkiewich indicated it does affect the retention of quality attorneys.
Senator Glomb agreed this setting is not conducive to one's health. She asked what other states do.
Mr. Malkiewich indicated that Bob Erickson has done some work on limits in other states, the number of bills etc. Mr. Erickson indicated that information was available.
Senator McGinness asked if computers were a factor affecting the work load.
Mr. Malkiewich said he didn't think computers were a factor. He indicated the biggest thing hurting them is the expansion and the amount of time they have to spend on regulations. Their full time person falls far behind even with additional help, and is just now getting caught up on codifying the regulations. By statute, LCB has to review the regulations within 30 days. This means the bill drafts are delayed. Some progress has been made. The deadline for filing regulations was moved back from November and this has helped make more time for drafting.
Senator Callister indicated that bill drafting responsibilities have been contracted out to non full time employees. He asked about the frequency of this and whether it was due to the crush of time or the nature of the bill.
Mr. Malkiewich indicated that they currently contract with only one person. It generally is not cost effective. They cost substantially more than their trained attorneys. It is more efficient to have a trained state employee. The one person they contract with does high quality work for a low rate.
Senator McGinness thanked Mr. Malkiewich for his update.
Senator McGinness opened the hearing on Senate Bill 48.
SENATE BILL 48: Authorizes constitutional officers to submit proposed bill drafts directly to legislative counsel. (BDR 17-960)
Mr. Robert L. Seale, Nevada State Treasurer, and a constitutional officer indicated he would speak for this bill. He stated they currently are obliged to submit their BDRs through the Department of Administration and Budgets, a process which is inefficient. This year he submitted a number of issues he wished to bring before the legislature and all but two of them were held. However, due to the efforts of other people, all of the bills that were held will ultimately be heard. He said it makes more sense for a constitutional officer to submit bills directly to the legislature so they can indicate what they have in mind and to defend their position. Many of the bills submitted by constitutional officers are very esoteric and difficult to explain to a middle man. He reiterated that constitutional officers should submit their bills directly to the legislature.
Senator Smith indicated in the early 1970s he was moved to submit to the voters a constitutional change that would have removed the offices of State Comptroller and State Treasurer because it was obvious that the elected people were not qualified to do the job. "He was asked not to by the then governor, to permit one of the officers to finish his retirement." Senator Smith indicated that if we are going to keep the constitutional officers, they certainly should have some rights to do things representing their office as they were elected to do. This was his purpose this year in submitting three measures each supporting the right of the public to address their elected officials and the right of the elected officials to perform their duties.
Chairman McGinness recognized Donald Klasic of the University of Nevada speaking to S.B. 48.
Mr. Klasic, General Counsel of the University of Nevada, indicated that the Board of Regents has not taken a position on this bill; however, their position is that if this bill is going to be enacted then the Board of Regents should be added to it as they are constitutional officers. He indicated, if this bill is going to pass, it should codify that particular matter. He stated that the Board of Regents submitted seven bills to the Department of Administration this year, and for the first time ever, three or four of those bills were held back. In summary, Mr. Klasic asked that the Board members be among the constitutional officers who can submit bills directly to the legislature.
Senator Rawson asked if Mr. Klasic was able to get the bill drafts into circulation or did they need someone to introduce them.
Mr. Klasic replied they might need someone to introduce the bills later as they needed to be finished.
Senator Rawson stated that the only way now a request for drafting can be made is through a committee request. Though he could not speak for the committee, he suggested that Mr. Klasic talk with the regents and see if they would like to have that done. He indicated that there are deadlines for requests of this nature.
Robert May, an officer of Common Cause Nevada, spoke for Common Cause on this issue (EXHIBIT C). He indicated Common Cause saw no reason why constitutional officers should not be able to submit their bills directly as they are elected by the people. Common Cause urged passage of the legislation.
Chairman McGinness asked if he had any feeling on Mr. Klasic's recommendation regarding adding the Board of Regents to the bill.
Mr. May indicated they had not discussed that issue but felt they would find it acceptable. He could see no reason they wouldn't.
Senator Titus asked Mr. Klasic if the board would allow individual regents to put in their own BDRs or would the board act as a board.
Chairman McGinness indicated his understanding was that it was as a board and asked Mr. Klasic for clarification.
Mr. Klasic indicated that board policy was that individual members of the board have no authority to act on their own. The board has to act as a board so this would be a board request.
Jim Richardson, speaking on behalf of the Faculty Alliance which has chapters on every campus in the state, indicated the surprise of the Alliance upon hearing about the decision to reject some of the requests from the Board of Regents. They had supported some of those requests through the System Compensation Committee and the Senate structures and had assumed that, as in the past, those bills would appear in some form and they would have an opportunity to discuss them. Some are very important, i.e. controversy over health care benefits. Now they are in the process of trying to get them introduced. He indicated the Alliance would argue on behalf of the constitutional autonomy of the board and would ask the Committee to honor that and recognize it by amending S.B.48 to include the Board of Regents. The regents would work within the deadlines and limitations but would like the right to submit directly to the LCB.
Senator Titus asked Lorne Malkiewich how this legislation would relate to the limits.
Mr. Malkiewich replied that since all BDRs from state agencies must be approved by the Governor, or his representative, LCB limited the number of bills that came over. The limit was about 358 in total from the administration. In the last two sessions the number received has been far below that figure. He indicated if the legislature chose to establish limits on the number of requests, it would be appropriate to establish separate limits. The limits on the constitutional officers was set by identifying the number of bills submitted during the last three sessions and taking the highest number.
Mr. Richardson indicated that the Board of Regents had been frugal in this regard submitting about ten requests. Their intent was not to burden the LCB.
Senator Raggio asked Mr. Malkiewich for clarification on establishing limits. "Since it is not in the statute, can we set limits by rule or policy?"
Mr. Malkiewich answered what they did to implement the bill draft limitations in the '89 session, was to put a phrase at the beginning of the statutes authorizing people to submit bills to the Legislative Counsel. The phrase states, in effect, within limits prescribed by the legislature by concurrent resolution all state agencies may submit all (whatever).
Senator Raggio indicated that he did not see that language in S.B. 48.
Mr. Malkiewich indicated that the language could be inserted into S.B.48 and the legislature could pass a concurrent resolution saying how many bills each person gets. He informed the committee that this is a subject that will come up later in the session as the Legislative Commission will be looking further at the issue of bill draft limits and maybe will make recommendations to the legislature. If you proceed as in the past, you would include the limiting phrase in the statute and then pass a concurrent resolution expressing those limits.
Senator Raggio asked if the committee has the right to impose a limit.
Mr. Malkiewich indicated that current statutes state if the local government submits more than ten bills, these bills must be prioritized. He said the commission could direct him to only draft the top ten submitted.
Senator Raggio indicated that if they amended S.B. 48 they could adjust the limits on the remaining agencies to not add a burden to Mr. Malkiewich's office. This would make it neutral as far as LCB is concerned.
Mr. Malkiewich concurred indicating that the Board of Regents is presently included in the administration's total quota and the administration's limit would be reduced by the number given to the Board of Regents.
Senator Raggio stated that they needed a recommendation from Mr. Malkiewich designating the limits and the impact on the remaining state agencies and the specific language regarding limits prescribed by the legislature.
Mr. Malkiewich confirmed that the committee wanted him to do the same as they did with the constitutional offices, i.e. see how many bills the regents had submitted in the past and identify the highest number. This would be the amount by which they would reduce the administration and authorize for the university. The number would not be in the bill only in the language.
Chairman McGinness requested Mr. Malkiewich to come up with the language and then asked if those limits are set by the Legislative Commission.
Mr. Malkiewich indicated the limits are supposed to be set by concurrent resolution. Last session the assembly passed a resolution setting limits for the interim, but in the haste to adjourn LCB neglected to pass that resolution out of the Senate. The Legislative Commission directed Mr. Malkiewich to carry out the resolution anyway.
Chairman McGinness asked if they should address that issue. Mr. Malkiewich indicated it will be brought to this committee later. In their next meeting, the Legislative Commission will look at the limits, make recommendations, and provide some form of legislation which will come before this committee.
There being no further testimony on S.B. 48, Chairman McGinness closed the hearing on S.B. 48.
Chairman McGinness opened the hearing on S.J.R. 7 of the Sixty-sixth Session and welcomed Senator Adler, prime sponsor.
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 7
OF THE SIXTY-SIXTH SESSION: Proposes to amend Nevada constitution to require open meetings of legislature and its committees, except meetings to consider certain personnel matters. (BDR C-1121)
Senator Ernest Adler, Capitol Senatorial District, indicated that S.J.R. 7 is the legislative equivalent of an open meeting law. It deletes that section of the constitution which allows for executive sessions of the Senate; requires all meetings of legislative committees be open to the public except meetings held to consider the character, alleged misconduct, professional competence, or physical or mental health of a person. He said it was a fairly direct measure, a good government provision which means all our essential meetings will be open to the public and the public will have input.
Senator Rawson indicated that when the hearing was closed he would be prepared to make a motion to move it out with a do pass. There was no testimony in opposition to S.J.R. 7.
SENATOR RAWSON MOVED TO DO PASS S.J.R. 7 AND ALLOW PEOPLE WHO HAVE PREPARED REMARKS TO PUT THEM INTO THE RECORD.
SENATOR GLOMB SECONDED THE MOTION.
THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
* * * * *
Susan Haase, representing Lt. Governor Sue Wagner, submitted prepared testimony for the record (EXHIBIT D).
Chairman McGinness asked if there was any problem in moving the meeting time of this committee permanently to 1:30 p.m. on Tuesdays at the call of the chair. There being no objection, it was so ordered.
The next meeting of this committee will be Tuesday, March 2nd at 1:30 p.m.
Chairman McGinness indicated that he had a request for committee introduction of BDR 17-643.
BDR 17-643:Required legislative auditor to include in audit report certain recommendations concerning programs and services provided by state agency or private contractor.
SENATOR GLOMB MOVED TO INTRODUCE BDR 17-643.
SENATOR CALLISTER SECONDED THE MOTION.
THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
* * * * *
Senator Raggio requested a resolution honoring Ed Pine. A day of recognition is planned in March. He stated this committee needs to authorize a bill draft for an appropriate resolution honoring Ed Pine, former regent of the university.
SENATOR SMITH MOVED TO INTRODUCE A RESOLUTION HONORING ED PINE, FORMER REGENT OF THE UNIVERSITY.
SENATOR RAGGIO SECONDED THE MOTION
THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
* * * * *
There being no further business, Chairman McGinness adjourned the meeting at 2:25 p.m.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
Mavis Scarff
Committee Secretary
APPROVED BY:
Senator Mike McGinness, Chairman
DATE:
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Senate Committee on Legislative Affairs and Operations
February 2, 1993
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