MINUTES OF THE

SENATE Committee on Government Affairs

 

Seventy-First Session

June 3, 2001

 

 

The Senate Committee on Government Affairswas called to order by Chairman Ann O'Connell, at 10:20 a.m., on Sunday, June 3, 2001, in Room 2149 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada.  Exhibit A is the Agenda.  There is no Attendance Roster.  All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Senator Ann O'Connell, Chairman

Senator William J. Raggio, Vice Chairman

Senator William R. O’Donnell

Senator Jon C. Porter

Senator Joseph M. Neal, Jr.

Senator Dina Titus

Senator Terry Care

 

GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:

 

Assemblyman Lynn C. Hettrick, Douglas County and part of Carson City, Assembly District No. 39

 

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

 

Scott G. Wasserman, Chief Deputy Legislative Counsel

Robert E. Erickson, Research Director, Legislative Counsel Bureau

Sherry Rodriguez, Committee Secretary

 

Chairman O’Connell:

Let us go ahead and begin with redistricting and Assemblyman Hettrick (Assemblyman Lynn C. Hettrick, Douglas County and part of Carson City Assembly District No. 39)

 

Assemblyman Lynn C. Hettrick, Douglas County and part of Carson City Assembly District No. 39:

I am here to present the Republican Assembly plan to be included in Senate Bill (S.B.) 575 for redistricting.

SENATE BILL 575:  Revises districts for state legislators and representatives in congress.  (BDR 17-1558)

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

The plan was drawn using the fair districting processes designed for fairness and for equal opportunity for everyone to participate.  We used the traditional principles of population equality, contiguity, compactness, natural geographical boundaries, and communities of interest.  While we have drawn Hispanic districts and looked at ethnic considerations, they were not the first consideration in drawing the plan, but they were taken into account when we did draw these plans.  We believe the communities, where they can be drawn together and in compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, should have been drawn together, which is what we did.

 

Our plan is shown by the four maps on the back wall.  The plan has a 26 to 20 Democratic advantage over Republicans, which recognizes the obvious Democratic advantage in the Assembly at this time.  We felt it was an appropriate recognition of the current percentage.  Included in the ratio are six open seats in the state, all of which are in Clark County, as you can imagine, because of the growth.  Three of those seats are Democratic including one open Hispanic seat, and three are Republican. 

 

Among the Hispanic seats, three are 60 percent or more and one is 51 percent Hispanic population.  We also drew a 43 percent Hispanic district in Washoe County, not because it is required but the community fit together in a compact way in an existing district, so we went ahead and used that shape and drew a fifth Hispanic district. 

 

The plan is balanced; you can see it is compact if you look at the drawings, and we tried to make the districts fair and even.  Of course, the districts in the north, as you know, are huge once you get outside of Washoe County.  We obviously feel expansion of the legislature is important to fair representation in the north and the rural areas. 

 

We did draw two seats together in the north.  In the plan drawn by the Assembly there were multiple seats drawn together.  We did not do that; we did draw two together.  This is unfortunately the game of guess who might retire, guess who might not retire, or try to impose upon somebody who should retire.  We drew two seats together; one was Assemblywoman Vivian L. Freeman’s, Washoe County Assembly District No. 24 and the other, Assemblywoman Debbie Smith’s, Washoe County Assembly District No. 30, both in Democratic districts.  We also drew Assemblyman Joseph E. Dini, Jr., Lyon and Storey Counties, and part of Carson City Assembly District No. 38, and Assemblyman P.M. Roy Neighbors, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, Nye Counties Assembly District No. 36, together just to the east of Carson City, which is also a slightly Democratic district.  Those are the only ones we drew together.  There was no need to draw people together in the south because of the growth and the number of seats and the open seats; we did not need to put anybody together.

 

Chairman O’Connell:

Are there any questions from the committee?

 

Senator Porter:

I was trying to take a few notes.  You said there were six open seats in Clark County, of which three were Democratic plus one?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

No, there are three Democratic including one open Hispanic seat.

 

Senator Porter:

Okay, then three Republican seats, and there were three Hispanic districts with 60 percent or more, and one with 51 percent Hispanic population.  Did I miss anything in the Clark County numbers?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

Only the 43 percent Hispanic district we drew in Washoe County.  Again, it does not meet the criteria or requirement, but was simply a community of interest which fit an existing district, so it made sense to make it into a Democratic district.

 

Senator Neal:

I understand what you said regarding the 20 to 26 ratio in your map, so you are going with 46 Assembly seats.  Do I understand you are saying in the open seats you have three which you would term Democratic seats?  By what margin would you consider them to be Democratic seats? 

 

 

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

Yes, sir.  Open seat of Assembly District No. 24 in Clark County is 49 percent Republican, 35 percent Democratic; open seat District No. 38 in Clark County is 26 percent Republican, 54 percent Democrat; open seat No. 43 in Clark County is 42 percent Democrat, 39 percent Republican; open seat No. 44 in Clark County is 34.81 percent Democrat, 48 percent Republican; open seat No. 45 in Clark County is 40.5 percent Democrat, 43 percent Republican; and, open seat No. 46 in Clark County is 39.6 percent Democrat, 45 percent Republican.

 

Senator Neal:

Do I understand you are saying you have four seats which are Republican majority in the south?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

They are three and three.

 

Senator Neal:

The margin of the Democrats versus Republicans, I gather, is much closer in the open seats than Republicans versus Democrats in the open seats?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

The growth in the suburbs of Clark County has been predominantly Republican on the outskirts.  When you divide it up in the Assembly, we had Assembly seats which had constituencies over 110,000 each.  That makes two full Assembly seats plus one, and they were very predominantly Republican.  So, when we divided those up and made these seats, taking the communities of interest and then growing out from the center of town, we ended up with those districts coming out the way they did.  It was because of the huge growth in the Republican margin of registration in those districts.

 

Senator Neal:

So, according to your numbers, the districts you are proposing are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

Open seats, yes, sir.

 

 

 

Senator Neal:

If you have 20 Republican seats and you show 26 others and 6 of those are open seats, would the margin then be almost even in terms of representation between Republicans and Democrats?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

No, Senator Neal, it is 26 Democratic seats by registration, and 20 Republican, including the open seats.  Included in the Republican 20 seats are 3 open seats; included in the 26 Democratic seats are 3 open seats.

 

Senator Neal:

OK, I understand where you are going now, thank you.

 

Chairman O’Connell:

Any other questions, committee?

 

Senator Titus:

How much does this map differ from what you were negotiating last night?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

The map is significantly different, because the map we were working from last night is a proposed way from the Assembly, which is a Democratic map.  It is significantly different from the numbers in this map.  The map proposed by the Assembly last night was a 28 to 18 Democratic map.  This is a 26 to 20 Democratic map; last night’s map had 2 Hispanic districts, and ours has 4 Hispanic districts plus one with at least part Hispanic population.  I think last night’s map had one swing district, and a couple of the Republican districts were very close and are actually occupied at the present time by Democrats.

 

Senator Titus:

Did you feel those negotiations were going well and you were moving towards the same direction from the two maps?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

Yes, I think we are moving, and yes, we had an opportunity to work on some of the things we had concerns with, and we are going the right way if we can keep it up.

 

 

Chairman O’Connell:

Any other questions?

 

Senator Neal:

I would assume the map on my right is a map from the Las Vegas area.  Could you tell me whether or not it meets the requirement of community groups of interest and also compactness, in terms of lines being drawn.

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

Ten is drawn as you see it, Senator, because it is the 51 percent Hispanic district; since it could be drawn, we did draw it.  We felt one of the requirements was, if you could draw a 51 percent district, you needed to do so.

 

Senator Neal:

Above there, you have Assembly District No. 6.  Were these drawn with the idea of including the incumbents from those areas?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

Yes, they were, Senator Neal.  District No. 6 is Assemblyman Wendell P. Williams’, District No. 7 is Assemblyman Morse Arberry Jr.’s, and we maintained the percentages of race and population in all of those districts as they exist or better.

 

Senator Neal:

In your judgment, District No. 38 meets the requirements of a compact district?

 

Assemblyman Hettrick:

Yes, I believe that is true.  I would ask you to compare our map to the Assembly map drawn from the Democratic caucus and compare those maps.  I think you will find our map to be more compact and contiguous.

 

Chairman O’Connell:

Committee, any further question for Assemblyman Hettrick?  I need to share with the committee and with the audience, the reason we are in here this morning, is there has not been a final map to present to you, but we are dealing with time as far as the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) is concerned.  They need a beginning point to start trying to work on this language, because if you looked at the bills themselves, they are extremely technical and very complicated. 

Both Senator Titus and I are here to tell you we worked until about 1 a.m. this morning, and we plan on continually working through the day.  “Everything is still very friendly,” I will put that on the record.  We are still hoping to resolve some of the problems still hanging out there.  We are very optimistic about it and feel we can get this done before the end of tomorrow, just to put everybody’s mind at rest.  Everyone is still working very hard on it with the purpose of trying not to go into a special session over this redistricting.  

 

I certainly want to compliment Senator Titus because she has been very gracious and very helpful in this process.  The process is still ongoing and we want everybody to know that, but we do need a beginning point, which is where we are starting today. 

 

We have been requested to include the Assembly’s map into our map.  So, for the bill this morning, we will be looking at the amendment we voted on the other day which included the Hispanic districts.  The bill we are dealing with is S.B. 575 as well as the inclusion of Assemblyman Hettrick’s map from the Assembly.

 

Senator Raggio:

Madam Chairman, it is my understanding the committee did adopt the amendment which incorporated the Hispanic coalition plan and action was already taken.  I think additionally, I would move to amend S.B. 575 to include the Assembly Republican plan, which Assemblyman Hettrick has just described.

 

            SENATOR RAGGIO MOVED TO AMEND S.B. 575 TO INCLUDE THE                 ASSEMBLY REPUBLICAN PLAN PRESENTED BY ASSEMBLYMAN HETTRICK.

 

            SENATOR PORTER SECONDED THE MOTION.

 

Chairman O’Connell:

Is there further discussion on this motion?

 

Senator O’Donnell:

Yes, Madam Chairman.  Are negotiations still fluid; are we still working these things out?  By voting on this measure at this time, are we jeopardizing any further negotiations? 

 

 

Chairman O’Connell:

Absolutely not.  I am sorry, I thought I put it on the record, Senator Titus and I have had a meeting this morning and the plan is to continue certainly through today, spending as much time as we possibly can with our discussions.  There is no stopping.  I would just ask Senator Titus for the record, to confirm the statement I have made to you all on this.

 

Senator Titus:

Madam Chairman, thank you.  Senator O’Connell is exactly right, we stayed until 1 a.m. last night trying to resolve some differences.  We met this morning, and we will continue to meet throughout the day.  The Democrats will not vote for this plan, obviously.  There are things in it we disagree with, but we expect those negotiations to continue.  I confirm what the chairman has said.

 

Senator O’Donnell:

If that is the case, I am not in a position to vote on this measure.  I will abstain on this measure until this is worked out.

 

Chairman O’Connell:

OK, all those in favor.

 

            THE MOTION FAILED.  (SENATORS TITUS, NEAL AND CARE VOTED             NO.  SENATOR O’DONNELL ABSTAINED FROM THE VOTE.)

 

*****

 

Chairman O’Connell:

We need to take a motion on Senate Concurrent Resolution (S.C.R.) 2 and S.C.R. 4.  The S.C.R. 2 is the bill we had from Senator Rhoads requesting 23 Senators and 46 Assemblymen.  I think it would be a moot point at this time, depending on where we go from here.  So, I would ask we take a motion to indefinitely postpone (IP) S.C.R. 2 and S.C.R. 4, which requires the characteristics of the congressional district to be from the east to the west.

 

SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 2:  Provides that Senate must consist of 23 Senators and Assembly must consist of 46 Assemblymen for purposes of reapportionment and redistricting. (BDR R-41)

 

SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 4:  Adopts requirements for overall characteristics of congressional districts in this state for purposes of reapportionment and redistricting by 71st session of Nevada Legislature. (BDR R-705)

 

            SENATOR NEAL MOVED TO INDEFINITELY POSTPONE S.C.R. 2 and S.C.R. 4.

 

            SENATOR TITUS SECONDED THE MOTION.

 

            THE MOTION CARRIED.  (SENATOR O’DONNELL WAS ABSENT FOR THE             VOTE.)

 

*****

 

Chairman O’Connell closed the committee hearing at 10:40 a.m. and stated the next meeting of the day, on reapportionment and redistricting, would be at the “call of the chair.”

 

 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

 

 

 

Sherry Rodriguez,

Committee Secretary

 

 

APPROVED BY:

 

 

 

                       

Senator Ann O'Connell, Chairman

 

 

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