Public worker unions support right to be lawmakers

A group of unions filed a brief in the state Supreme Court on Wednesday opposing any attempt to force state and local government workers to choose between legislative service and their government jobs.

Dan Polsenberg of Las Vegas was lead counsel on the brief which backs up the arguments filed by the Legislative Counsel Bureau on Tuesday. The case, initiated by the Secretary of State's Office, asked the high court to decide which government employees can and which can't serve in the Legislature under the Nevada Constitution.

Attorney General Brian Sandoval ruled local government workers could serve but that state employees couldn't because that would violate the separation of powers among the three branches of government. Bureau attorneys argued both state and local government workers can serve unless they are in a position that exercises the sovereign functions of an executive branch agency.

Wednesday says local government workers aren't members of any branch of state government and should be immediately dismissed from the debate.

For state workers, it makes many of the same arguments as the bureau, saying the constitutional ban on an official of one governmental branch from exercising any functions of the other two was intended to apply only to elected constitutional officers and department heads.

"Those public servants who carry out the routine tasks of government are not denied their constitutional right to run for and, if chosen, hold a seat in the Legislature," it says. "Firefighters, police officers, teachers, nurses and other public workers are not so casually and caustically disenfranchised by a measure intended for another purpose."

But before that argument can be broached, the union argues the original petition is defective because it doesn't sue the lawmakers who are in that position but rather the entire Legislature. It says because no specific person is named, the entire petition is defective.

It joins the bureau's argument that only the Legislature can decide the qualifications of its members and says court can't do so without violating the separation of powers itself.

And it points out that other states with similar constitutional language including Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Indiana have ruled governmental employees can serve in the Legislature.

It was filed on behalf of the State of Nevada Employees Association, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, Nevada Association of School Administrators, Professional Firefighters of Nevada, Retired Public Employees, Nevada AFL-CIO and the Nevada Faculty Alliance representing university professors.