Supreme Court debates when term limits took effect

The Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday took up the issue of determining when the clock started ticking on term limits.

Lawyers for several longtime public servants whose candidacy has been challenged argued the 1996 election didn't count because that's the same year term limits were put in the state constitution. The attorney general's office and counsel for one candidate seeking to boot his competition off the ballot argued it has now been 12 years " the maximum time a candidate can hold one office " since term limits took effect and those who have served that long must be taken off the ballot.

But that issue isn't the core question before the court. That argument " whether Nevada's term-limit provisions are constitutional " will be before the high court July 14.

"The law is simple," argued Solicitor General Wayne Howle. "There's nothing ambiguous about 12 years."

He said those candidates and the term limits language were certified at the election canvass by the Supreme Court on Nov. 27, 1996. The candidates who won weren't sworn in until January 1 1997. Therefore, he said, term limits were in place when they began those terms of office in 1996, so they are termed out this year.

And Dominic Gentile " representing Steve Sisolak, who is running against one of those candidates, Bruce Woodbury " said he would apply term limits retroactively. In that case, he said, Woodbury would have been termed out with 14 years on the Clark County Commission and prohibited from running in 1996. Now, Gentile said, he has served 26 years and wants four more.

Bradley Schrager, representing Woodbury, said the issue was never raised until about six weeks ago. He said for the past dozen years, everyone has believed the clock started running with the 1998 elections, not 1996.

Schrager said such amendments should only be applied to elections that occur after the effective date of the amendment. He said enforcing term limits against those elected in 1996 would effectively be applying the new provisions retroactively, which isn't contained in the amendment.

The court took that issue, and a challenge by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley's opponent to her candidacy, under submission. Chief Justice Mark Gibbons advised the parties no rulings will come until after the July 14 hearing on constitutionality. But he assured them this issue is the court's highest priority to get it done without interfering with the 2008 elections.

The July 14 hearing will focus on the constitutionality of term limits as structured in Nevada and, specifically, whether it was passed in accordance with requirements in Nevada's constitution.

The Nevada constitution requires an initiative be passed by voters in two successive general elections in exactly the same form " right down to the number of the ballot question. In the case of term limits, the 1994 version approved by voters applied the 12-year limit not only to members of all state and local governing and legislative offices, but to all members of the elected judiciary in the state.

The supreme court itself, however, split that question into two questions for the 1996 elections, pulling the judicial offices out and into a second, separate question on the ballot. The general term limits question passed by nearly 70 percent. The judicial term limits question failed.

Opponents of term limits have argued for years that invalidates term limits because it wasn't in exactly the same form in both elections.