Nevada Legislature: Does sausage making have to be this ugly?
Submitted by Kirk Caraway on Tue, 06/07/2011 - 9:41am
We all know the art of creating legislation is so unseemly that it is regularly compared to making sausage. But, unlike good sausage, does it have to leave a bad taste in your mouth?
The same thing happens every two years here in Carson City. The last days of the legislative session are always a wild time, as legislators hurry to finish up work within the 120-day deadline. Almost anything can happen. Rules are suspended, bills die only to be revived, new bills are introduced and voted on before anyone can have a chance to read and understand them.
Lobbyists love this. This is when they dump their most offensive crap on us, knowing they can get legislators to cram this stuff through at the end, with little time for testimony, debate or public comment. As anyone in attendance yesterday saw, there are many discussions among legislators out of earshot of the public and press on these bills. Who knows what kind of shenanigans are going on.
It's things like this that make people distrust government, and rightfully so.
Nevadans' distrust is what led to the 120-day session requirement in the first place. The thought is, with limited time, legislators can cause less trouble.
Sorry, but that isn't working. All that keeping the sessions shorter does is to create the environment where lobbyists push half-baked bills through the sausage machine of government at the last minute, and you don't want to eat most of what comes out the other end.
If you really want to limit what the legislature can do, then restrict the number of bills each member can introduce, and regulate what can go in those bills. For instance, limit each legislator to three bills, and those bills would restricted to dealing with a specific subjects, and can't have unrelated items attached.
By limiting the number and content of the bills, you force legislators to prioritize instead of pushing a bunch of screwy special-interest crap through the machine at the last minute. Then, give them whatever time they need to study these bills, and allow the public to be fully informed on all of them. That way the public can give real input, and legislators can cast fully informed votes on each and every bill, instead of just passing whatever the lobbyists tell them to pass.
These are the ingredients that make good legislative sausage. It certainly will not solve all the problems, but it will at least make the final result more palatable.
But like most ideas for reform, don't count on it happening. The people who can make these rules are the ones who like the way things are now. Short of a ballot initiative, nothing is likely to change. And until we change the way our elections are conducted and funded, those few with the money and power will keep producing the same crappy legislation that the rest of us are force to eat.
So enjoy your sausage, but remember the antacid. You're going to need it.
