Nevada court wants answer to public employee-lawmakers issue

By KEN RITTER
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court wants to finally settle a question that has hung for decades over public employees who are elected to the state’s part-time Legislature: Should a person who makes the law also enforce the law? The seven-member court unanimously called Thursday for additional fact-finding hearings by a lower court on a Nevada Policy Research Institute lawsuit that would unseat two Republicans and seven Democrats, including the two top Democrats in the Legislature. The Nevada Constitution says a person can’t serve two elected offices or in multiple branches of government at the same time. Thursday’s ruling authored by Justice James Hardesty calls separation-of-powers too important to have to keep arguing over and over.