Free Republic

The Nevada Policy Research Institute accused state Sen. Heidi Gansert of violating Nevada’s separation of powers clause in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The lawsuit claims on behalf of plaintiff Doug French that Gansert, R-Reno, violates the state constitution by serving as a senator and working in the state’s executive branch as executive director for external relations at the University of Nevada, Reno. “The bigger picture is that we need to put an end to this violation,” NPRI spokesman Michael Schaus said. “It’s happened in the past, and it seems to happen repeatedly, but it’s ignored by both parties. I don’t...

The head of the Nevada AFL-CIO proclaimed Tuesday that “working families are under attack” by Republican lawmakers who want to weaken collective bargaining laws and pensions now that they control the Legislature.Danny Thompson, executive-secretary treasurer of the organization, told supporters at the Teamsters Local 14 union hall that the designated GOP Assembly speaker, John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas, had sent a letter to local governments soliciting ideas for changes in public employee collective bargaining — the workers’ right to negotiate pay and benefits.Thompson, a former assemblyman, said he’s been watching the Legislature for some 35 years and he had never seen...

CARSON CITY — Most people who make the decision to retire have to figure out how to live on fewer dollars, but that is not always the case with Nevada state and local government employees, a new analysis has found. The analysis by the conservative think tank Nevada Policy Research Institute, using newly available public data provided by the Public Employees Retirement System, shows that many public sector retirees actually receive a raise upon retirement. The analysis, which looked at 10 of Nevada’s largest government agencies, including the state of Nevada, Las Vegas, Clark County and the Clark County School...

It’s not enough for the Nevada Legislature to change retirement benefits for future public employees. The state’s pension plan provides perks and payouts so absurdly generous that some of them need to be dialed back right away. Taxpayers are on the hook for billions of dollars worth of unfunded pension benefits, when they can barely afford to save for retirement themselves. It’s bad enough that they must subsidize benefits they’ll never have. But it’s outrageous that taxpayers subsidize the cost of providing government workers, who already retire far earlier than their private-sector peers, with even earlier retirements. In Sunday’s Review-Journal,...

CARSON CITY — A retirement system official said Thursday a report showing that some public employees who retire collect more in pension benefits than they did while working was based on less than 2 percent of beneficiaries. The analysis also does not reflect changes to the retirement plan made in 1985 that reduced pension payouts, said Tina Leiss, executive officer of the system. The conclusions in the report issued by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank based in Las Vegas, do not account for the vast majority of the members and retirees of the Public Employees’ Retirement...

A local libertarian think tank’s recent email blast to 12,000 teachers encouraging them to drop their union membership has further inflamed tense relations between the Clark County School District and the local teachers union.

Whenever US Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) turns up in the middle of yet another mouthing-off controversy, the Radio Equalizer feels the need to bring Americans up to speed on Reid's Nevada record. For those of us who knew Reid when he was a relatively obscure senator from the Silver State, his careless leak during a television interview is especially ironic, considering our ugly past run-ins. How unpleasant? In 1998, Sen. Reid told the Las Vegas Review-Journal he was "very happy" I'd left the state. Think of it as a reverse-Welcome Wagon effect. In Nevada, Harry Reid has a...