LEGISLATIVE ISSUES

Here are capsule summaries of some of the significant bills that Nevada
lawmakers will debate during their 2001 session:

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The voters have spoken. Sixty-five percent of them decided in November's
election that they want victims of AIDS, cancer and other illnesses to be
able to use marijuana to relieve their symptoms. But wait. Attorney General
Frankie Sue Del Papa and a group of doctors and pharmacists want the state
first to conduct a medical marijuana study, using the state agricultural
farm to grow pot and the University of Nevada medical school to dispense
it. Since the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet ruled on state marijuana
programs, Del Papa maintains it is not time for Nevada to implement a
program that could be illegal. That has angered Nevadans for Medical
Rights, the organization that put the pot issue on the ballot. They want
legislators to do what voters told them to do -- set up a program to let
qualified sick people smoke marijuana. Stay tuned for a fight.

DRUNKEN DRIVING

Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, will be back with his bill to reduce
the legal limit to be considered a drunken driver to a 0.08 percent
blood-alcohol content. The current minimum is 0.10 percent. Manendo is
confident his bill will pass this time because the federal Transportation
Department has threatened to start withholding highway construction funds
in 2007 from states that do not have 0.08 laws. Opposition in the past has
come from the gaming industry and restaurant and bar owners. But Manendo
points out California, Arizona and Utah have the tougher standard and they
send most tourists to Nevada. "Nevada could say we did it on our own if we
pass it now," Manendo said. "It is not the tourists who are being killed by
drunken drivers, but locals."

MISDEMEANOR MARIJUANA

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, will try for the second
time to pass a bill that makes possession of minor amounts of marijuana a
misdemeanor. Nevada is one of the few states where possession is a felony,
although generally users plead guilty to lesser charges and attend
anti-drug classes. Giunchigliani is more confident of passage this year
because the proposal is backed by a commission headed by Nevada Supreme
Court Justice Bob Rose and other judges.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN

The state Commission on Nuclear Projects wants the Legislature to pass a
resolution that expresses their disapproval of federal moves to put a
high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las
Vegas. Bob Loux, administrator of the Nuclear Projects agency, said
President Bush could decide to place the dump at Yucca Mountain between the
end of the Legislature in June and the next session in 2003. Since federal
law gives the state Legislature and governor in the selected state the
right to veto the selection, the commission wants the resolution passed
this year. Loux also wants several million dollars for an outreach program
to advise other states of the danger they face being along the roadways on
which the waste would be hauled.

TEEN DRIVERS' LICENSES

Assemblywoman Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, again will try to pass a
graduated driver's license bill. The proposal would prohibit new minors
from driving after curfew -- 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends.
During their first four months behind the wheel, teens also could not carry
other passengers, except for family members. A similar bill failed in 1999
as teens complained about the effect the bill would have on dating. But
that bill initially would not have permitted teens to carry passengers for
one year. Cegavske said 43 states have graduated license laws, and the
biggest reason teens die in accidents is driving inexperience.

VIDEO VOYEURISM

Having heard horror stories about women photographed while showering and
having their pictures show up on the Internet, Assemblywoman Barbara
Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, will propose a "video voyeurism" law. It would
become a felony to photograph or videotape people without their consent in
places where they can expect privacy, such as restrooms, locker rooms,
bedrooms and inside the home. She plans to have victims testify.

SMART GROWTH

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, will introduce a bill to
allow local governments to create buffer zones near environmentally
sensitive areas where growth would be prohibited. She is concerned by the
development on scenic hillsides and in the "little red rock" area west of
Las Vegas. Her bill would let local governments, not the state, decide what
sites would be off-limits.

GAMING TAX INCREASE

State Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, again will propose legislation to
increase the gaming tax -- now 6.25 percent -- to 11.25 percent. A bill to
increase the tax by 2 percentage points in 1999 gained only Neal's vote.
Using volunteers, he then failed to secure enough signatures to put the
matter before voters. This time he will remove provisions in the bill that
would have earmarked how the $388 million in tax revenue would be spent. He
also intends to hire a professional petition gathering firm to collect
signatures if legislators, as expected, again reject his tax proposal.

HOMEOPATHIC VS. ALLOPATHIC

A war has broken out between the state's traditional "allopathic" doctors
and homeopathic practitioners over which group should provide chic, new
alternative forms of medical care. Alternative medicine has become popular
and lucrative, and both groups want to provide the service to gain the
revenue. Last summer the Board of Medical Examiners, representing
traditional doctors, induced a legislative committee to kill regulations to
let homeopaths provide alternative care. Homeopaths will be back with a
vengeance during the session.

GAMING WORK CARDS

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, wants the Legislature to adopt a
statewide system for gaming work cards. Her proposal calls for a five-year
work card good for any casino in the state. The cost would be $74, more
than the $35 now paid by gaming employees in Clark County. But Leslie said
applicants in Clark County do not go through FBI and state criminal
repository checks so there is no insurance that they are free of criminal
records.

ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Secretary of State Dean Heller wants legislators to debate abolishing the
winner-take-all electoral voting system in Nevada and adopting a new system
where the candidate who wins each congressional district gets one vote. The
overall winner of the state popular vote would get two extra votes. Under
his proposal, George W. Bush would have received three Nevada electoral
votes and Al Gore one. He thinks it is a fairer system that will cause
candidates to consider campaigning in all parts of a state, not just
metropolitan areas. Nebraska and Maine already use this type of electoral
voting.

VOTING REFORM

Both Secretary of State Dean Heller and Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani
want to discuss getting rid of the punch-card voting systems used in seven
Nevada counties and for absentee voting in Clark County. "I want to get the
word 'chad' out of our vocabulary," Heller said. The chad, or small pieces
of paper left on ballots after candidates' names are punched, became the
cause celebre in the Bush-Gore race in Florida. While Nevada has not had
Floridalike chad problems, Giunchigliani said any Clark County voter who
has used an absentee ballot knows the difficulty of using the tiny stylus
provided to punch the names of candidates they favor. Heller thinks a
better system would be to use optical scan ballots -- or those in which
voters darken dots with a No. 2 pencil.

DEATH PENALTY

Every high school debate team argues the pros and cons of capital
punishment, and state Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, wants the
Legislature to take a crack at it. With modern DNA testing clearing some
death row inmates of any wrongdoing, Neal said it is time Nevada abolished
capital punishment. He pointed out that in recent years three inmates on
Nevada's death row have had their sentences reversed. He considers capital
punishment archaic and based on vengeance unfitting of modern society.
"Jury decisions in many of these cases have been wrong," Neal said. "If we
cannot give absolute assurance, why have capital punishment?"

CHILD WELFARE

Unlike in rural Nevada, investigations and management of child abuse cases
in Washoe and Clark counties are done partly by county employees and partly
by state employees. Children are funneled to different counselors and often
to several foster homes. An interim committee led by Assemblywoman Barbara
Buckley, D-Las Vegas, recommended that county social service agencies
handle all child welfare matters and increase payments to people who
provide foster care. "Our child welfare system in Nevada hurts kids," she
said. Change wouldn't be without a cost -- the state would send at least
$8.7 million to the counties, principally because state workers shifting to
county jobs would receive automatic increases in pay.