Public records law, bill tough reading, lawmaker complains

      CARSON CITY -- Nevada law and proposals on open records need to agree with federal laws and be less bureaucratic, the Senate Transportation chairman said Thursday.
      Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, complained he could barely get through Assembly Bill 215 because of the frequent referrals to other sections and other statues.
      "There are more lines that say `except as otherwise provided in subsection whatever' than any other bill I've seen," O'Donnell said.
      O'Donnell said the bill's muddled language likely caused the Department of Motor Vehicles to withhold from private investigators personal information on drivers because they were too confused about how the law reads.
      "We have two interpretations of the public records statutes," he said. "One by the DMV and one by the attorney general's office."
      AB215, sponsored by Assemblyman Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, would open DMV lists of names and addresses of licensed drivers for research, surveys and distributing marketing materials.
      The bill also includes exceptions for drivers who do not want their names released.
      Frank Adams of DMV administrative services said the bill mirrors a federal law that will take effect this fall, but other provisions in Nevada's statutes do not comply with the new federal legislation.
      O'Donnell asked Hettrick and Adams to fix the language in the bill and statutes and combine them with a Senate bill, SB287.
      At present, the DMV releases information to law enforcement agencies, insurers, journalists and licensed investigators. The department collects $4.5 million a year copying those records, $3.7 million of which goes to the state's highway fund.
      In other committee action, Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, presented her bill, AB241, that would allow Nevada courts to consider previous DUI convictions in other states when sentencing an offender.
      Buckley said a person found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs can, on the first offense, get treatment.
      However, under current law, a person coming from another state with a record of four or five DUIs would have only his or her Nevada offense considered during sentencing.
      "In order to be eligible to be treated as a first-time offender, we should consider what happened in other states," Buckley said.