A fine new place to meddle

     Election to the board of one of Nevada's private homeowners associations seems to bring out the worst in some folks. On occasion, these petty potentates have promised to rain down the fury of the heavens on anyone who displays an American flag or redecorates with an unapproved color.
      Sensing widespread dissatisfaction with the excesses of these tyrants, state Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, has proposed a bill that would require Nevada homeowners' associations to "run more like government operations."
      Under Senate Bill 314, association boards would be required to hold public meetings with fixed agendas. The attorney general's office would be given authority to review complaints. And board members would be given six months to complete "a course" on board responsibilities and the rights of association members.
      The question that arises is where the Legislature finds authority to do this.
      As long as Article 4 clearly states that the powers of the Nevada Legislature are limited by the federal Constitution, it may not be out of place to note that the earlier document clearly protects "the right of the people peaceably to assemble," a right generally held to include the right to join or refrain from joining any private group we please.
      Yes, even this right to privacy has limits -- a group that met each week to plan random murders, after the model of the cult of Thuggee, might well expect some government intervention.
      And some of the unsavory restrictions on "deeds and covenants" that used to restrict how a homeowner could dispose of his property -- like the ones that forbade homes being re-sold to various ethnic minorities -- have long since been struck down. Good riddance to such systematic intolerance.
      But if the Legislature is going to mandate how and when the homeowners associations shall meet, how they shall conduct their business, and even that their private officers must "take courses" ... what's next?
      Surely there are some members of the local Elks Lodge who wish the fraternity conducted its business differently. Why, even the fellows and gals who set the agenda for the Clark County Republican Party may be considered by some members to have been a bit high-handed in the past. How soon can we expect their bylaws and procedures to be rewritten by Mr. Schneider and his busybodies?
      Some of our churches and temples aren't run in a very "democratic" way, when you come right down to it -- why not require public meetings of all their councils, with their doctrines and gospels freely amendable by a simple majority vote of the membership -- to be enforced by the state attorney general?
      Folks contemplating the purchase of a home have a right to buy in an "association" development, or not. If Mr. Schneider believes home-buyers are being lured into such "associations" without being fully informed of the restrictions to which they thus voluntarily agree, he may indeed find a minor role there for government -- requiring that each potential home buyer be fully informed.
      But beyond that, it really doesn't matter whether Mr. Schneider is unhappy with how the private homeowners' associations comport themselves. Because they're private.