Saturday, May 21, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Panel approves prescription drug bill by deadline

CARSON CITY -- Hours before a deadline for action, a Senate panel voted in favor of a bill to help Nevadans buy lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada.

Approval of the Canadian drug importation bill by a 6-1 vote came after Sen. Joe Heck, R-Henderson, won support for an amendment requiring drugs shipped to Nevadans meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards.

Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, cast the only vote against the bill. "The bottom line, is I am concerned that it is illegal," she said.

While the drug importation bill was approved, many other measures were not, as one of the Legislature's last major deadlines came and went. Lawmakers set the deadline to help ensure the 120-day session ends on time June 6.

Among bills that died on Friday were measures that would have prohibited obesity lawsuits against restaurants and allowed local governments to use traffic cameras to cite red-light runners.

Also failing to gain passage in legislative committees by the deadline were bills requiring public employees who serve in the Legislature to take unpaid leaves of absence from their regular jobs and a proposal to impose mobile home rent controls.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said she was pleased by Senate Commerce and Labor's favorable vote on her Canadian pharmacy bill.

"When you have commitments from a majority of the Republicans on the committee, I think it bodes very well for the bill," she said.

Buckley said she will continue to work with Gov. Kenny Guinn to allay his concerns about the bill.

The measure mandates that members of the state Board of Pharmacy visit Canada and license pharmacies to Nevada standards. The Office of Consumer Health Assistance then would set up a Web site listing the approved pharmacies and offering information to help Nevadans buy drugs from Canada.

Eight states have similar laws.

The state would not purchase the drugs. Federal law prohibits states from buying drugs from Canada. But a loophole in the law allowed 1.8 million Americans last year to buy Canadian drugs for personal use, typically at one-half or one-third of the cost of the same drugs in the United States.

While sponsors of successful bills were smiling, lawmakers backing bills that died were less enthusiastic.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, said she was not surprised that her bill to require unpaid leaves for public employees serving in the Legislature was not heard by the Assembly.

Titus, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, takes a leave of absence from her job while at the Legislature. But her likely rival in next year's Democratic gubernatorial primary, Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, does not. Perkins, who works for the Henderson Police Department, uses vacation time.

"I did what I committed to do to the voters," Titus said. "Some other people may not have, and they'll have to answer those questions."

Sen. Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, lashed out at the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which did not hear his bill to prohibit obesity lawsuits against restaurants such as McDonald's. Nolan said the measure at least deserved a hearing, but that the committee chairman, Assembly Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, would not schedule it for discussion.

"Chairman Anderson cows to the trial lawyers," Nolan said. "You can say that because it's true and everybody knows it."

The Assembly Judiciary Committee did approve a bill making it a misdemeanor to knowingly file a false complaint against a law enforcement official.

The measure was sought by Las Vegas police but opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which said it would create special protection for a select group of people.

The bill was amended by the Assembly Judiciary Committee to respond to critics' concerns. It now says that a person who files an intentionally false crime report that leads to a criminal or internal investigation of a law enforcement employee can be charged with a misdemeanor.

Las Vegas police Detective David Kallas, who sought the bill on behalf of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said the measure as amended is a good start to heading off malicious complaints against police.

"We're happy with the resolution at this point," Kallas said. "We'll see what happens over the next couple of years."

Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said it is inevitable the law will be challenged in court and overturned.

Other bills passing by the deadline included a bill aimed at restricting the ability of local governments to take private land for redevelopment projects, sponsored by Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas. Care said he sought the bill as a result of Las Vegas' taking of private property for the Fremont Street Experience a decade ago.

The bill was amended and approved by the Assembly Judiciary Committee. It allows the use of eminent domain to acquire land for open space, but only after good faith negotiations have taken place.

Care said he remains opposed to the taking of land for open space, but that he will support the amended bill.

It imposes new rules for eminent domain for redevelopment, including the right of the original owner to take the property back if it is not put to use within 15 years.

Owners of commercial property taken under that provision also would have to be paid for the loss of business income, not just the value of land.

The bill also requires a finding that two-thirds of a redevelopment area is blighted before a nonblighted parcel could be taken by a government.

Also winning late approval was a bill by Assemblyman Scott Sibley, R-Henderson, to require state and local governments to dispose of surplus land at public auctions. His Assembly Bill 312 won unanimous support from the Senate Government Affairs Committee, despite late moves by two state agencies to add amendments.

The state's moves drew criticism from Government Affairs Chairman Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, who questioned why they did not make their concerns known until two minutes before his committee was set to adjourn.

Sibley introduced the bill following reports in the Review-Journal of questionable land swaps between McCarran International Airport and Las Vegas land broker Scott Gragson. The exchanges are under investigation by the FBI.

Gragson's businesses earned millions of dollars by acquiring the airport land parcels and quickly reselling them.