EDITORIAL: Legislature must heed court’s residency rulings

Residency requirements for public offices are enshrined in state law for an important reason: Voters should be represented by people who live among them, not by absentee opportunists or cynical carpetbaggers who crave power but have no desire to invest in the neighborhoods they oversee.

But if Nevada voters have learned anything over many years, it’s that residency standards don’t apply to state lawmakers, the most important locally elected officials in the state. Two District Court decisions this month, which declared two Democratic Assembly candidates ineligible for Tuesday’s ballot because they didn’t live in the districts they claimed to call home, do absolutely nothing to change that.

It’s a frustrating reminder that unless legislators pass legislation to impose tougher, more accountable residency standards on themselves — policy that does not serve their selfish interests — nothing in Nevada politics will change.

On Election Day, voters in two Assembly districts will see signs that advise them of the court rulings and the ineligible candidate on their ballots. On Oct. 16, District Judge Nancy Allf declared Meghan Smith, who won the District 34 Democratic primary, was not a resident of District 34 when she filed to run for the office. State law requires that candidates reside in their districts for 30 days before the close of candidate filing, but Smith had filed just seven days after closing on the purchase of a condominium in the district. Then, on Wednesday, District Judge Michael Villani ruled Democrat Jesse “Jake” Holder ineligible in District 10. The manager of the apartment complex Holder claimed to reside in provided an affidavit that said Holder had never lived there.

The rulings, resulting from complaints brought by the Democrats’ opponents, left Republican Victoria Seaman as the only eligible remaining candidate for District 34 and Republican Shelly Shelton as the only eligible remaining candidate in District 10.

But because the rulings came far too late to make changes on already-printed sample ballots, voters can still support the ineligible candidates. That means the ineligible candidates can still “win” the election, the court rulings notwithstanding.

That’s important, because the Nevada Constitution says each chamber of the Legislature “shall judge of the qualifications, elections and returns of its own members.” In other words, if Democrats retain their Assembly majority in Tuesday’s election — that’s no sure thing given the party’s poor early voting turnout — they could choose to ignore the court rulings and seat Smith and Holder.

It would be an outrageous maneuver, but not one without precedent. In 2013, Assembly Democrats seated Andrew Martin, even though a District Court judge had ruled that he didn’t live in his district and therefore was ineligible for the office. In doing so, the Assembly effectively declared itself immune from the checks and balances of American government.

Being a separate, co-equal branch of government is not the same thing as being an independent branch. If a court determines a candidate for office has violated the laws that determine who is eligible to seek that office, it has to count for something. Ignoring the judiciary is every bit as offensive as ignoring the law — which is what Smith and Holder tried to do. That the Legislature, the branch charged with making our laws, would act with such hypocrisy and commit such violence against democracy was flabbergasting.

Lawmakers must not repeat that gross mistake. If local voters aren’t paying attention, and if, somehow, Smith and Holder wind up with the most votes Tuesday, the Democrats cannot be allowed to serve.

But there’s an easy way to avoid such destructive drama and controversy: Voters in Assembly Districts 10 and 34 can take a stand against carpetbagging and support Republicans Shelly Shelton and Victoria Seaman.