Oh, so now they embrace the separation of powers

"Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression."

-- Montesquieu

Separation of powers is not the objective, but the means.

"It's an interference in the courts' sovereignty," Chief District Judge Art Ritchie complained last week when Clark County commissioners rejected a bid by judges and justices of the peace to extend a lucrative lobbying contract to term-limited Assemblyman Morse Arberry to represent their interests before the Legislature where he has served for two dozen years.

Ritchie added, "How do we deal with another branch of government curtailing how we do business?"

That is precisely the point of the separation of powers. It is not meant to make each branch autonomous and independent of the others, but to check and to balance each against the others to prevent too much power being concentrated in the hands of a few. The U.S. and Nevada constitutions separate governmental power into three branches -- executive, legislative and judicial. By design, none is completely free of interference from the others.

Under the federal system, the president appoints judges with the advice and consent of the Senate. Congress may impeach and remove judges. The judges can reverse Congress by declaring laws unconstitutional. The president can veto a bill. The Constitution may be amended by Congress and state legislatures.

In Federalist Paper No. 47, James Madison quoted heavily from the writings of French philosopher Montesquieu (above). Madison wrote, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

It has been suggested that the courts could order the commissioners to pay for the $124,000 contract for Arberry, or simply break up the contract into consecutive terms with each costing less than $50,000 to skirt a legislative threshold requiring commission approval.

That would, at the very least, violate the spirit of separation of powers and the checks and balances the concept is meant to create.

In fact, Commission Chairman Rory Reid warned the judges against such a move when he said, "If you use extraordinary measures to take this action, not withstanding our objections, that would set a precedent that would be regrettable and show a lack of judgment on your part."

I'm not sure where this new-found affinity for separation of powers comes from, since many of our legislators, including Arberry, are current or former local government employees.

Additionally, the very concept of one group of elected officials hiring lobbyists to influence another group of elected officials smudges the line of separation and smacks of duplicity, profligacy and a corruption of the system. The same voters designate who their judges will be, who their county commissioners will be and who their Assembly and state Senate representatives will be. They all are answerable to the same voters. How does it make sense for any of them to spend the voters' tax money on influencing the others? That's downright schizophrenic.

Well, it happens all too frequently. As a Review-Journal story pointed out, Clark County's local governments spend about $1 million per year for contract lobbyists. That does not include what they pay employees to lobby or expenses for lobbying.

The Review-Journal's Jane Ann Morrison, in a recent column, explained the effectiveness of this sub rosa arm twisting and influence peddling for fun and profit.

In the 2001 session, she wrote, bills were introduced to raise salaries for most county elected officials, but the bills withered and died.

But after then-District Judge and former legislator Gene Porter flew to Carson City to lobby Arberry, his former legislative roommate, a separate bill to raise District Court judges' salaries from $107,600 to $140,000 a year made it out of Arberry's Ways and Means Committee and was passed in the final days of the session.

Government lobbying government is simply vigorish extracted by insiders while shifting taxpayer money from one pocket to another.

It works to the benefit of a few -- and the detriment of all others.

Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Review-Journal, writes about the role of the press, access to public records and constitutional issues. He may be contacted at 383-0261 or via e-mail at tmitchell@reviewjournal.com. Read his blog at lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell.