WEEKLY EDITORIAL RECAP

WEDNESDAY

MAYOR'S RACE SET

The popularity of term-limited Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman -- easily the highest-profile occupant of that office, ever -- undoubtedly contributed to the easy first-place showing of his wife, Carolyn, in the city's primary mayoral balloting Tuesday.

That's not to say Mrs. Goodman, popular founder of The Meadows School, isn't qualified in her own right. But it is safe to say not much is yet known about how Tuesday's front-runner would confront the city's budget problems, and the public employee contracts that underlie them.

Voters must now insist on a debate focusing more closely on those issues -- rather than on "feel-good" topics over which neither the mayor nor the City Council have much say.

Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani captured a slim, 15-vote victory for the second and last spot on the June 7 general election ballot, beating out fellow County Commissioner Larry Brown.

Ms. Giunchigliani, a former public school teacher and state assemblywoman, has long been sympathetic to liberal causes, including the agenda of public-sector unions.

Voters await a vigorous debate.

THURSDAY

WHERE'S MINE?

Assemblyman Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, is miffed that freshman Assemblyman Steven Brooks, D-Las Vegas, had to take an unpaid leave of absence from his job with the city of Las Vegas last year to campaign for the office.

Mr. Segerblom, through Assembly Bill 433, wants a law that prevents private-sector employers from taking action against workers who run for office to apply to government workers, as well.

Mr. Brooks had to take unpaid leave from the city of Las Vegas for two good reasons: Wendell Williams and Morse Arberry. Nearly a decade ago, a Review-Journal investigation found the longtime Assembly members and city employees ran roughshod over their city supervisors and taxpayers, collecting sick leave when they weren't sick and regular salaries when they didn't do any work. As elected legislators in a state with no home rule, they effectively became their bosses' bosses, and they conducted themselves as such.

Regardless of whether public employees are merely campaigning or already elected, they immediately gain the ability to intimidate and potentially retaliate against both members of the public and fellow government workers. What supervisor would question a public employee's productivity and time card if that employee could soon have the power to punish the entire department?

All this flies in the face of the Nevada Constitution's separation of powers doctrine, which clearly prohibits anyone from serving in two branches of government at the same time.