About a week ago, I asked readers to mull whether or not it would be fair for the overwhelming number of voters in Clark County to vote to raise the taxes of the minority of voters living in Washoe County. Such tyranny of the majority is anathema to the principles this republic was founded upon. Most of you would surely agree.
So how is that different with regard to term limits?
Now, I can understand a statewide referendum limiting the terms of statewide candidates, but how is it right that an overwhelming majority of Clark County voters were able to vote to limit the terms of Washoe County’s elected officials?
I didn’t know this until recently, but apparently Washoe County voters did NOT vote in favor of term limits in 1994 and 1996. They WANTED to be able to vote for whomever they chose to represent them regardless of how many years those elected officials had already served. The fact that Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio won’t be allowed to run again for his senate seat after this election cycle is a ban imposed on the constituents of Sen. Raggio by people who don’t live anywhere near Sen. Raggio’s district.
How is that right?
If the citizens of Clark County want to impose artificial term limits on the elected officials in Clark County, fine. But why should they, simply by the power of their population, be allowed to impose such limits on the citizens of Washoe County? Or any other county? I don’t know if there’s a legal challenge in here somewhere, but there ought to be. Just as there are “state’s rights” nationally, there ought to be some “county rights” locally.
Posted on July 31st, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
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