We spent the morning doing the monthly mini-tax return that is our corporate credit card statement, so we had to wait until now to bring you some Quick Hits. But better late than never. Here we go!

• The saga of Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald continued today, with her calling the Review-Journal “sleazy” for reporting a story earlier this week based in part on her divorce records.

But today’s story reported that the Metro Police Protective Association and the Culinary Union Local 226 have filed a complaint alleging Boggs McDonald had paid her former nanny, Kelly Macleod, out of her campaign funds, which is … what’s the word? … against the law!

Later in the day, reported consummate story-breaker Jon Ralston in his FLASH newsletter, Boggs McDonald reimbursed her campaign for the spent funds. She didn’t admit any guilt, but said she wanted to remove the “distraction” from the debate.

(PROGRAM NOTE: All 23 fans of Political Insiders, our show on KTNV Channel 13, will be pleased to learn that Boggs McDonald is scheduled to be a guest on this week’s episode, which airs at 11:30 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday.)

Boggs McDonald also lashed out in a story in the Las Vegas Sun, saying her children have been terrorized since they learned they were under surveillance by a private investigator. (The Culinary and the police union hired the P.I. to investigate allegations that Boggs McDonald lives at a home outside her district. He captured video that appears to show her living at a home in adjacent District C.)

“I’m fair game. But when you terrorize my children, that’s another story,” Boggs McDonald told the Sun. After admitting she used harsh language with her chief tormentor on the county commission, Democrat Tom Collins, she added, “I had to let Tom Collins know it’s not OK to go after my kids, and there will be hell to pay when he does. I didn’t mean it as a threat. I don’t threaten people. I tell people what will be.”

And trust us, you don’t want Boggs McDonald to tell you what will be.

Still, at the risk of being told what will be, we have to say this: Neither the unions nor Collins have “go[ne] after” Boggs McDonald’s kids. Her children were captured on videotape at the District C home as part of the union-ordered investigation, but certainly, they were not targets of it. And, had the investigator found Boggs McDonald to be living in the home she claimed as her primary address — within the boundaries of her District F — it’s doubtful we’d have even seen the video.

Still, Boggs McDonald is going through a nasty divorce, if the brief look at court papers that the R-J gave us was any indication. And keeping her kids close to her is no doubt a normal reaction at a stressful time like that.

Again, we’re not making excuses for the commissioner. If she really is living outside her district, she has committed both perjury as well as an offense that could see her kicked off the ballot. And the campaign finance allegations, along with her quick repayment of her campaign account, do suggest wrongdoing. But we’re not qualified to make that determination; only a judge and jury can.

• Quotable: “I do believe that perception [that I’m unfit for office] is out there, but the people who do know me know I’m none of those things, and it doesn’t take very long in conversation with me to make a determination that I’m highly intelligent, not cuckoo, crazy or nuts. I don’t believe I was unfit for office and I don’t believe the voters of Clark County thought I was unfit for office, or they wouldn’t have elected me.” — Ousted Clark County Recorder Frances Deane, on Face to Face with Jon Ralston

Hey, here’s a handy rule of thumb: If you have to tell people you’re not cuckoo, crazy or nuts, you just might be cuckoo, crazy or nuts. It’s like being cool. If you tell people you are, then you aren’t.

• Quotable: “Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.” — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking about President George W. Bush to the United Nations General Assembly.

Listen, Hugo, we don’t know you think you are, but why don’t you leave the Bush-is-the-devil jokes to us professionals, OK? We invented “it still smells like sulfur,” mister! Just because you’re a president of a foreign country doesn’t mean you don’t have to follow U.S. copyright laws. He’s our devil, OK, not yours.

• Chavez did give a ringing endorsement to linguist Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Domination. It wasn’t exactly a bestseller before, but now, we expect it to really take off. You simply can’t buy publicity like that: A socialist president comes to the United States, bashes President Bush and then goes all Oprah Book Club on your tome. Man, you can almost smell the royalties rolling in, can’t you?

• One more? Well, OK. “The world is waking up. I have the feeling, dear world dictator [we think he’s still talking about Bush here] that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are rising up against American imperialism,” Chavez said. His remarks prompted British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to marvel: “Even the Democrats wouldn’t say that.”

Yes, Ms. Beckett. And that’s the problem.

But residents of South and Central America, rising up against American imperialism? That is a Bush nightmare!

We at Various Things & Stuff have had way too much coffee this morning. Our BCC (blood caffeine content) is about a .458, which is high, even for us. But we’ll try to get through some Quick Hits anyway. Here we go!

• Isn’t it cute when the capitalist enablers think their opinion matters to the masses? We think so. The Henderson Chamber of Commerce was all set to endorse Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald when questions about her residency were raised and the group got all weak-kneed.

After first sending out a news release indicating Boggs McDonald was endorsed, and then another indicating the endorsement had been withdrawn, the chamber finally settled on a third position: They’re waiting for more information. Let’s let chamber Vice President David Dahan dig himself into a really big hole:

– “I hope this doesn’t put a reflection on her, positive or negative. This is not to suggest innocence or guilt or anything. We must consider everything, because this is a valuable endorsement.” — Dahan, in the Review-Journal

Where to start?

A. No, the Henderson chamber’s antics don’t put a reflection on Boggs McDonald. They do, however, reflect on the Henderson chamber. Positive or negative? We’ll let you readers decide.

B. Of course it suggests guilt! Otherwise, the Henderson chamber would follow the example of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and stick by its endorsement of the commissioner.

C. A valuable endorsement? Wethinks the Henderson chamber takes itself much to seriously. We suspect even its own members won’t make up their mind based on what the business group recommends, much less the public at large.

– “We certainly plan to take a position on that race, and hopefully we will do it in such a perfect way that no one will notice.” — Dahan

A. Knowing Boggs McDonald, we’re sure by now she’s told the Henderson chamber where it can store its endorsement while mulling the matter. And, after a couple hours in there, nobody’s going to want that bad boy.

B. The chamber has but to look at the way it handed the situation initially, and then do the exact opposite, to arrive at perfection.

C. We’re 100 percent confident that, despite the methodology of granting the endorsement, no one will notice. The endorsement, that is.

• Monorail ridership: 18,963 average riders per day during the summer months.

Monorail farebox revenue: $83,462 average per day.

Monorail promises: By mid-2007, things will have turned around!

Our promise: By mid-2007, we will have won the lottery, written a bestselling novel, gotten our own HBO show, be driving a Ferrari Carrozzeria Scaglietti, living in a house in Newport Beach, Calif., overlooking the Pacific Ocean with a screening room, walk-in humidor and 10,000-bottle wine cellar, and be overseeing the construction of our custom-made 120-foot ketch, the S.S. Enterprise.

Which promise has a greater chance of coming true: Ours. Did we mention that the Enterprise will have a towed-array sonar? Very cool, baby.

• Credit congressional candidate Dean Heller with having a lot of courage. Most candidates would shy away from President George W. Bush, not only because of his low approval rating, but also because of the fact that he’s been the worst president of the modern era.

Not Heller. He’s all about having Bush come to Nevada for a fund-raiser early next month at the Reno Air Center.

“He called me,” Heller told the Review-Journal. “The White House called and said, ‘What can we do to help?’ When the White House offers you help, you take it,” Heller said.

Or not. But in Heller’s case, why not? He agrees with the president’s stay-the-course “policy” in Iraq, he’s in favor of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and he favors torturing not only terror suspects, but also the Geneva Convention. Why, it’s like they’re the same person!

“It’s hard to be a Republican today. But I support President Bush,” Heller said.

Oh, it’s not that hard to be a Republican. You’ve just got to close your eyes real tight, put your fingers in your ears and yell “nine eleven” at the top of your voice, over and over and over again.

• Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Rose responded today to that Los Angeles Times series on corruption in the Silver State’s judicial system. You won’t believe who is being disciplined for the manifest conflicts uncovered by the paper’s dogged, years-long investigation.

No, seriously, you won’t believe it. Because nobody is being disciplined for anything.

Apparently, being a judge means never having to say you’re sorry.

Let’s call it penance.

That’s our explanation for the news conference today, featuring former Democratic governors Bob Miller and Richard Bryan, together with would-be governor Dina Titus.

The official purpose of the 2 p.m. get-together at Titus’ headquarters is to have the ex-governors “…draw from their own experience to discuss the issues of greatest importance to all Nevadans, and look to the future to assess implications of the current gubernatorial race.”

(We’re going to guess that both Miller and Bryan will say that, should U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons be elected instead of Titus, the state will be horribly, inexorably, irredeemably screwed like a Tijuana whore. Or words to that effect.)

But getting back to the point: Why penance?

Well, regular readers may remember the names of Miller and Bryan appeared on an “Open Letter to Nevada Democrats” published back in October, which in effect constituted a despicable pre-primary endorsement of Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. The letter sought to inoculate Gibson against Titus’ central campaign theme: that her Democratic Party bona fides were better than his.

Instigated by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the letter was also signed by former Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, and former Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa. The intent, although thinly disguised as a plea for Democratic unity, was to use the good names and good will of the signers to force Titus to abandon her attacks on Gibson and run a more-or-less milquetoast campaign.

It didn’t work. Titus kept up her assaults, and eventually won the primary by a very comfortable margin.

So now, it appears, it’s unity time. And while we’re fairly confident Titus hasn’t forgotten the letter, she certainly has forgiven at least a couple of its authors.

Is it just us, or does anybody else feel even a small twinge of sympathy for embattled Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald?

Although we’re mostly political opposites, we’ve always liked Boggs McDonald, starting when we covered her as a Las Vegas city councilwoman. She puts on no airs about playing hardball politics. She doesn’t have the politician’s duality. The Boggs McDonald you see in public is pretty much the same one that you’ll meet in private.

And, agree or not, she’s a crafty and resilient fighter for her beliefs. She takes no prisoners, as former Assemblyman David Goldwater learned when he found himself on the business end of Boggs McDonald’s campaign style in 2004.

We’re not endorsing her, of course. We disagree with her politics and we disagreed with her choice to accept a job on the Station Casinos board while serving as a councilwoman. We criticized her back in 2002 for unnecessarily injecting religion into a political debate. (True to form, when we mentioned her remarks at a roast of Mayor Oscar Goodman a year later, Boggs McDonald made sure to include us in her condemnation, punctuated with a popular obscene gesture. How could you not at least respect that?) But we don’t need to agree with somebody to sympathize with them when they end up in a bad place.

Lately, Boggs McDonald is fending off charges that she doesn’t really live in her district. The Culinary Union Local 226 (which dislikes her in part because of her Station Casinos connection) and the Metro Police Protective Association (which dislikes her for slamming the union when she didn’t get its endorsement) put a private investigator on her tail. The result: Weeks of video showing her coming and going to a home outside her district.

If true, it’s a serious allegation. Boggs McDonald signed a statement — under penalty of perjury — that she lives in District F. If it’s found she really lives (and lived, at the time she signed the statement) in District C, then that’s a serious matter. Voters, to the extent that they care, may take that out on her at the polls. (She’s up for re-election to the commission in November.)

And now, her soon-to-be-ex husband, Steven McDonald, is saying some very nasty things about her in their bitter divorce case. The papers are supposed to be sealed, but some were made public, and in a copyrighted story, the Review-Journal reported that Steven McDonald said his wife is “consumed and corrupted by politics” and should undergo a psychological evaluation.

What? A politician consumed by politics? An A husband being given the boot, saying his wife is nuts? Where have we heard that before? Oh, that’s right: Everywhere.

We’re amused, as always, at the reaction of some political professionals. UNLV political science professor David Damore said the story would hurt her. “Here’s the person she’s been married to saying all these horrible things,” he told the R-J. “Incumbents like to run on values, but this digs a little bit of a hole for her. This opens up charges of hypocrisy.”

Hardly. As we’ve said, Boggs McDonald is among the least hypocritical people in politics. She never claimed to have attended Sister Mary Margaret’s School of Meek Political Manners. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Some will argue that public figures cannot avoid scrutiny into their most private lives, and shouldn’t expect to avoid it. There’s probably something to that. But there’s also something to the notion of a little respect, a little human sympathy, in cases like this. (The R-J, it should be noted, reported the contents of some of the divorce file primarily in the context of reporting on the the residency question.)

All we’re saying is this: We actually feel bad for Boggs McDonald, being the target of a (legitimate) inquiry into where she really lives and of nasty, bitter allegations from her husband at the same time. But we’ve known Boggs McDonald for some time, and we know one of her strongest traits is resilience. We predict she’ll come out of this unbent, and still fighting.

Wait, you mean to tell us that Tessa Hafen bought a home in the 3rd Congressional District, just to run for Congress! Why, we’re outraged! What kind of a person would pick up from where he or she lived and move into a new home, just so they could be eligible to run for Congress?

How about U.S. Rep. Jon Porter? Yes, the same guy who’s got a new attack ad aimed at Hafen, saying she moved to Nevada just to run for Congress. (In truth, she grew up and went to high school here, but lived in Virginia for eight years while working for Nevada’s senior U.S. senator, Harry Reid.)

Porter, a former mayor and state senator from Boulder City, moved from that idyllic berg to nearby Henderson, so he could challenge U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley for Congress in 2000. Alas, Berkley opened a can of whoop-ass on the Republican, beating him 51 percent to 44 percent.

But Porter was in the middle of his state senate term, and returned to Carson City for the 2001 session. There, he had a keen interest in the fact that the 2000 census had awarded Nevada a brand-new seat in Congress. And who draws district lines for new seats in Congress? The Legislature!

In fact, it’s not just their privilege, it’s their duty. Article 4, Section 5 of the Nevada Constitution reads thus: “It shall be the mandatory duty of the legislature at its first session after the taking of the decennial census of the United States in the year 1950, and after each subsequent decennial census, to fix by law the number of senators and assemblymen, and apportion them among the several counties of the state, or among legislative districts which may be established by law, according to the number of inhabitants in them, respectively.”

The only problem was, the Legislature failed miserably in its mandatory duty, and the 120-day session came to an end without a reapportionment map in place.

Why?

How about then-state senator Jon Porter? Yes, the same guy who’s attacking Tessa Hafen for only recently moving back to the state and the city of her youth, by calling her “another political opportunist Nevada can’t trust.”

See, Porter and his now-campaign manager, Mike Slanker were heavily involved in drawing the new district lines for the new seat, dubbed the 3rd Congressional District. And when the Legislature didn’t finish on time, then-Assembly Speaker Joe Dini pointed the finger squarely at Porter.

“Dini charged the entire reapportionment plan died [in the 2001 regular session] because Porter was unhappy over ‘8,500 Democrat voters’ in the proposed third congressional district, an open seat,” the Review-Journal reported at the time. “Porter and Republicans wanted even party registration figures in the district, while the Democrats’ final offer was a district where they hold a 8,500-voter advantage.”

The response? An angry denial perhaps? Labeling the Democratic speaker a partisan hack, or perhaps “another political opportunist Nevadans can’t trust”?

Nope. Porter admitted it, and sheepishly said he was just trying to get better numbers in the district for which he’d already declared himself a candidate.

“Porter called Dini a friend, but said it is unfair for Democrats to try to gain such an advantage,” the R-J story goes on to say.

“‘I cannot understand why they won’t support a fair district, one that is 50-50 and allows candidates to run on their own merits,’ he said. ‘People are tired of politics as usual. Why don’t they want to be fair?’”

Why don’t they want to be fair? Geez, Porter, because they want to win! Nobody in politics or war ever asked for a fair fight, unless they were crazy or breathtakingly ill-informed. (Besides, the truth is, Slanker drew the 3rd Congressional District to be almost even in registration knowing that Republicans “perform” better on Election Day, which is to say, they turn out and vote. A 50-50 district, therefore, is a Republican district. Hardly “fair.”)

So essentially Porter’s objections threw the entire process awry, and forced the Legislature into a special session to write the redistricting plan. And that makes us wonder: The constitution says “It shall be the mandatory duty of the legislature at its first session after the taking of the decennial census…” And the first session after the census was the 2001 regular session. Therefore, the special session was the second session of the Legislature after the census. Does that make the plan invalid? And does that mean Porter’s not really a congressman? And that all his votes have to be taken back?

Oh, it’s probably too late to change all that. Porter did defeat Dario Herrera fair and square in 2002, and then Tom Gallagher in 2004. (In fact, Porter resurrects poor Gallagher’s photo to bash him before moving on to bash Hafen, calling them “out-of-state liberals.” Geez, Porter, live in the now!)

Oh, it’s probably too late to change all that now. We may as well live with it. Today, the district is still closely divided, with 145,391 Democrats, 143,825 Republicans, and 53,900 non-partisans. Which is why it seems the race is so closely fought.

In addition to video clips that appear to depict Hafen as a mischievous pixie, Porter’s latest ad slams her for taking a stipend from her campaign. It’s a perfectly legal practice; in fact, she could draw a salary equal to the pay offered by the office for which she’s running, currently $155,100. (She’s taking much less than that, however, her campaign says.)

It’s not like Porter hasn’t taken some of his own campaign money, either, albeit not in salary. He’s paid himself $3,497 this cycle alone for things like office supplies, telephone charges, office equipment maintenance and meals, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics. The site also shows expenditures to his daughter, Nicole Porter of Reno, in the amount of $747 for office supplies, postage and travel. And Porter’s estranged wife, Laurie, got $5,491 for things like — you guessed it — office supplies, travel and meals.

Geez, the Porter campaign goes through a lot of pens and pads of paper. They’re a Staples dream come true!

Anyway, the Hafen campaign shot back at the Porter ad with a news release calling Porter a “millionaire insurance salesman” and noting that he’s spent thousands on meals in restaurants in Washington, D.C., $10,000 on tickets to see U2 and $300,000 for Slanker’s services.

Wait, fancy restaurants? Cool concert seats? Three hundred large for consultants? Man, we think we got into the wrong business! We’re making peanuts toiling in our nondescript building in an industrial area near McCarran International Airport. Campaign consulting, that’s the ticket.

More info

You can download Porter’s ad from Vegas Pundit, the blog of my colleague Jon Ralston.

You can see Hafen’s response at her website.

You can find out more about Porter’s campaign at his website.

It’s understandable if you don’t remember Sylvia R. Lazos, a professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV. But people who pay really close attention will remember that she wrote an op-ed in the Review-Journal back in 2003, defending the Nevada Supreme Court’s infamous Guinn v. Legislature decision.

A little history

For those who don’t remember that travesty, here’s a brief summary: Back in 2003, the state Legislature was struggling to pass a budget. Money for every state function but education had already been approved, and all that remained was the education budget and a tax plan that would pay all the bills.

But a group of Republicans in the Assembly had enough votes — 15 — to keep the budget from being passed, thanks to a voter-approved requirement that said the Legislature needed a two-thirds vote to raise taxes.

When the budget deadline passed, Gov. Kenny Guinn sued, asking the state Supreme Court to force the Legislature to pass a tax plan that would fund the schools budget, which is also required by the state constitution. And that’s where things got horribly awry.

The justices, in essence, said the requirement to fund schools was a “substantive” requirement, whereas the requirement to get a two-thirds vote to raise taxes was a “procedural.” And the procedural must fall in the face of the substantive. It wasn’t so much overturning the express will of the voters as simply ignoring it.

The ruling was so bad, so shocking in its foolishness that even the Legislature ignored it, fearing a voter backlash. The court itself said the ruling shouldn’t be considered precedent, as clear a warning sign as any that it was flawed. Ultimately, the Legislature ignored it, too, approving a tax plan with a two-thirds majority. Meanwhile, Guinn v. Legislature spawned a series of unsuccessful appeals, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Enter Lazos, who asked the R-J if she could opine on the ruling. On July 22, 2003, she became the only person in the world — before or since — to describe the court’s ruling as “Solomonic” and to declare the justices were “public servants” for taking the political heat that the Legislature wouldn’t.

Her op-ed was filled with all sorts of questionable logic and misstatements of fact. For example, she scoffed at the initiative process, saying it takes but 10 percent of the voters to place an initiative on the ballot, and they’re easy to get approved “…if proponents do a good job of campaigning and persuading the public.” She forgot to say that it takes a majority of voters to approve an initiative and, in the case of the constitution-amending two-thirds requirement, two votes at two successive general elections.

She said that justices “see themselves as the ultimate keepers of the constitution and therefore guard outcomes of [the] heated political process, which may or may not comply with the constitution.” Then again, if the voters amend the constitution in the manner prescribed by the constitution, the amendment is, by definition, constitutional.

She asserted that the court merely interpreted the constitution and did not defy the voters. “The general intent of the voters may have been to limit government spending and taxes, but the mechanism through which this sentiment was put in place [the two-thirds initiative] altered the structure of government making it more likely that it lapse into bickering and gridlock.”

But the court didn’t have to guess what the voters intended. The voters told them what they intended! By passing the initiative, the clear message was that they wanted the Legislature to muster a two-thirds vote before it could raise taxes. The argument that it would gum up the works was made loud and clear during both campaigns for the initiative, in 1994 and 1996, and the voters decided to approve it anyway. And, since the education funding requirement is also a part of the constitution, we may further intuit that the voters wanted BOTH schools funded AND two-thirds majorities to raise taxes.

“Solomonic solution”? Only if by “Solomonic,” you mean “totally opposite of the wisdom of King Solomon.”

The final irony? After several appeals were rejected, and the issue had faded away, the state Supreme Court this month in an unrelated case overturned the central “substantive-procedural” holding in Guinn v. Legislature. “The Nevada Constitution should be read as a whole, so as to give effect to and harmonize each provision,” the court wrote.

Now that’s Solomonic.

Modern times

All of which brings us to today, where Lazos — now the Justice Myron Leavitt Professor of Law at Boyd — has once again taken to her keyboard to write yet another op-ed for the R-J. And once again, she’s defending the state Supreme Court.

How can she praise them for making the ruling and then praise them for overruling themselves? Good question. Let’s take a look.

• “There is another view. Nevada’s high court justices are doing a good job in crafting rules which make sure that the initiative process produces good laws.”

Yes, that’s another view all right. Here’s yet another: Tomorrow, we will ride to work on the back of a magical unicorn after first galloping to the end of a rainbow, where a nice leprechaun will give us his pot of gold along with a giant Hershey bar (with almonds) that won’t make us fat(ter) because, after all, it’s magic.

Of the two views, we’d say the unicorn-leprechaun-nonfat chocolate bar thing is more likely.

See, in the most recent cases, the state Supreme Court has been all over the map. We’ve blogged about it recently, so there’s no need to repeat what we’ve argued herein except for this: In one case (the Tax and Spending Control initiative) the court ruled that because it broke the rules, it would be stricken from the ballot. But in another case (the eminent domain/PISTOL initiative) it ruled that even though the initiative broke the rules, a modified version could still go on the ballot. The kicker? Those rulings were issued on the same day.

• “So in July 2003, Nevada justices did the job they were elected to do and took the heat for a political mess not of their own making.”

You know, something has always bothered us about statements like that. Because, in our view, the justices didn’t do their jobs; they did the opposite of what they should have done. And what they should have done was:

a.) Nothing. The court could simply have refused to intervene, saying that the constitutional requirements are plain, and the Legislature had a duty to act. Given that the Legislature ultimately did act, and in a constitutional way, a ruling that did great violence to one portion of the constitution simply wasn’t needed.

b.) Set a clock. The court could also have ruled that the Legislature had a certain number of days to pass a budget and a tax plan, perhaps 10 calendar days, after which the court would take action. This deadline may have given the Legislature more urgency in its deliberations.

c.) Drastically intervene, but do it in accordance with the constitution, not in contravention of it. If the court wanted to fix the problem, it could have said this: “As the third co-equal branch of government, we are not empowered to raise taxes or pass laws. Therefore, we hereby order that the money already appropriated by the Legislature for other state services immediately be used to fund the schools budget — at the same rate it was funded in the last biennium. The Legislature, if it wishes, may now go back and pass a tax plan to fund those things from which we just subtracted money. But since paying for schools is a fundamental requirement of the state constitution, and the Legislature is deadlocked, this extreme intervention is justified. Good night, and good luck.”

• “Fast forward to 2006. The court’s TASC and PISTOL decisions, like its decision in 2003, are aimed at ensuring that Nevada’s initiative process enhances democratic law making, rather than creates chaos,” Lazos wrote.

Please, professor: By applying different standards to similarly situated initiatives, and by making up constitutional law seemingly at whim, the court has gutted democratic lawmaking and in the process created chaos! TASC and PISTOL, the court found, violated initiative law at some point. Yet TASC was stricken while a modified version of PISTOL remains. Explain how that “enhances democratic law making”! And by ignoring, and then recognizing, a key constitutional provision, the court has created uncertainty about the state of almost every law in the state. How will the court rule on this, and will that ruling remain intact and for how long?

• “Under the Nevada Constitution, voters have a role in making law. Neither Guinn nor the most recent decisions undermine this principle. However, law drafting is an art that requires precision, whether the lawmaking is done by initiative or legislative process,” Lazos wrote.

How more precise can you get than this: “Except as otherwise provided in subsection 3, an affirmative vote of not fewer than two-thirds of the members elected to each House is necessary to pass a bill or joint resolution which creates, generates, or increases any public revenue in any form, including but not limited to taxes, fees, assessments and rates, or changes in the computation bases for taxes, fees, assessments and rates.” — Nevada Constitution, Article 4, Section 18(2).

It doesn’t take a “trained lawyer” to read and understand that. The voters read and understood it. They approved it. Twice. By large majorities, both times. Yet, when it was inconvenient, the Supreme Court rejected it. And yet Lazos argues that Guinn “doesn’t undermine” the principle that voters have a role in making law?

• “The TASC ruling abandons this doctrine [the substantive/procedural distinction], which in fact the Nevada court never applied post-Guinn. This partial overturning does not undermine the core of Guinn. Courts have the responsibility to make initiatives work and figure out the intent of the voter when voter-approved rules conflict with other constitutional provisions,” Lazos writes.

The core of Guinn was the substantive/procedural distinction, so yes, the core of Guinn was overturned. And it’s a good thing, too, since it rested on a legal foundation as firm as a house of cards in gale-force winds. And once again, the most obvious interpretation — that voters wanted schools funded AND a two-thirds vote to raise taxes — is the correct one.

• “Personal politics may lead one to disagree with this court’s decisions. But it is fair to conclude that Nevada’s justices are doing the job that they were elected to do, ensuring that Nevada’s form of democratic governance works in the real world,” Lazos concludes.

Oh, personal politics may lead one to disagree with the court’s ruling? How about this mind-blower: Personal politics WERE AT THE HEART OF the court’s decisions. Certainly, rules of logic and legal interpretation weren’t.

Let us add here that our personal politics are totally in line with the absurd results of the court’s rulings: We dislike and disagree with the two-thirds supermajority requirement to raise taxes. We wanted to see schools fully funded in 2003, and we wanted to see a tax plan pass. Those results are in line with our personal politics. But the method by which we get there — ignoring the constitution — is repugnant to the very rule of law itself, and a professor of law should hardly be heard to endorse the nonsense that would embarrass a first-year con law student.

Having said that, we agreed with the court that the TASC ruling should be stricken, for failing to comply with the statutes pertaining to initiatives. And we agreed with the court that the PISTOL initiative also failed to comply with initiative rules. Had we been on the court, we would have voted to strike both, under the same metric: Break the law, lose the ballot.

But the court didn’t do that. Once again, they made up the rules in a sorry, ad hoc game that has the rule of law at stake. We would think that everyone — trained lawyers or not — would see how dangerous that is.

Full disclosure: We at Various Things & Stuff are not trained lawyers. We got our legal education from watching L.A. Law, Law & Order, The Practice, JAG and from hanging out in courtrooms during a misspent youth writing for newspapers. Our views do not carry the force of law.

It was an eventful weekend folks — CityLife took home an impressive 13 first-place awards in the Nevada Press Association’s Better Newspapers Contest! Hooray for CityLife! All told, the paper took in 32 total awards. Our hearty congratulations to our colleagues up north at the Reno News & Review, who garnered the top prize — general excellence — along with a class-leading 34 individual honors. Good job, Reno!

Yet, despite the celebrating, we’ve still got work to do. And, as the classic commercial used to say, it’s time to make the Quick Hits. Here we go!

• Political pop quiz. True or false: The Nevada Republican Party is challenging congressional candidate Tessa Hafen over her residency. The answer is at the bottom! No peeking!

• Now, this is ironic. Last week, over at the Las Vegas Sun, reporter Abagail Goldman penned a story decrying the “navel-gazing gallery of local political consultants and pundits [who] are at full froth, grumbling and gloating that [Clark County Sheriff candidate Jerry] Airola’s campaign seems to be in some state of crisis — hiring and firing the help because the house isn’t clean.”

Wow. Somebody’s trying to impress the boss by writing exactly like him.

But who does Goldman quote later in her story. None other than one of those self-same, navel-gazing local pundits, George “The Knappster” Knapp! And where did the Knappster’s writings appear? Why, in CityLife, of course, a little fact that Goldman seems to have forgotten.

We love the navel-gazing Knappster around here, mostly because his navel contains the best stories in town, including the one about Airola allegedly exaggerating his academic credentials while running a water-purification business, the way it’s alleged he did with his law-enforcement background. That’s a navel-gazing scoop, Knappster!

(By the way, congrats to our own Knappster for winning the second place award for best explanatory journalism in the aforementioned press association contest for his collaboration with us on the blockbuster story about the Las Vegas Monorail, “Juice Train.” We couldn’t have done it without the Knappster and his miracle navel.)

• Only in Nevada, folks.

The law: “It is unlawful for any person to take all or part of any tips or gratuities bestowed upon his employees. … Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to prevent such employees from entering into an agreement to divide such tips or gratuities among themselves.” (NRS 608.160)

The facts: The Wynn Las Vegas has decided to take the tips earned by casino dealers and put them into a combined pool, from which they are divided among all customer-service employees, including those who supervise dealers. (Employees were reluctant to leave more lucrative dealers’ jobs to become supervisors, lest they lose tip income.) Scores of dealers complained to the state labor commissioner, charging the practice was illegal.

The result: Labor Commissioner Michael Tanchek ruled it was … perfectly OK! As long as the tips are being divided among customer service personnel, and nobody else, the practice isn’t illegal, he said.

The spin: “We believe in the program, and we believe it was the right thing to do for our property. We wouldn’t have implemented it if we didn’t think it was lawful. The most important thing we can do right now is press ahead, continue to provide information and answer questions and hope that people make a judgment based on real information.” — Wynn Las Vegas President Andrew Pascal

The kicker: $273.4 million — second-quarter 2006 revenue of Wynn Resorts

• Quotable: “Even though we waived the appeal in San Diego, that should not be taken as a concession that he committed a crime down there.” — Attorney Dominic Gentile, on one of the terms of client Lance Malone’s plea bargain in the G-sting corruption case.

Oh, no, counselor. We would never assume that Malone admits his guilt. You will forgive us, however, if we go ahead and infer his guilt from the fact that HE WAS CONVICTED BY A JURY IN SAN DIEGO, won’t you?

• U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons is downright offended that state Sen. Dina Titus would dare question how he represents his constituents, including the big, fat corporate donor ones.

Sure, Gibbons has taken $262,839 from energy and natural resources interests over his career, according to OpenSecrets.org, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics. Sure, he’s taken more than $685,000 from miscellaneous business interests during his tenure on Capitol Hill. Sure, six of his top 10 contributors are either gambling or mining companies.

But aren’t they people, too?

“Corporations such as the mining industry and the gaming [sic] industry are very important to the state of Nevada. I do a lot of work for them. They employ a large amount of people. Their voices need to be represented. But I have never sold my office for a political contribution. I have never sold my vote,” Gibbons told the Review-Journal.

Oh, heavens no. There was that business about jawboning the Delta Air Lines lobbyist and then getting a job offer quickly thereafter, but that’s totally different from selling the office. That’s leveraging the office. Or something.

Anyway, we’re amused to see this business about “their voices need to be represented.” See, we always thought their voices are represented, because they have huge amounts of money to spend on lawyers, lobbyists and political contributions. It’s the regular folk who have voices that aren’t generally represented who need someone to speak for them.

Is there anybody out there in the governor’s race who’s for that?

• U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, admits taking bribes from people including disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In response, U.S. Rep. Jon Porter agrees to follow his own policy and donate the $11,000 or so he’s received from Ney to charity.

The real sorry thing: That Porter needs to have a policy about what to do with contributions from felonious colleagues in the first place.

• North Las Vegas is apparently ready to ask voters if they think the First Amendment should apply in their city. We’re guessing the answer will be no.

• And finally today, the answer to the political pop quiz is: False! The Nevada Republican Party isn’t challenging Hafen’s residency; in fact, the party is claiming she broke the law when she voted in Nevada elections from 1998 to 2004, while she was living in Virginia and working for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.

But the party says in its complaint to the Clark County registrar of voters that “It should be equally clear that we do not challenge Ms. Hafen’s right to vote in the 2006 election. She appears to be residing here in Nevada at the moment.”