Thursday, April 10, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Backstory: Beware of April fools

By Michael Green

April Fools' Day is supposed to last only as long as April 1. But by the end of the first week of the month, some had taken foolishness to new levels:

¥ Sen. John Ensign proposed prohibiting French and German companies from being involved in rebuilding Iraq. He argued that their actions have led to the loss of American lives (so, by the way, have those of his party's leaders). Ensign backed down at the request of the White House and after criticism from senators who actually have served on the Foreign Relations Committee. A spokeswoman for his friend and colleague, Sen. Harry Reid, pointed out that some Nevadans work for those French and German companies.

Ensign's stand is saddening for several reasons. One is its shortsightedness. Even White House officials, who seem to think the United States capable of cleaning up this one-horse planet without help from anyone else, know they will need these countries again someday.

Another is that Ensign tends to support the views of conservative Republicans who believe the Constitution was etched in granite in 1787. The idea that the founders' "original intent" applies today is foolish in the extreme, but one of their goals was for the Senate to serve as a wiser, more deliberative body than the House. After all, representatives have to answer to the voters every two years. Senators have six years--and, originally, state legislatures elected them because the founders distrusted the people's wisdom. For Ensign to introduce this legislation hardly reflects the ideal that senators should use their accumulated intelligence.

But we could take Ensign's position to its logical conclusion and refuse to allow French and German tourists to visit Nevada. We also could send back immigrants, say, Basque families from the French Pyrenees, such as the Laxalts, who merely include both a previous Republican senator and one of the most distinguished writers Nevada has produced.

¥ Assemblyman Joe Hardy of Boulder City tried to amend a bill so that pharmacists could refuse to fill prescriptions for religious and ethical reasons. He was thinking of the "morning after" pill, which stops ovulation and thus anti-choice groups view as a form of abortion.

Making Hardy's foolishness especially frightening, he is a doctor. Even his party's leader, Republican Lynn Hettrick of Gardnerville, disagreed, pointing out that doctors should decide what drugs are to be taken, not pharmacists.

Actually, pharmacists sometimes know more about the value and effects of a drug than the doctor who prescribes it, and even double-check with the doctor. And you may have been told you cannot take a particular drug because your insurance company won't allow it--a subject that should concern Hardy, as a doctor and a legislator, far more than allowing a pharmacist not to do the job for which he or she has been trained.

For a doctor to want to give this kind of power to a pharmacist is alarming. As for Hardy's bill, he probably has little use for lawyers, especially amid discussions of medical malpractice. But a lawyer knows a law may be read many ways. Look at it the other way: What if a doctor takes the same stand? What if a doctor or a pharmacist decides that, say, hemorrhoids are objectionable and won't treat you? Where does this foolishness stop?

¥ Clark County commissioners seemed particularly aggrieved at having to vote to give pay raises to county employees. With a linguistic shrug of her shoulders, Myrna Williams said that "we have collective bargaining, so what are you going to do?"

Maybe because she is known for some liberal ideas, maybe because she represents a district with a lot of union members, but Williams might be expected to do better. Granting that we cannot know all of the discussion, she should have shouted to the heavens that government workers, especially in the safety areas, often have been paid less than they should be. She also might have said that the right to bargain collectively is one for which workers have fought and died, so if it sometimes doesn't work, it's the price we pay for having an imperfect system.

Chip Maxfield told the R-J the state law requiring collective bargaining with local government employees "ties the hands of the government to negotiate more realistic raises." Of course, every boss at every kind of job would give workers a raise whenever they needed it. If Maxfield thinks that is the case, he should learn a little more about the history of American labor and the working class, in Las Vegas and elsewhere. If Maxfield wants to know how well people are paid when they have no collective bargaining, he might ask casino dealers who make, at best, just above the minimum wage, or workers whose forebears worked from dawn to dusk daily to make enough money to put stale bread on their tables.

Yet Williams and Maxfield are right. The system isn't perfect. For proof, look at our April fools.