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Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

MORE SHENANIGANS: It's called "leave without pay," folks. Look into it.

Let's just say it: Any employee of a state agency or local government who serves in the Legislature MUST take leave without pay from his public payroll job. And that's at a minimum. It is the only honest, ethical and legal way to resolve the conflicts that come with the dual roles.

Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, a county worker, apparently did take leave without pay, but an investigation sparked by a request for payroll records by the Review-Journal found that she still put in for pay while serving. Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson apparently did not put in for leave without pay, and racked up a larger number of days where he's shown on the legislative and county payrolls.

That's called "double-dipping," and it's a violation of county rules, which are now being amended to specifically state that any county worker who heads to Carson City to serve must take leave without pay. The fact that such common sense honesty must be written down shows how big a problem this has become.

And by the way, Atkinson's claim that he's being targeted because he voted against allowing county commissioners--his ultimate bosses in his full-time job--to raise their salaries only makes the case against public employees stronger. The fact that a county employee becomes the boss of his bosses for a few months every other year throws a major kink into the concept of a chain of command. And if Atkinson had done nothing wrong, there would be nothing to accuse him of in the first place, no?

In any case, if Atkinson and McClain are disciplined by the county, part of that discipline should be to repay taxpayers every dime they received while also drawing their legislative pay.

QUOTABLE: "Re-defeat Bush."--From lawn signs that have been appearing in advance of the 2004 elections, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. The bumper sticker features the 2000 vote totals, which show Al Gore winning almost 500,000 more popular votes than the "president."

Steve Sebelius writes a daily e-mail newsletter, the E-Briefing, from which Democracy in Peril is excerpted. To subscribe to the E-Briefing at a Mercury reader special price of $20 per year, go to www.lasvegas- mercury.com/ebriefing.