STATE CONSTITUTION DOESN’T REQUIRE REASON FOR RECALL

son’s point about the difficulty of taking a recall effort against a Nevada legislator to the finish line.

“It is not something where you can open the floodgates and anybody can do this,” Hutchison said. “It is so expensive and so difficult.”

History backs up Hutchison’s assertion. Nevada has seen 150 recall efforts to remove elected officials from office since 2005. But in that 14-year span, no recall efforts targeting a state legislator have succeeded.

Starting a recall petition drive, however, is easy. Lawmakers don’t have to do anything wrong to get a recall drive started against them, Hutchison said.

“The Nevada Constitution does not have a malfeasance or misfeasance requirement (to start a recall),” Hutchison said. “Any elected official can be recalled for any reason. And in fact, there is no requirement in terms of why they are being recalled or justification to be recalled.”

Recall backers need only to file a statement with the secretary of state to get the recall ball rolling,” Hutchison said. The big issue here is only that the filed statement not exceed 200 words.

“There is no requirement that somebody be involved in some outrageous conduct,” Hutchison said.

Nevada residents don’t even have to wait to see if the lawmaker is doing a good job before starting a recall, Hutchison said.

“The Constitution specially provides that the recall can be started for an assemblyman or a state senator within 10 days after their first legislative session begins,” he said. “All other elected officials, it is six months.”

The original reasons for recalling the two Democratic senators remain vague. Backers of the petition were not readily available to media during the past eight months, according to various newspaper articles about the recalls.

Hutchison did not shed any new light on the reasons for recall.

“That is something you see by looking at the statements filed by the committees to recall,” Hutchison said. “Under the Nevada Constitution, the only thing that Nevada voters need to recall their elected officials is to file a statement.”

The language of the petition against Woodhouse stated she supported policies to raise taxes, cut jobs, expand the size of government — plus raise sales taxes and car registration fees. She was also accused of making it easier for felons to vote, hiding information about her government pension and blocking education reforms.

The Cannizzaro petition stated her husband was a paid lobbyist and during the 2017 session, Cannizzaro voted multiple times for bills that would help her husband’s clients.

The petition also mentioned Cannizzaro’s advocacy for sanctuary cities, allowing criminals to sue the state when force is used against them and making it easier for felons to hide criminal records. Like Woodhouse, she was also accused of blocking education reforms.

Hutchison defended himself when asked about representing the recall backers in court when serving as Nevada’s lieutenant governor.

“You’ve got to start with the fact that the executive director of the Nevada Commission on Ethics was already asked this and she said she didn’t see any conflict at all,” he said.

Hutchison also cited Nevada’s system of a “citizens’ legislature” where lawmakers also have outside jobs.

“The citizens of this state can decide if they want to have a fulltime legislature and say that you can’t have an outside job,” he said. “That is not what we have now or have had. State senators, assembly members and the lieutenant governor are free to pursue their professional pursuits. And that is expected and that is anticipated by the law.”

Hutchison evoked the name of the late former Nevada Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-reno, to reiterate his point.

“As you remember, Sen. Raggio was a lawyer,” he said. “Sen. Raggio was the majority leader of the state Senate and was the chairman of the finance committee. Yet he regularly appeared before various Nevada agencies, (including) the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

“He controlled their budgets, but there was never an issue because he was viewed as a private lawyer, practicing in his realm of the practice of law. And it was different and apart from his public responsibilities. So this is something that has been recognized for decades and was not ever been viewed as a problem in the past.”