The 2009 Conservative Legislative agenda

In my last column I took a look at the bad and the ugly: Proposed legislative Bill Draft Requests (BDRs) that will either grow the size and expense of government or were trivial, foolish, silly wastes of time " like Republican Assistant Assembly Minority

Leader Lynn Stewart's proposed bill to designate an official state bug. This week let's take a look at some good BDRs by the shrinking number of true, limited-government conservatives who will be serving in the Legislature this year.

Sen. Barbara Cegavske is again introducing a bill to provide scholarships for parents of children with autism and other learning disabilities so they can send their children to the school of their choice " public or private.

Over in the Assembly, Ed Goedhart has proposed a similar, but more universal, school choice bill to provide education tax rebates to any parent to send any child to any school of their choice for any reason. Goedhart also has submitted a BDR, which would require a 2⁄3 super-majority vote of the people to approve future ballot initiatives that raise taxes.

Assemblyman Ty Cobb has a BDR requiring that heads of households who receive welfare assistance "must accept certain employment." Another seeks to defuse the ticking fiscal time bomb of the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) by providing for the use of 401(k)-like plans for state workers. Yet another bill would provide for the "forfeiture of any pension and retirement benefit of a public employee or officer who steals funds, misuses his office or commits a job-related felony."

Assemblyman James Settelmeyer has a bill eliminating the requirement for counties to "publish a list of expenditures in a newspaper." All that paper and ink costs a pretty penny. No reason why that same info can't simply be posted for peanuts on a Web site.

Settelmeyer also has requested a bill to restrict the cost-inflating prevailing wage welfare program for organized labor to certain counties. Oh, and if you're reading this column while chowing down on a cold bowl of Wheaties, he also has a BDR which would cut expensive taxpayer-funded hot breakfasts for prisoners.

Assemblyman Don Gustavson is back in the Legislature and is once again championing a bill that champions personal freedom and choice by repealing the state's mandatory helmet law for motorcyclists. He also has requested approval of a special license plate that shows support for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Oh, and while so many of his colleagues are contemplating where and how to raise taxes, as best as I can figure Gustavson has requested the only bill to actually reduce the tax burden on Nevadans by eliminating the state excise tax. What a right-wing extremist.

Meanwhile, freshman Assemblyman John Hambrick has introduced a common-sense bill that, amazingly, is even necessary. It requires that taxpayer-funded public schools let non-profit youth sports programs use their taxpayer-funded athletic fields when the schools aren't using them. Go figure.

And freshman Assemblyman Dick McArthur is sponsoring a bill to make English the official language of Nevada's government. Which means you won't be able to take your driver's test in Mandarin Chinese.

This year's go-along-to-get-along GOP leadership team has once again been naively sucked into promising to work cooperatively with Democrat leaders in the hope of getting their bills heard and passed. It will be interesting to see how many of the above conservative bills ever see the light of day " let alone get a hearing and a floor vote " in return for appeasing and rubber stamping the opposition's liberal policy agenda.

My guess: None.

But Stewart's bug bill probably has a shot.

- Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a non-profit public policy grassroots advocacy organization. He can be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.com