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Institute defends challenge to public employees' right to serve in Legislature
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU
Updated: Dec. 2, 2011 | 1:38 p.m.
CARSON CITY -- The face of a conservative Las Vegas think tank's lawsuit challenging the right of public employees to serve in the Legislature is a former Republican operative who in published reports has called President Barack Obama "corrupt" and his administration "Marxist."
Despite such statements by William Pojunis, the Clark County Republican Party's former communications director, Nevada Policy Research Institute spokesman Victor Joecks said Thursday that the lawsuit is not a political move designed to punish Democrats in the Legislature. Pojunis now is communications director for the Nevada Libertarian Party.
"This is a constitutional issue," Joecks said. "We don't go to our clients and ask their philosophical positions. It is a constitutional issue, and that is what the court will rule on."
The institute and Pojunis filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Carson City District Court in which they contend that the Nevada Constitution's separation of powers clause blocks state Sen. Mo Denis, the likely Democratic leader of the Senate at the next legislative session, from holding a state job. Denis is a computer technician for the Public Utilities Commission.
They are seeking an injunction to force Denis out of his state job.
State Democratic Party representatives and legislators did not respond Thursday to requests for comment on Pojunis and the lawsuit.
At a news conference Wednesday, Becker said nine other legislators, seven of them Democrats, also should relinquish the public employee jobs if they want to remain in the Legislature. The others, however, are not mentioned in the lawsuit.
In response to reporters' questions, NPRI lawyer Joseph Becker said Wednesday the lawsuit was not politically motivated, although many of the legislators they want to force from their jobs are liberal Democrats. He instructed Pojunis not to identify his political party, although Pojunis said he had not been involved in political campaigns in the past.
Instead the institute said Pojunis, 66, is an unemployed computer technician with 25 years of experience who wants to apply for Denis' Public Utilities Commission job. But the job, held by Denis since 1993, is not open.
A check Thursday showed Pojunis has been a member of the Clark County Republican executive board and the state Republican Party Central Committee. As communications director, he regularly attacked Democrats. The Clark County Republican Party said Pojunis left his communications director position a year ago .
Pojunis did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.
Denis said Thursday he has not yet been served the lawsuit and would have no comment on it at this time. He said friends had made him aware of Pojunis' political background, but he declined to criticize him for not revealing this information at the Wednesday news conference.
Joecks said neither Becker nor Pojunis lied to reporters and his political leanings have nothing to do with the lawsuit.
"We didn't bring it up because the lawsuit is over a specific legal issue: that Senator Denis has violated the rights of Bill Pojunis by unconstitutionally holding an executive branch job while serving in the state Legislature," Joecks said in an email. "If we start introducing irrelevant issues like political affiliation, where do we stop? Religion? Marital status?"
Contact Capital Bureau Chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.
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"Denis is a computer technician for the Public Utilities Commission." How would you like to be the supervisor of this guy? You would NOT be able to manage his workload, attendance, performance or pay. The PUC brass wants this guy in the legislature for obvious reasons. It's the fair-haired boy situation. You and your other employees would be in a lose-lose position.
It seems that once some people get that taste at the never empty trough of tax dollars they sometimes become morbidly obese from it and want more and more. Just sayin.
I don't care what political party, if any, a public employee is associated with. They cannot serve two masters at the same time.
"DOUBLE DIPPING SCOUNDRELS" --- But, Hey, this is Nevada. Taxpayers "LOVE TO BE RIPPIED OFF - THAT'S WHY THEY KEEP ELECTING THE S O S OVER, AND OVER, AGAIN AND AGAIN"
What's with you people? The Nevada Constitution says no one may hold a job in two branches of government!!! It's called checks and balances. It's the law. If you don't like it, change it.
I realize that you need "standing" to sue, but it's laughable that someone wanting your government job qualifies.
This is only a manufactured (test) case, but it still gives libertarians a bad name. Pojunis is a member of a political party which is supposed to stand for small government, but here he is, using the much-abused judicial system (a government solution) ostensibly to force another agency of the government to hire him as a bureaucrat.
Neo-liberalism.
Meet Karen Gray
Education Researcher [CHORTLE!]
Karen Gray is an education researcher at NPRI and has been with the Institute since June 2008. Karen has an associate's degree in legal assistance from the Community College of Southern Nevada (now the College of Southern Nevada).
That's it! It's a "think tank"! Yeah! A "think tank"! Dat's da ticket!
Have a gander at the credentials of the characters comprising this self-described "think tank", the "Nevada Policy Research Institute".
http://www.npri.org/about/npri-staff
CHORTLE!
We ain't talkin' Brookings or the RAND Corporation here. Not a PhD in the bunch, only one or two master's, and some of these clowns don't even have a bachelor's.
One "thinker", however, is purported to make a mean batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Would a table of beer chuggers sharing a pitcher at the back table of Frankie's Tiki Room near UMC qualify as a "think tank"?
I mean, they're conservative, they're thinking, and they're getting tanked.
So what is it exactly, that make this gaggle of Republibaggers, the "Nevada Policy Research Institute", a "think tank" as opposed to, say, the Frankie's Tiki Room Policy Research Institute?
public employees are citizens of this state...they are part of the electorate...and when one group wants to deny rights to a part of the voting public is that not the reason this country was founded....taxation without representation...liberty and freedom are great buzzwords for your party but I guess they don't apply to all of us