Educated constituents who follow the accomplishments of their state senators and assembly members will know how to vote on Election Day.

The list of long-term senators and Assembly members listed in your article have demonstrated their accountability, their representativeness, their decision-making capability, and their effective performance for many years. They have earned their standing on legislative committees, they work hard, they do their homework and they are responsive to the constituents who elect them.

There are many shorter-term senators and Assembly members who have been voted out of office by constituents for a variety of reasons.

If you have term limits after six to 12 years of office, you are punishing the constituents by removing legislators who have the intelligence and desire to do service that benefit all of us.

I do hope the courts review the term limit constitutional amendment and overturn it.

Kathleen M. Dickinson

HENDERSON

THE WRITER IS PRESIDENT OF THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, LAS VEGAS VALLEY.

Power source

To the editor:

So, Harry Reid opposes the proposed power plants in White Pine County. My electric bill is high enough already, and he wants to make it higher by fighting new power sources? I can guarantee that if Harry Reid succeeds in stopping new power plants, the result will be higher energy costs.

Personally, I don't care where the power plants are located or whether they are coal-fired or nuclear. I want cheaper electricity. Some readers published recently in the Review-Journal disagree. Maybe they should help me pay my electric bill.

Harvey Eastman

LAS VEGAS

Healthy kids

To the editor:

Press reports may be raising fears that American children will lose their health insurance because of a debate in Washington over renewing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). President Bush supports reauthorizing this important program for low-income children with enough new funding to ensure that no one currently enrolled loses coverage. His budget also calls for enough funding so that eligible children not already enrolled can be covered.

But the Senate and House are each proposing bills calling for a massive expansion of the program to those in higher-income families, moving them from private insurance onto public assistance.

The president does not support those proposals, which would more than double SCHIP spending and extend eligibility to millions of children who already have private insurance or whose parents earn enough to afford private insurance. Do we really want to force taxpayers to pay for government insurance for children whose parents earn $70,000 or $80,000 a year? That's what this bill would do.

The bills proposed by Congress are not about helping low-income children; they're about using SCHIP to stage a gradual government takeover of American health care. Some members of Congress have said publicly that this is what they intend, but neither the president nor the American people will stand for it.

Congress should stop trying to use SCHIP to provide coverage for those who can afford it on their own and concentrate on keeping its commitment to the low-income children SCHIP is meant to help.

Tom Lorentzen

SAN FRANCISCO

THE WRITER IS A REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Growth problem

To the editor:

Recent letter writers Bob Fulkerson of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and Tom Keller -- and other like-minded, well-meaning folks hyperventilating over existing lawns in Southern Nevada -- need to realize that grass does not threaten rural Nevada's water. As any fool can plainly see, the threat is population growth.

For several years now, we've been tearing out our lawns, hoping to see the lake start rising again. But it just keeps dropping. Now they're even telling us we need a "longer straw" and a billion-dollar (or two) pipeline. It can't be just the grass, can it?

No folks, it's not the grass. It's all those skyscrapers and miles and miles of new grass-free houses. The demand for more and more water will continue as long as growth continues. Tearing up lawns will not reduce the threat to rural Nevada water one bit.

Turf reduction is just a public relations ploy. It makes us think we're saving water, when actually all the water "saved" -- and much more -- just goes into those skyscrapers and new houses. Also, a brown metropolis in Southern Nevada instead of a green one helps the water authority convince rural Nevadans that we really, really need their water. See how we're sacrificing down here just to get by (while we're getting richer and richer from our obscene growth)?

It's odd that PLAN would actually help the water authority build its case for rural water by urging that we take out our grass to pretend that we are using water "wisely."

Hey guys: It's not grass that doesn't belong in the desert. It's people.

STAN CLOUD

HENDERSON