The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled in favor of four Democratic state legislators whose work in other public sector jobs spurred a lawsuit alleging a violation of the state Constitution's separation of powers clause. 

In a 4-3 ruling issued Thursday, the court determined that the four legislators — who work as teachers, a public defender and for higher education institutions — did not violate the state Constitution's prohibition of working for multiple branches of state government because none of their employers are part of the judicial or executive branches. The remaining three justices disagreed with this interpretation and said the case should be sent back to a lower court for further discussion.

The ruling caps off a yearslong legal battle between the legislators and the Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI) — a libertarian-leaning think tank that filed the lawsuit in 2020 — and further clarifies what types of employment are permissible for state legislators under the Nevada Constitution. The Legislature only meets once every two years, meaning that legislators typically have other jobs on top of their elected positions. 

In a statement Thursday, Bradley Schrager, a lawyer representing two of the legislators, said it “is a complicated issue, and it led to a complicated opinion, but the bottom line is that NPRI’s fanatical misreading of the state constitution was rejected in favor of the ability to serve in a citizen legislature.”

Despite the defeat, NPRI President John Tsarpalas said in a statement that it “sets a lasting precedent, ensuring that such breaches of trust will not happen again,” a reference to the precedent established that legislators cannot also hold roles in state government.

“Today’s decision by the Nevada Supreme Court is a powerful reminder that positions of authority are meant to serve the public good,” the statement said.

The four legislators in question are Assemblywomen Selena Torres (D-Las Vegas) and Brittney Miller (D-Las Vegas), who work as teachers in the Clark County School District; Sen. James Ohrenschall (D-Las Vegas), who is a public defender in Clark County; and Sen. Dina Neal (D-North Las Vegas), who works for Nevada State University and the College of Southern Nevada.

The lawsuit initially included two other Democratic legislators — Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) and Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas) — who worked as Clark County prosecutors, but they left their jobs during the course of the litigation and were dropped from the lawsuit.

The ruling upheld a Clark County District Court’s decision from January 2023, which NPRI appealed to the high court. 

The Nevada Constitution states that the government is divided into three branches — executive, legislative and judicial — and that “no persons charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any functions, appertaining to either of the others, except in the cases expressly directed or permitted in this constitution.”

Justices affirmed the importance of this principle and said "the independence of each department from coercive influence by another” is integral to preserving the integrity of the Constitution and that “separation of these powers stands as perhaps the most vital constitutional principle.”

The majority ruled that the four legislators were in the clear because their employers — for Clark County and the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) — are not within or doing the work of the executive branch. 

“While respondents are members of the Nevada Legislature, they are not also employed within the executive department and do not exercise the constitutional authority of the executive department in the other positions they occupy,” said the majority’s opinion, which was authored by Justice Lidia Stiglich.

However, in their own opinions, Justices Douglas Herndon, Kristina Pickering and Patricia Lee had different interpretations of the separation of powers doctrine, and said the issue should be sent back to the district court for further discussion. 

Herndon and Lee, for example, said the majority’s evaluation of the separation of powers doctrine was too simple — and that just because a legislator’s employer may not be affiliated with the other branches of state government, their job responsibilities may violate the doctrine.

“I instead believe that the respondents must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine whether they each individually exercise executive power in their non-legislative role, thus violating the separation of powers,” Lee wrote.

Read the full decision below:

Updated on 11/1/2024 at 8:05 a.m. to include a statement from NPRI.