Testimony from the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections Re: SJR3 March 2, 2015 Bob Miller: I support S.J.R. 3. From 1987 to 1989, I was Lieutenant Governor of the State. The Governor at that time was Richard Bryan. We did not run as a ticket, but we were both of the same political party. At that time, besides presiding over the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor chaired the Commissions on Economic Development and Tourism. Because Governor Bryan and I had a good relationship, he assigned various duties and additional responsibilities to me. One assignment was chairing a task force studying the May 4, 1988, Las Vegas Valley explosion of the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada, commonly called PEPCON. Our relationship was a good example of having two individuals trust each other and work together. In 1989, I became Governor and held that office for the next 10 years. During that time, I had three Lieutenant Governors, the first of which was me, since I was both Lieutenant Governor and Governor. That worked well as I seldom disagreed with myself. The other two Lieutenant Governors were both Republicans—Sue Wagner and Lonnie Hammargren. Lieutenant Governor Wagner and I had a good relationship with a significant element of trust between us. She had a limited number of responsibilities, which was characteristic of us having not run as a ticket. The latter 4 years of my term with Lieutenant Governor Hammargren were quite a bit different. During that time, the State was uniformly opposed to bringing nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. While I was at a national governors’ out of state, there was an opening on the Lincoln County Commission. Lieutenant Governor Hammargren decided it was an opportune moment for him to select a person in Lincoln County to fill the vacancy with someone in favor of sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. When I returned, I immediately reversed the appointment, which ended the issue. The historical role of the Lieutenant Governor is now less involved than when I was a Lieutenant Governor. However, it is to the State’s advantage to have a Lieutenant Governor who has run for office with the Governor so the two of them can plot out a course where the Lieutenant Governor could have more responsibility. This way, he or she could be a right hand and replace the Governor in meetings and other activities when necessary. If we bring S.J.R. 3 forward, the voters can decide if this is a better system than the one we have now. .