Mayor City Manager

John J. Lee Ryann Juden

Council Members
Isaac E. Barron
Pamela A. Goynes-Brown
Scott Black
Richard J. Cherchio

CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE • MICAELA RUSTIA MOORE, CITY ATTORNEY

2250 Las Vegas Boulevard, North • Suite #810 • North Las Vegas, Nevada 89030
Telephone: (702) 633-1050 • Fax: (702) 649-8879 • TDD: (800) 326-6868
www.cityofnorthlasvegas.com

January 25, 2022

Kristen Rhynes, Program Officer I—Elections Division

Office of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara K. Cegavske
101 North Carson Street, Suite 3
Carson City, NV 89701
Via email: rhynesk@sos.nv.gov

Re: January 21, 2022 Email Inquiry to City Clerk Jackie Rodgers

Dear Ms. Rhynes,

Jackie Rodgers referred your January 21, 2022 inquiry regarding Councilwoman Pamela Goynes-
Brown to my office for review. While I do not believe that the City has received a direct inquiry
from your office on this matter, your office has previously referred inquiries on this matter to my
office. In response to your inquiry, please see my analysis below.

The City Charter and the NRS are silent as to term limits for local government elected officials.
Article 15, Section 3(2) of the Nevada Constitution provides a limitation on the ability of members
of a local governing body to run for an elected office on the same local governing body after
serving on that body for twelve (12) years or more. Article 15, Section 3 of the Nevada Constitution
states:

Sec. 3. Eligibility for public office.

1. No person shall be eligible to any office who is not a qualified
elector under this Constitution.
2. No person may be elected to any state office or local governing
body who has served in that office, or at the expiration of his current
term if he is so serving will have served, 12 years or more, unless
the permissible number of terms or duration of service is otherwise
specified in this Constitution.
This provision prohibits a person from being elected to a local governing body if the person 1) has
served in that office for 12 years or more; or 2) at the expiration of his/her current term if the
person is so serving will have served 12 years or more. This imposes a 12-year cap for purposes
of eligibility to run for an office on a local governing body and is not a time cap for the purposes
of serving on a state office or local governing body.

Neither the City Councilmembers nor the Mayor are subject to a total limit of three terms
specifically. However, if a City Councilmember or the Mayor has actually served 12 years or more,
the City Council member or Mayor would be ineligible to run for an office on that local governing
body again.

While the City’s Charter appears to distinguish the offices of Mayor and Councilmembers under
Sections 2.010 and 2.015, the Nevada Supreme Court, in the case of Lorton v. Jones, 130 Nev. 51
(2014), compared North Las Vegas’ City Charter to Reno’s City Charter in the sense that the
Mayor is a member of Council and Council is the local governing body of the City; thus, the two
positions of Mayor and Councilmember are both part of the governing body. Id. Therefore, the
positions of Mayor and City Councilmember are likely not two distinguishable positions on the
local governing body of the City, and serving for 12 years or more in one of these positions would
preclude the same person from running for the other position.

Pursuant to the language of the Nevada Constitution and the Nevada Supreme Court’s
interpretation thereof, Councilwoman Pamela Goynes-Brown is legally eligible to run for North
Las Vegas Mayor in the 2022 election.

Councilwoman Goynes-Brown was initially elected to Ward 2 in North Las Vegas on June 7, 2011.
She was elected to a second term in 2015 and a third term in 2019. As of June 7, 2022,
Councilwoman Goynes-Brown will have served on the North Las Vegas City Council for only 11
years. The election for Mayor takes place in 2022, and therefore, because Councilwoman Goynes-
Brown will not have served 12 years or more at the time of a successful election, and because she
will not serve 12 years as a councilmember if she is elected to Mayor, she can be elected to the
position of Mayor.

Additionally, as you are aware, your office proposed AB50 during the 2019 Nevada Legislative
Session, which passed in that session and changed all municipal elections to fall on the even-
numbered year election cycle to correspond with the state and federal elections. In implementing
this change, the Nevada Legislature extended all current terms of local governing body officials
by 1 year to transition each municipality to the even-year election cycle. If the Nevada
Constitution’s Article 15, Section 3(2) was an absolute time cap for the purposes of serving on a
state office or local governing body, then the implementation of AB50 would be unconstitutional.
However, Article 15, Section 3 only provides a time cap for eligibility to run for a state office or
local governing body. A person cannot run for an office if that person has served 12 years or more
in that office.
Councilwoman Goynes-Brown will not have served as a Councilwoman for 12 years or more by
the time of the 2022 mayoral election.

Please contact my office if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Micaela Rustia Moore

City Attorney, City of North Las Vegas