Nevada lawmakers vote to remove unneeded laws

No one could figure out why it was illegal to shear sheep within city limits.

And considering Future Farmers of America and similar groups shear sheep all the time at livestock shows, Assembly Judiciary Committee members voted Tuesday to do away with the law entirely.

The old law, dating to at least 1911, makes it a misdemeanor for "any sheep to be penned, housed or fed for the purpose of being sheared" within city limits.

Legislative staffers couldn't figure out why the law existed and included it in a bill to revoke antiquated statutes.

AB10 also erases a law dating to the early 1900s that prohibits people from pasturing livestock in an enclosed private or public cemetery. Committee members agreed that trespassing laws would cover any such offense.

AB10 would also remove from the state's law books the misdemeanor offense of refusing to get off a telephone party line immediately upon learning that the line was needed for an emergency. Such phone lines no longer exist.

Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, sponsored the bill, which came out of an interim study on categories of misdemeanor offenses.