The hours are long, but then the pay is low.

As for the respect, let’s just say holders of this job must run like Olympic sprinters to keep up with dog catchers and journalists in the public esteem department.

Despite such realities, an endless parade of seemingly normal people can’t wait to exchange their hard-won credibility for the magic beans of membership in the Nevada Legislature. Thanks to the political leap-frogging from the state Senate by Attorney General-elect Aaron Ford and County Commissioner-elect Tick Segerblom, and brothel boss Dennis Hof’s unplanned exit from the mortal coil, three legislative appointments were necessary following the usual cacophony of campaign slander that ended in November. The Clark County Commission this week appointed the two senate replacements. And commissioners from Clark, Lincoln and Nye Counties found someone to take over where Hof left off (brothel operation, not included).

For the uninitiated, Nevada’s political appointment process is not quite as rigged as a small-town beauty contest. It just seems that way. I had to stifle a laugh recently after hearing from absolutely overqualified applicants who expressed outrage at the politics involved.

Politics involved? In an appointment to the Legislature?

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

The newcomers to the lawmaking process will become part of a long tradition of legislators left more or less in the dark when it comes to making the big decisions that have long-term impacts on the state. Just remember the words “Tesla factory,” “Faraday’s ghost” and “Raiders stadium.” Then try to take solace in the fact it’s been this way since the early 1860s when Nevada was a territory and Mark Twain covered politics.

Back then, the Legislature didn’t keep a daily schedule and power brokers and lobbyists wrote the bills. Hey, at least the schedules have improved. From the Legislature’s chapter of the “Political History of Nevada,” updated by former Legislative Counsel Bureau Chief Principal Research Analyst Vance Hughey, we’re reminded, “In the early years, there were no posted agendas and no periods for public testimony. There were no secretaries to take the minutes, no lawyers to draft bills, and no researchers to provide background information.”

One other thing. There was no official place to convene.

Back in 1861, a Carson City founding father named Abraham Curry offered the lawmakers the use of his Warm Springs Hotel outside of town. Curry offered them, “a rent-free room, divided by a canvas partition separating the Council and House chambers. (It was not until Nevada became a state that these two houses were referred to as the Senate and the Assembly, respectively.) He also provided transportation to downtown Carson City, some 1.5 miles to the west, by a horse-drawn streetcar on wooden rails.” Twain observed of Curry in “Roughing It,” “But for him the legislature would have been obliged to sit in the desert. He offered his large stone building just outside the capital limits, rent-free, and it was gladly accepted. “

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that a few years later the hotel became the site of the Nevada State Prison, but some suspect that after being tainted by elected officials, it was the land’s only remaining use.

The second territorial session occurred inside the city limits at a county building that had formerly been the Great Basin Hotel. As Twain later reflected, “There were, as represented, a large number of office-seekers, log-rollers and lobbyists, ready to serve themselves and their country in attendance.

 “...There is something solemnly funny about the struggles of a new-born Territorial government to get a start in this world. Ours had a trying time of it. ... It was easy to get legislators, even at three dollars a day, although board was four dollars and fifty cents, for distinction has its charm in Nevada as well as elsewhere, and there were plenty of patriotic souls out of employment; but to get a legislative hall for them to meet in was another matter altogether. Carson blandly declined to give a room rent-free, or let one to the government on credit.”

The pay has improved only slightly since then, but the available accommodations in modern Carson City are considered superior canvas and clapboard. Just don’t go looking for credit.

The good news is, these appointments will be finished in plenty of time for the 2019 Legislature. For the losers, there is always next time.

For the winners, you’ll join the panhandler’s pantheon of politicians who instantly became the butt of Mark Twain’s jokes.

That, if nothing else, should make the folks back home awfully proud.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith