- 82nd Session (2023)
Senate Resolution No. 6–Senators Cannizzaro, Seevers Gansert;
Buck, Daly, Donate, Dondero Loop, Flores, Goicoechea,
Hammond, Hansen, D. Harris, Krasner, Lange, Neal,
Nguyen, Ohrenschall, Pazina, Scheible, Spearman, Stone
and Titus
FILE NUMBER..........
SENATE RESOLUTION—Inducting Claire Jesse Clift as an
honorary member into the Senate Hall of Fame.
WHEREAS, Claire J. Clift was born in Reno and raised in Carson
City, where she graduated from Carson High School and Western
Nevada College and afterward worked for 11 seasons for the United
States Forest Service in North Fork, Idaho, where she met her
husband Jim, a whitewater rafting guide, and learned that one’s
survival depends on self-reliance and the ability to make tough
decisions; and
WHEREAS, As a fifth-generation Nevadan, her ancestry includes
great-great-grandfathers who were pioneer settlers, one of whom,
Daniel Clark Simpson, established a trading post and served as an
Assemblyman in 1871, another, William George Harris, who was a
miner who helped build the Sutro Tunnel, and her great uncle,
Forest Lovelock, and uncle, Coe Swobe, who both served in the
Senate and her grandfather, Hugo Quilici, who was mayor of Reno;
and
WHEREAS, Claire’s state service began in the Nevada Senate as
a Committee Secretary for the Senate Committee on Natural
Resources in 1987 and 1989, where she learned the legislative
process and experienced the in-depth vetting of bills through
testimony, discussion and amendments, and after a brief time away,
she returned to the Senate as the Media Clerk under the tutelage of
then-Secretary of the Senate, Jan Thomas, and in this position
helped develop and improve computer programs as the liaison for
information systems to assist the Legislature as it entered the 21st
century; and
WHEREAS, Upon the retirement of her predecessor, Claire Clift
was appointed as the Secretary of the Senate, continuing a long-
standing tradition of holding an elected position of public service in
her family, served as Secretary of the Senate during 9 regular
sessions and 15 special sessions, which included the Senate’s first
impeachment proceeding against a state constitutional officer, and
with the support of legislative leadership, helped effect statutory
changes to employment practices of session staff that affected
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- 82nd Session (2023)
salaries, retirement vestment and opportunities for legislative staff to
transfer employment to the state’s classified service; and
WHEREAS, Claire’s public service extended beyond Nevada,
serving on two Mason’s Manual Commissions with the National
Conference of State Legislatures, as co-chair and chair, shepherding
the manual to its decennial revision with the 2020 edition of
Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure, as well as being active in
the American Society of Legislative Clerks and Secretaries where
she chaired multiple committees and served two terms on the
ASLCS Executive Committee; and
WHEREAS, Claire Clift is remembered for her poise,
professionalism and confidence, was well-respected by all who
worked with her, and always kept the interests of the Senate and
Legislature at heart; and
WHEREAS, The Senate of the Legislature of the State of Nevada
wishes to recognize Claire J. Clift for her dedicated service and vast
knowledge of parliamentary procedure; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEVADA, That,
Claire Jesse Clift, for her decades of devoted service to the State of
Nevada as Secretary of the Senate, is hereby inducted as an
honorary member into the Senate Hall of Fame of the Legislature of
the State of Nevada; and be it further
RESOLVED, That this resolution becomes effective upon
adoption.
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