Legislators on Monday considered 10 measures that would clear up Nevada's open-meeting laws, in part because of a 2003 controversy surrounding the state's university regents.

SB244, introduced by Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Las Vegas, and SB267, introduced by Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, would, among other things, better define what must in some cases be included on the agenda of a closed personnel session - including the name of the person being discussed - and would give that person the right to open the meeting.

"My personal approach to this is that the standard ought to be that all meetings are open unless you can come up with some reason that public disclosure actually produces public harm," said Care, a lawyer. "By and large ... I think you have an absolute right to, not participate necessarily, but to observe your government at work."

Hardy, chairman of the Senate Government Affairs Committee that heard the bills, and Neil Rombardo, a senior deputy attorney general, said they don't think the state's open-meeting laws need to be overhauled, just clarified so that Nevadans know the guidelines for when business must be conducted in the open.

"I think we have the best open meeting law in the country," Rombardo said.

One change in Care's bill - but not in Hardy's - grants immunity from civil liability to members of public boards and witnesses who testify before them for statements made, even if they are defamatory. Witnesses, however, would have the additional requirement that they cannot "misrepresent any fact knowingly," or perjure themselves.

Care said such a change is not permission to lie and would encourage robust, open and free debate. He added that part of the bill only codifies what is already supported by case law.

But some testified that members of public boards should also be subject to the perjury requirement.

Two other bills seek to address an alleged 2003 open-meeting law violation by the state's university regents. A district court found that the regents broke the meeting law when they held closed-door sessions to discuss activities of then-Community College of Southern Nevada President Ron Remington and lobbyist John Cummings. Both were demoted. The court found a majority of board members formed a consensus during those closed-door meetings. The regents filed notice of plans to appeal the decision last July.

SB83, sponsored by Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, would require the regents to allow a person who is the subject of a closed meeting to attend the meeting and present testimony and written evidence.

It also would require that the regents provide the person with a list of the general topics that will be considered.

"The bill allows some sort of mitigation and exculpatory testimony to be brought in," Coffin said, adding that he was told the regents have adopted in policy the measures outlined in his bill.

"Well, it took them a long time to adopt the policy, I see no problem with adopting a statute," he said.

Coffin told the committee he focused on the regents in the bill because he wanted to target the issue.

Care, a committee member, said he thought it would be better to bring in all boards so that lawmakers don't have to wait for abuses to surface to change the law.

A second bill, SB465, would define the words "consider" and "deliberate" in statute to avoid the confusion over whether the regents were breaking the law in 2003.

Hardy said that 80 percent of the problem stemmed from confusion over the regents' authority to merely "consider" the issues before them or go so far as to "deliberate" them as well.

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said that even the proposed definitions don't clear up all of the problems because they don't address the practical issues such as whether board members can ask questions.

"'Consider' has to mean something," Raggio said. "I think it makes little sense for people in a public body ... to not be able to ask questions."