Money woes

“It’s 12:25, and they haven’t talked about the most important thing!” said a nearby lobbyist. “Incredible!”

He was talking about a tax bill that hadn’t yet made it to the floor of the Nevada Senate. About an hour before midnight Monday, the Nevada Senate’s Finance Committee had crafted a bill that tied public school funding to $869.1 million in new taxes.

It was the 120th day of the mandated 12-day 2003 Nevada Legislature. Yet before the Legislature adjourned sine die (with no specified new meeting date) at 1 a.m. Tuesday, the tax bill was taken off the agenda. The 2003 legislative session ended with no funding for agreed-upon budgets. The dismal failure to finish necessary business forced Gov. Kenny Guinn to call legislators back for the special session that began at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

On Monday, the Senate’s tax package, SB 509, finally reached the Senate floor just before midnight. But amendments needed printing. So the most pivotal piece of legislation to come before the 2003 Legislature was moved to the bottom of a list of bills up for votes.

Five minutes before midnight, senators began deciding last-minute leftovers like AB 203, a bill that establishes a committee to evaluate higher-education programs. The bill was introduced in February. It was OK’d 20-1, with Sen. Barbara Cegavske (R-Clark County) opposed.

“She’s pissed,” someone in the Senate gallery remarked. Cegavske and Sen. Sandra Tiffany (R-Henderson) had protested SB 509’s icky tax package/nice school funding combo.

Senators zipped through a few more bills, approving an amended version of AB 460 (introduced in March) that prohibits smoking in video arcades and child-care facilities. They concurred with conference committee reports on SB 210 (a February bill that provides teacher training programs), SB 250 (a March bill that beefs up health-care regulation) and SB 499 (allocates $16.5 million to fix a multimillion-dollar snafu of a new Nevada Highway Patrol communications system).

Then it was midnight. But remember that Supreme Court ruling from the 2001 session? During that session, lawmakers made hearty decisions on such timely issues as utility deregulation after their midnight deadline. To save their seemingly unconstitutional legislative efforts, they appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. They argued that “midnight” Pacific Standard Time is really, yes, 1 a.m. because of Daylight Savings Time.

So the lawmakers plodded on, raising salaries of county officials by approving AB 23, a bill introduced back in January; killing AB 163, a February bill that messes with business incorporation fees among other things; and approving a conference committee report on AB 232, a March bill that creates a “do-not-call” list for telemarketers. They approved AB 250—"the terrorism bill.”

“If you’re opposed to terrorism, I encourage you to support this bill,” said Sen. Mark Amodei (R-Carson).

Everyone seemed to be getting a little loopy. Words were jumbled. The top of the Senate’s last agenda read, “7st Agenda.” A loud yawn escaped from a weary senator. At 12:10 a.m., Sen. Bill Raggio called for a five-minute recess.

“And let’s make that a real five-minute recess, not a legislative five-minute recess,” he said, laughing.

The Senate had taken short recesses earlier, agreeing at around 1 p.m. to reconvene at 3 p.m. Lawmaking didn’t actually resume until 6:55 p.m.—about six hours of deal-making, polling and posturing later. At 7:31, the Senate recessed until “8:30 p.m."—and didn’t reconvene until 11:45 p.m.

Haste makes waste?

The Legislative aura felt divided—not only into Senate and Assembly camps or Democratic and Republican factions—but Old and New, North and South and, most evident, Gov. Guinn-friendly or tax-phobic.

To pass a budget plan that included raising nearly $870 million in new taxes—including the controversial Unified Business Tax that reworked the Gross Receipts Tax—would have required the support of 14 out of 21 senators and 28 of 42 members of the Assembly. Raising taxes, thanks to the past legislative work of Jim Gibbons, requires a two-thirds majority in both houses. The governor lobbied first-session assemblymen in his office. Lawmakers lobbied one another, and lobbyists lobbied everyone.

It didn’t take.

Committees met sporadically all over the building. The Senate Finance Committee met twice on the nearly deserted Senate floor, huddling in a circle around a desk.

Lobbyists cruised the building, trying to track bills, collecting rumors.

“I can’t find my bill,” exclaimed Kendall Stagg, policy manager for the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition, who’d heard that Senate Finance met to vote on AB 460, a bill he’d once considered dead. “I heard they convened on the Senate floor. Did they pass my bill? If they did, here’s your headline, ‘Anti-tobacco Bill Rises from the Ashes—Tobacco Lobby Gets Screwed.’ “

Stagg was also cautiously optimistic about increases in the cigarette tax. He was sure that the tax would at least double. But some were talking of much higher hikes. Advocates of cigarette tax increases have argued that the hikes discourage kids from smoking, decrease Medicare and other health-related costs and generate revenue.

“Legislators are realizing it’s a win, win, win—like we’ve said all along,” Stagg said. “It’s going to be a huge win for the kids of this state.”

The tobacco tax included in the Assembly’s not-voted-on tax proposal, AB 536, would have increased the butt tax from 35 cents a pack to $1. This would generate an expected $95.8 million. That’s enough to fix Nevada’s screwed-up highway patrol radio system—or restore the $16.5 million that Washoe County school trustees cut from their budget this week—about six times.

In a room filled with snacks and comfy couches reserved for lobbyists, many spent a few quiet afternoon hours clustered around a TV, watching the movie Braveheart, in which Mel Gibson portrays a rebel fighting for the freedom of his people.

Usually the lobbyists watch broadcasts of meetings or TV news. The movie signified a shift in the atmosphere, one individual said, relating a scene from mid-afternoon.

“What’s this?” a man had asked, walking into the room and looking at the on-screen battle scene.

“The Assembly,” one lobbyist deadpanned. They watched as a long spear was driven through the chest of another warrior. “Goodbye, Mr. Speaker.”

After the “real” five-minute break that stretched to half an hour, the Senate reconvened at 12:41 a.m. Sen. Bill Raggio (R-Reno) moved to take SB 509, the bill that funded schools and called for new taxes, off the agenda.

“I am not going to stand here and require the Senate to vote on a tax bill in the next 15 minutes,” he said. “It’s absolutely unfair, not only to senators but to the public as well, to hurry through a bill of this stature.”

The motion carried. Senators spent the last 15 minutes of the regular session whizzing through more loose ends, approving a rental car fee hike to finance a minor-league baseball stadium in Sparks and appropriating money for a UNR pediatric clinic that gives specialized care to kids with diabetes.

They voted 16-3 on AB 553, the appropriation bill for the state’s $4.92 billion general fund budget, a budget that won’t be met without those same new taxes that both legislative bodies refused to enact before the end of the day.

Now legislators have until 5 p.m. Friday to enact plans for schools and taxes—three days to accomplish what they couldn’t do in 120.