Editor’s note: The following story — written by us at Various Things & Stuff — will appear in the Jan. 11 edition of CityLife. We’re giving you an advance look to counter cruel and unusual rumors that other media outlets had scooped us on this story.

Yes, Gov. Kenny Guinn just left office Dec. 31.

Yes, despite some highly public slip-ups and a constitutional crisis, it’s probably too soon to start missing him.

But if you do, does Guinn have the book for you.

Moving Nevada Into the 21st Century: Gov. Kenny C. Guinn 1999-2006 is a look back at Guinn’s eight years in office, written by one of Guinn’s former press secretaries, Steve George, and paid for by the governor’s campaign. (All 1,000 copies of the 114-page tome were printed at the state’s printing office, for the tidy sum of $10,000, and hundreds have been sent to state libraries.)

And if you’re paying the bills, you can pretty much have any legacy you like. A review of the book reveals that Guinn’s accomplishments, major and minor, are faithfully represented, but some portions are not exactly what you’d call historically accurate.

There’s nothing fictional in the book; it’s more what’s been left out that’s revealing.
We learn that Guinn raised more money in a single day than former President Bill Clinton, who just happened to have a Las Vegas fundraiser scheduled the same day as the former governor one day back in 1998. We don’t learn that Bush is subject to campaign contribution limits that don’t hinder Nevada politicians.

And who raised all that money, or came up with the early strategy to lock up dough? We don’t read the name “Sig Rogich,” anywhere in the book, although the Republican consultant was key to Guinn’s 1998 victory. (The pair later had a falling out after Rogich began advising Gov. Jim Gibbons, who broke with Guinn over the governor’s tax increases of 2003.)

We don’t read about the olive branch offered to ex-Mayor Jan Jones to induce her not to run against Guinn in 1998 — a seat on the Gaming Control Board — or learn that Guinn was denied the Clark County Republican Party’s endorsement that year due to the upstart candidacy of one Aaron Russo. (We also don’t learn of the classic ad that dispatched Russo, using footage the long-haired Hollywood producer had shot of himself.)

Oh and that 68 percent victory in 2002? Not to take anything away from Guinn, but that was in a race against state Sen. Joe Neal, who was abandoned by feckless Democrats and ran on a platform of raising the state’s gambling tax. Not much casino money flowed Neal’s way in that election; the real wonder is why Guinn didn’t break 70 percent.

More Rogich advice — which ultimately put Guinn at the helm of the Republican Governor’s Association — isn’t credited to Rogich.

When it comes to taxes, the only place in the book where we learn Guinn sponsored the largest tax increase in state history is in a reprinted Time magazine article, which named Guinn one of the five best governors in America, in part for his willingness to part with GOP dogma and embrace taxes as a way to fund schools.

And we don’t learn that the 2003 tax Guinn advocated — the ill-fated gross receipts tax — was rejected by lawmakers, who favored $833 million in various other levies, including a payroll tax. (Guinn’s suggested tax package? Close to $1 billion.)

But the book does take time to point out that while Guinn told the Legislature the deficit in the state’s 2003-2005 budget was $704 million, the Legislature appropriated $129 million more than that.

“The tax proposal approved by the Legislature proved to be the remedy the economy needed,” the book says. But this isn’t exactly true: The economy boomed because gambling and sales taxes, depressed after Sept. 11, came back to record heights in the years thereafter. (Guinn himself has noted more than once that the taxes raised by the 2003 session of the Legislature performed as expected, but a later state budget surplus was due largely to gambling and sales tax receipts.)

And, the book includes a quote from a letter to the editor, and an editorial, from the Las Vegas Sun, defending Guinn against charges his tax plan was anti-business. (The likes of rabid lobbyist Ray Bacon, who said Guinn should be “damned forever” for the tax hikes, or the scowling disapproval of the state’s largest newspaper, the Review-Journal, are
missing.)

Although the book labels the $300 million tax rebate of 2005 Guinn’s proposal, it was actually pilfered from state Sen. Bob Beers, who proposed a more modest $100 million rebate.

And we learn that, “if Gov. Guinn were ever to be compared to a Hollywood actor, Gary Cooper would probably first come to mind.” This is, in fact, the first time anyone’s thought to compare Guinn to a Hollywood actor. (An analysis of Cooper’s acting chops versus Guinn’s isn’t explored.)

But the book isn’t all burnishing the record. It lists successes like the legal fight against Yucca Mountain, the Millennium Scholarship, Senior Rx, privatizing the state industrial insurance system, health care tort reform, expanding the Nevada Check-up program, ordering all state agencies to create websites, conservation bonds, all-day kindergarten for at-risk schools, increasing mental health funds, building a new mental health hospital in Las Vegas, fighting a proposal to close a squadron of Nevada National Guard C-130 transport aircraft, eliminating long lines at the DMV and reversing the ill-considered electricity deregulation plans in the wake of the energy crisis in California.

“The state probably should have paid for it [the book], but he didn’t want to do it that way,” says George, who served as Guinn’s last press secretary and now works for the state Department of Health and Human Services.

Other governors, it turns out, have produced some “executive summaries” of their tenures, but none as extravagant as the hardbound, dust-jacketed book that covers Guinn’s years, says Guy Lewis Rocha, the state archivist.

“There’s never been anything of this magnitude. This is a first,” Rocha says. “This is far and away the most ambitious executive summary of any governor.”

But Rocha says the book will serve historians and researchers well, as they won’t have to delve into reams of gubernatorial papers to get the historical lay of the land. “Of course, I applaud this,” he says. “I would recommend that every governor do this.”

But what about the glossing over of certain details, or the obvious quest to establish the Guinn legacy before journalists or historians get to the job? Rocha acknowledges this is the Guinn years as told to you by Guinn. “The critical reader will hopefully understand that,” he says. “Any governor is going to cast themselves in the best possible light.”

Indeed. But one thing the book lacks that would have established Guinn’s legacy are full reproductions, rather than selective quotes, from Guinn’s four State of the State speeches. Those documents reveal Guinn’s long-term plan for putting the state on the proper fiscal footing, his commitment (and passion) for education, and his bold dreams for the budget, some of which were not realized during his term.

To be sure, the reprint of a Guinn message sent after a visit to troops in Iraq is touching and even moving, putting a person’s face on the gubernatorial figure smiling at us from the pages.

In the end, however, no book — and no person — can write his own legacy, no matter how hard he tries. That’s left to time and history. Consider this book Guinn’s contribution to both.