CARSON CITY — Well, it looks like our secret evil plan to buy ourselves a boatload of politicians via secret contributions ladled out by VT&S LLCs is dead. Thanks a lot, Assembly. The Assembly approved, by a vote of 32 to 10, a bill that would force companies whose ownership is hidden by Nevada’s notoriously friendly business laws to disclose their owners once they decided to get involved in politics.Currently, it’s technically possible for a person — let’s call him Evil Political Kingmaker — to form 100 limited liability corporations, the public filings for which don’t identify him. Then, Evil Political Kingmaker can donate $10,000 through each LLC, thus donating $1 million to a candidate. And it would all be legal, since each LLC is a separate business entity.But now, under AB 80, Evil Political Kingmaker would have to identify himself, thus thwarting his secret evil plan.

It’s a good bill, but oddly, several members of the Assembly voted against it. And even more oddly, all of them were Republicans. Why it’s almost like Republicans want to allow businesses to buy and sell politicians under a warm, cozy blanket of secrecy!

For the record, here are the Assembly members who voted to allow LLCs to continue operating in secrecy: Bob Beers, John Carpenter, Chad Christensen, Ty Cobb, Pete Goicoechea, Tom Grady, Joe Hardy, Garn Mabey, John Marvel and Lynn Stewart.

• Meanwhile, in the state Senate, things were getting retarded, too.

Oh, wait. Sorry. It seems we just violated a would-be state law. See, state Sen. Barbara Cegavske was chairwoman of an interim committee in which members of the “disabled community” expressed their preference that they be called “people” first, and not be known by their disability. Thus, a “person with disabilities” is the preferred term to, say, a “disabled person.” ("Retarded" is totally out of vogue.)

State Sen. Bob Coffin voted against Cegavske’s SB 491, which would require the state’s lawbooks be re-written with the less offensive language. That’s going to take a lot of time, and everybody uses “disabled person” in the common vernacular, don’t they?

Alas, Coffin’s fellow senators disagreed, and approved the bill 20-1. It’s now headed to the Assembly.

• Anyway, as we were saying, things in the state Senate were getting totally disabled. Or something.

SB 415 is a bill that would define “bona fide resident” of Nevada specifically to exclude illegal immigrants. And as a result of that, no illegal immigrant would be allowed to get in-state tuition at any state university.

State Sen. Steven Horsford tried to amend SB 415 with language that said if an illegal immigrant signed an affidavit indicating he or she would apply to become a citizen, then that person could be eligible for the Millennium Scholarship. If a citizenship application wasn’t filed or the student didn’t go through with the application, he or she could be forced to repay the scholarship, under Horsford’s amendment.

But that failed on a voice vote in the Senate.

Then, a short while later, the Senate took up AB 52, which makes several changes to the Millennium Scholarship. And guess what language was proposed for an amendment to that bill? You guessed it — the precise language that Horsford wanted to include in SB 415.

State Sen. Dina Titus was understandably confused, and had some pointed questions for Senate Human Resources and Education Committee Chairman Maurice Washington: What’s the difference whether the Senate allowed illegal immigrant students to apply for the scholarship in SB 415 versus SB 52? And how can illegal immigrants not qualify for in-state tuition when, by definition, only in-state students can get the Millennium Scholarships?

It’s a bundle of contradictions, indeed.

Oh, by the way, the Senate approved the amendment on a voice vote. The bill will appear on the Senate’s agenda tomorrow.

• Don’t say Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio is a hypocrite.

Last week, he voted against a bill that would mandate insurance companies and self-funded insurance plans cover inoculations for the human papollima virus, which causes cervical cancer in women. (Republicans hate mandates, after all.)

Well, we were all set to jump on Raggio’s case, as he was a co-sponsor (along with three other Republicans) of SB 113, which forces health insurance companies to cover prostate cancer screenings, another mandate.

Sexist? Yes. Inconsistent? You bet? Fun times? Can’t wait.

But Raggio outmaneuvered us once again, by voting against the bill he co-sponsored. In fact, the bill barely passed 11-10. (Other no votes were Mark Amodei, Bob Beers, Cegavske, Warren Hardy, Joe Heck, Mike McGinness, Dennis Nolan (who also co-sponsored the measure), Dean Rhodes Rhoads and Washington.

• Taxes, taxes, everywhere. The state Senate surely has stopped worrying about whether Gov. Jim Gibbons is going to sign tax-related bills, even ones that leave tax increases up to the voters or local governments in certain counties.

Senators approved SB 141, which allows Washoe County voters to decide whether to raise the sales and real estate transfer taxes, as well as charge impact fees, to pay for schools. That bill will come back for final approval later.

The Senate also narrowly approved SB 146, which allows Lyon and Churchill counties to raise the property tax to pay for a juvenile detention center. (The vote on that was 11-10, with Democrats Maggie Carlton, Titus and Horsford joining Republicans like Beers and Cegavske to say no.)

A third tax measure, which would have allowed Nye County to boost the sales tax for public safety, failed 9-12, again with Titus, Carlton, and Horsford voting no, against Republicans like Randolph Townsend, Raggio and Amodei voting yes.)

A further irony? Anti-tax Gibbons won Washoe, Lyon, Churchill and Nye counties, all with plenty of room to spare. With the election a fading memory, it seems some people in those counties are starting to realize the value of taxes.

Too bad they can’t persuade Titus to agree, eh?

• There’s more action ahead, too. The Assembly is meeting as we post this, and the Senate has yet another session scheduled for later today. The deadline for all bills to pass the house where they were first introduced is midnight on Tuesday, so there should be some shenanigans yet to come.

CARSON CITY — People in Southern Nevada may not be as familiar with the 14-year-old news program Nevada Newsmakers, which originates from up north. But program host Sam Shad regularly empanels newsmakers and journalists to discuss the issues of the day, the way Nevada Week in Review does down south. (In fact, we have been a regular guest on Nevada Week in Review, and a one-time guest on Nevada Newsmakers, way back in the day. Both programs are on the air in Southern Nevada.)

We journalists frequently cite the First Amendment in the course of doing our jobs, because it establishes the independence of the press from government interference. It’s an important concept. None of us should ever engage in any practice that creates conflicts. By sponsoring this dinner, Shad and Nevada Newsmakers have done just that.

CARSON CITY — We don’t know if the rest of you are following the saga of U.S. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., who is yet another Republican under scrutiny by the FBI. But we covered Doolittle long ago when we were young and writing for the since-defunct Sacramento Union. (That newspaper, which went out of business in 1994, has since been resurrected as an online publication.)