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posted by Steve Sebelius
Sunday, Jun. 3, 2007 at 7:48 PM
CARSON CITY — Although Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio said on the floor that his optimism about the Legislature adjourning on time tomorrow wanes with the passing of the hours, we think we see progress. (Then again, Raggio knows more than we do. A lot more.)
But we can report that the Senate passed the transportation funding plan, Assembly Bill 595, but not before a few senators traded witty barbs. State Sen. Bob Coffin was in rare and outraged form, and his mood showed in remarks that usually aren’t heard on the floor of the collegial upper house.
Although state Sen. Mike Schneider pointed out what we’ve been saying all along — “Santa Claus didn’t arrive yesterday. There’s no new money. We’re just moving money around.” — he did said he’d vote for the bill.
Coffin was not so complimentary. In fact, he said he couldn’t complement anyone associated with the bill, and danced up to the line of calling his colleagues a bunch of total pussies. Of course, we’re paraphrasing. Let’s take a look at what Coffin actually said.
“I can’t find anything good, frankly, to say about this,” he said. The Legislature is an equal branch of government, “yet you chicken out when the governor says, ‘I’m not going to support taxes.’”
The trucking industry, Coffin said, didn’t contribute to the transportation solution. “We allowed an industry to completely escape,” he said. Instead, lawmakers “…cobbled together this miserable excuse of a bill to steal money from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, car rental companies…” and local governments.
“All 21 of us sit here in the same position under the constitution as the governor,” Coffin said. (This, we must say, is wrong: While the Legislature is an equal branch of government with the executive, the executive under the constitution is the chief magistrate of the state in whom is vested executive power. Individual senators don’t have those powers, as Coffin well should know. Yes, they lust for them. Daily. But they don’t have them.)
“We’re all going to leave here with the thought of how we’re going to do better next time. Well, I don’t think this [Republican] majority is going to do better next time,” he said. (After all, they just voted against an amendment that would have only asked the voters if they wanted to raise the diesel fuel tax.)
“The powerful interstate trucking companies,” Coffin said, working to the apex of his j’accuse, “how they could snooker you, I don’t know.”
(Hmmm. It’s a pity that Coffin’s own tax-the-truckers bill died in the Senate Taxation Committee. Oh, wait. He didn’t introduce one, did he?)
And finally, this: Coffin praised Gov. Jim Gibbons for his service in the Air Force, and called him brave. “Well, guess what? He’s still winning. He’s still braver than you.” (We’re not so sure that it was bravery that did it, but the governor did have the upper hand: Lawmakers needed to do something about roads, and he could hold a tax veto over their heads to force them to give him a bill that met his standards.)
With a final curse at the “half-baked excuse” for an “indefensible bill,” Coffin sat down.
And state Sen. Bob Beers stood up, with the classic Beersian open. “Thank you, Mr. President. I will be brief.”
Beers pulled a favorite statistic out, reminding his fellow senators that Nevada is No. 2 in the nation when it comes to per capita tax hikes this decade. (C’mon, Nevada! We’ve got three years left, and only one legislative session! We can still top the list!)
Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Dennis Nolan admitted the bill doesn’t fund the entire list of state projects awaiting money, but said the Legislature would be back in 2009 to craft a more long-term solution. In the meantime, critical projects will be funded by AB 595 and the $1.8 billion in funding it will raise.
“This is just the beginning. It will go on and on and on, unfortunately,” Nolan said. (He was talking about the debate over transportation funding, not Coffin’s speech.)
With that, state Sen. Dean Rhodes mercifully called for the vote, over the objections of some Democrats. It was 18-3 to approve, with state Sens. Coffin, Terry Care and Maggie Carlton voting no.
(A note here: Once again, we’re conflicted. Coffin is right in what he said; this bill is not a long-term solution to the problem at hand. It relies on inadequate and sometimes inappropriate funding sources. It omits road users, like truckers and, yes, the general motoring public. But it’s also probably the best thing that could have come out of the process, such as it is. So while we may agree with Coffin in principle, we think he violates a certain principal political principle: Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.)
[Here, some time passed. We’d guess at the duration, but time has no meaning in the legislative dimension, which was too terrible for even Albert Einstein to contemplate. Let’s say 90 minutes of human time. We now resume the narrative.]
According to our friend and colleague Jon Ralston, we left the Senate chambers too quickly. As the Senate was about to adjourn, Majority Leader Bill Raggio mocked the Democrats for their political posturing. (And they were posturing, at least a little, which as you know is something Republicans never, ever do.)
Anyway, Coffin reportedly tried to reply, and Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki (who serves as president of the Senate) moved to cut him off. But Coffin began lecturing the freshman lieutenant governor about the rules of the Senate, at which time Raggio moved to adjourn and Krolicki complied.
“Learn the rules. Learn the goddamn rules,” Coffin reportedly shouted, according to Ralston’s FLASH newsletter.
According to Ralston, state Sen. Barbara Cegavkse — ever the model of propriety — admonished Coffin for swearing in front of his daughter, who was on the Senate floor. Which moves us to paraphrase Malcolm X: You’re not necessarily righteous because of the words you don’t use. Plus, sometimes a bit of profanity is appropriate.
In fact, we think swearing would make legislative procedure a lot more interesting, and floor sessions a lot more compelling. Imagine this scene: “Mr. President, under order of business 16, remarks from the floor: Go fuck yourself!” See what we mean?
Anyway, to sum up for the day, the Assembly concurred with the Senate’s amendment to AB 595 on a voice vote, which means the bill goes to the governor, where it will be signed. (We know because just minutes after the vote was taken, the governor’s staff e-mailed a news release praising the bill, and once again quoting Gibbons falsely claiming that the bill represents growth paying for growth, which it clearly doesn’t.)
And now, it’s time for us at Various Things & Stuff to locate an open bar in Carson City on a Sunday night. Wish us luck!
posted by Steve Sebelius
Sunday, Jun. 3, 2007 at 3:30 PM
“I think everyone now has had ample opportunity to capture political ink.” — Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, moving to close the debate on an amendment to the transportation funding bill.
CARSON CITY — Oh, Senator Raggio. Don’t you know there’s no such think as enough political ink?
The Democrats sure do: Two amendments to the highway funding bill, Assembly Bill 595, designed to make Republicans take unpopular stands with scant justification did just that today. The GOP found itself coming out against direct democracy and in favor of tax breaks for golf courses. The only things missing were cigars, Scotch and a back room.
Of course, Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus knew full well that the amendments would fail. That was hardly the point. She was creating an issue that may crop up in election campaigns 18 months hence.
Having said that, the amendments were not bad ones. The first — authored by Titus — would have asked voters whether they wanted to “equalize” diesel fuel taxes (currently at 27.75 cents per gallon) with regular gas taxes (currently at 33.8 cents per gallon). In other words, should big trucks pay as much as regular people do?
“This amendment is the ultimate compromise,” Titus said, of the nonbinding ballot question. “We bring this amendment because the biggest users and abusers of Nevada’s highway system — large commercial trucks — skirt all responsibility for our growing problem of highway overcrowding and traffic congestion.”
And, of course, Titus couldn’t resist a few other shots, too. Among them:
• How can Gov. Jim Gibbons — who has pledged not to increase taxes — sign off on a diversion of a car rental tax, which companies currently keep to pay auto registration fees but under AB 595 will have to fork over to the state? (Under an initiative written and qualified by Gibbons, anything that increases revenue to the state must get the two-thirds vote required for tax increases.) If Gibbons threatened to veto the education budget to avert a scheduled increase in the modified business tax because he called it a tax hike, which he did, how can he support the car rental scheme? Titus asked.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” Titus said, sarcasm dripping from her Shakespeare.
• Trucks cause more wear and tear on roads than cars, take up more physical space, are harder to maneuver and break and thus less safe, but they’ll pay nothing more under the transportation plan, which is borne by car rental companies, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and local governments.
“Clearly, trucks cause a disproportionate share of damage to America’s highways and do not pay their fair share,” Titus said. “Why should big trucks pay less than passenger cars?”
• Senate Republicans voted to allow Washoe County voters to put school taxes on the ballot, not to mention taxes in Nye, Lyon and Churchill counties to raise taxes for various projects. So why not let all Nevada voters give an up or down vote to “equalizing” diesel fuel taxes and regular gas taxes?
As you might imagine, Republicans had answers.
Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Dennis Nolan — who earlier acknowledged that the trucking industry isn’t just under the gun but has “a cannon” aimed at it when it comes to highway funding in future sessions — said he agreed with most of what Titus said.
But he said there were “technical problems” with the amendment because truckers pay taxes differently than do regular motorists. A ballot question on the subject would be a legal nightmare to devise and confusing to voters, he said.
Moreover, equalization of the two taxes would raise diesel fuel tax as high as 9 cents per gallon, which was much higher than any proposal discussed in the debate over highway funding during this session, Nolan said. And of course, no Republican argument against the diesel fuel tax is complete without this gem: “We know this is going to be a pass through from retailers and wholesalers.”
In fact, Nolan said, if the amendment passes, it could preclude the Legislature from looking at other, more reasonable taxes that would also affecting the trucking industry, such as increasing fees for commercial drivers licenses. And if it failed, it could be because voters thought they were being asked about raising their own gas taxes.
(Nolan didn’t discuss the possibility that voters, being smart enough to figure out what they were being asked, could say no because they oppose raising the diesel fuel tax!)
“I personally will commit to working with the minority leader or anybody else in the interim or next session to get at this,” Nolan summed.
Before any more people could jump in, Raggio called for a vote. And one was held, strictly along party lines, with all 11 Republicans voting not to put the question on the ballot and all 10 Democrats voting to ask voters.
That prompted Titus to really get a dig in: “Apparently, I have a lot more confidence in the people of Nevada than those who opposed the amendment,” she said. (And the fact that she has any confidence in the people of Nevada, after a majority chose Gibbons over her for governor in 2006, is really saying something!)
That line brought some Republican protests.
State Sen. Warren Hardy said he didn’t vote no because he didn’t want the voters to decide; he voted know because the Legislature is up to the task and should only ask voters when lawmakers have failed to act. Since the Legislature has approved more than $2.2 billion for roads this session, it hasn’t failed to act.
State Sen. Mark Amodei noted that state taxes on gas comprise 17.65 cents per gallon and for diesel, 27 cents per gallon. Should regular gas taxes be raised, he said? Besides, “this is a job this Legislature is up to,” in an open process during the 2009 Legislature.
(A word here: At the end of the day, Republicans said no to putting a non-binding placebo on a ballot, at virtually no cost to the state. This equals coming out against hearing the will of the voters on an important public policy question. And even if this was political theater, it was theater in which they played the role of villains. Not only that, but it can be spun with a more evil twist: They know the public — being fickle, cheap bastards who have been ironically conditioned by 40 years of Republican rhetoric to expect public works for free — will overwhelmingly support taxing the trucking industry and thus create momentum for a higher levy. And since Republicans like business and trucking is a business, they won’t like that. But we would never say that.)
Another amendment — requested by state Sen. Terry Care — would simply stipulate that property taxes raised by the road-building plan in Clark County would only be used in Clark County. It passed easily on a voice vote.
But Care wasn’t so lucky the second time around, when his amendment to repeal the 2005 Legislature’s 11th hour giveaway in tax breaks to golf courses went down in flames. Care argued the approval of the tax breaks took place with little debate in the closing days of the last session. “In my opinion, this is a break that never should have been,” he said.
Nolan said the amendment may have been legally germane (it definitely was) but it wasn’t really related to highway funding. Plus, “it imperils a bill that we’ve all worked very hard on,” he said.
Plus, Nolan said, an amendment at this late date would trigger a conference committee, which would put the policy of funding transportation in the hands of six lawmakers. (Yes, you read that right: Not only did Nolan come out against asking voters about taxes, he doesn’t even want to ask six lawmakers about the issue!)
Amodei and state Sen. Bob Beers both worried that eliminating the tax break would impact residents in golf course communities, where property taxes for the courses are rolled into the price of homes.
Again, Raggio called for the vote (he’s such a killjoy!) and again, it failed, this time with only seven Democrats in favor and a bipartisan mix of 14 senators against.
With only the single innocuous amendment added, the transportation plan now goes back to the Senate, where it’s expected to be quickly approved, and then to the Assembly. There’s virtually no chance it will be defeated, since the Assembly approved the original version 40-2.
posted by Steve Sebelius
Sunday, Jun. 3, 2007 at 11:40 AM
CARSON CITY — The state Senate is all abuzz with the three last-minute amendments to the transportation compromise plan. They represent a favorite tactic of Minority Leader Dina Titus: Attach something that Republicans would look bad voting against and demand a roll call vote, so there’s a record.
“Let’s see them vote against that,” she said Saturday with a trademark smile.
Clearly, Titus annoyed the GOP. Instead of voting on the amendments (one would put an advisory question about raising diesel fuel taxes on the 2008 ballot, another would repeal golf tax breaks and put the money toward roads and a third would stipulate that what’s raised in Vegas stays in Vegas), Majority Leader Bill Raggio put off voting for day.
“And I’m going to move, no matter who supports me or not, that if we get last-minute amendments, I’m going to move to hold it over to the next legislative day,” Raggio said. (And since today is Sunday, June 3, there’s but only more legislative day to hold things over to anyway.)
“It would be very helpful if you’re going to propose an amendment, do it in the open and let everyone know what’s going on,” Raggio added. “Let’s not do legislation by ambush. That’s not helpful.”
Raggio himself has never done legislation by ambush. Oh, no. That would be wrong. And, contrary to what he said, it very often is helpful to certain interests in Carson City to do legislation by ambush.
Still, the theater of the amendments is going to be fun to watch. We’ll have more for you later on that.
Other things going on? There sure are! Let’s round them up and write them down in Quick Hits.
• It’s clear that we at Various Things & Stuff are not the only ones dissatisfied with the transportation compromise. State Sen. Dennis Nolan, who chairs the Senate’s Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, doesn’t much care for it, either.
One day after calling the bill “shortsighted,” Nolan said in a committee meeting that he’d support it anyway. “My feeling is, we’re putting a Band-Aid on a pretty big wound. But at least it’s a Band-Aid,” Nolan said.
Hey, didn’t Nolan used to be a paramedic?
• State Sen. Bob Coffin didn’t just grill Gov. Jim Gibbons about the transportation bill; he also had some pointed questions for Assemblyman Kelvin Atkinson, who has been the bill’s chief sponsor.
Do you like the bill? Coffin asked Atkinson.
“I’m satisfied to the point where we are really accomplishing something,” Atkinson replied. “If gives us something that we can go home to our constituents” and tell them something got done, he said.
Who’s not participating in the solution, asked Coffin, who has had the trucking industry in his sights all session long because of the 6-cents-per-gallon difference between cheaper diesel fuel and more expensive gasoline for passenger cars.
After noting there was some “uncomfortableness” among lawmakers for higher taxes and fees, Atkinson noted that some industries didn’t participate in the final answer to the problem. “At the end of the day, these industry folk can decide whether they want to be in,” he said.
Thanks to Gibbons’ anti-tax pledge and concomitant promise to veto any proposal that includes a tax increase, the trucking lobby was able to slink away from participating in the compromise, which is made up of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority bonds, diversion of a car rental tax and property tax.
Why is the governor not here today, if he was with you last night, Coffin asked, referring to Gibbons’ testimony before the Assembly’s Transportation Committee on Thursday evening.
“The governor was with my committee last night, he was not with me,” Atkinson replied, to laughter. (Gibbons did appear before the Senate Taxation Committee on Saturday morning, with interesting results.)
Atkinson did admit the roads compromise was not broad-based, and that in the future, it would be necessary to create a broader-based system for funding roads. “It would have been nice to see some of the other people instead of kicking and screaming coming to the table voluntarily,” he said.
“You don’t have to be nice to them,” Coffin shot back. “I just don’t understand why we’re capitulating so quickly in order to solve a problem that desperately needs solving.”
If there’s a tax increase, Atkinson replied, there’s a gubernatorial veto. And with a veto, “we go home with nothing.”
“I’m prepared to stay here all month long if we need to,” Coffin said, speaking most definitely only for himself.
After a few more senators asked questions, it was Coffin’s turn again. If we “equalized” diesel fuel taxes to regular gasoline taxes (that’s the new preferred Democratic term), it could provide enough money to pay for the projects on the state’s list. (It’s not true, unfortunately; those taxes would raise an estimated $23 million per year.)
“I’m trying to find the right words to respond to that…” Atkinson began, again to laughter. At that point in the hearing, pretty much everybody knew the “right words” that Atkinson wanted to use, but couldn’t.
• As evening approached on Saturday, Quote Machine (and part-time state Sen.) Bob Beers got off a zinger. Told the Assembly had adjourned for the day while senators were looking at least one more agenda, the former assemblyman said, “the people’s house with the banker’s hours.”
Nice.
• Not to be outdone, Assemblyman Bob Beers this morning extolled the virtues of a bill dealing with the reduction and reclamation of solid waste. "Imagine mining landfills for the treasures that lie within," Beers said, as bits of laughter rang out in the Assembly chamber.
"Thank you, Assemblyman Beers. Your writing ability is coming out," said Speaker Barbara Buckley.
• And finally today, our friend (and Nevada tax expert) Carole Vilardo handed us a funny document on Friday. (No, it wasn’t a bill, although hilarity can often be found therein, too.)
The subject of the document was “riding a dead horse,” and it acknowledged that the best strategy at that point is to dismount. But the Nevada Legislature, the document says, has some other strategies.
For example, change riders. Buy a stronger whip. Fall back on the old standard, “this is the way we’ve always ridden.” Arranging a visit to other sites to see how they ride dead horses. Hiring an outside consultant to show how the horse can still be ridden. Increasing funding to improve the horse’s performance.
But our favorite had to be this: “changing the requirements so that the horse no longer meets the standard of death.”
Now THAT’s the Nevada Legislature, in a nutshell.
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