Well, we all knew it was going to happen, we just didn’t know when. But thanks to our colleague Jon Ralston, we all learned Monday afternoon that the Nevada Resort Association has filed a lawsuit against the Nevada State Education Association’s initiative to raise the gambling tax to pay for teacher’s salaries. (You, too, can read the NRA’s initial volley on Ralston’s blog.)

The lawsuit centers on the 200-word description of the initiative that’s required to appear on each and every petition, which the NRA contends in its legal action is deceptive and intending to mislead voters. And, the lawsuit adds, the measure itself violates the single-subject rule.

Reading the legal documents, we get the impression the NRA would only have been happy if the initiative was titled "An Initiative To Totally Fuck Up the State of Nevada By Killing the Golden Goose of Gaming," with a description that went along these lines: "This initiative would raising the gaming tax by 44 percent so greedy, craven teachers can buy golden toilet seats for their mansions. Pretty lame, no?"

But alas, the teachers didn’t intentionally title their initiative to fail. Instead, they wrote a fairly positive description of their initiative so as to, you know, get it passed. We take a look at the major NRA arguments below, but right at the start, we think we could probably have written a description that would at least have robbed the NRA of its first line of attack in what’s sure to be a long-running war against this initiative. Ours would have gone something like this:

AN INITIATIVE to amend the Nevada Constitution to raise the top tier of the state’s existing gaming tax by 3 percentage points — from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent — in order to increase teacher salaries, reduce class sizes and create a program of "merit pay" for teachers who excel at their jobs. The initiative would mandate the state Legislature not reduce current education funding below the level set in the 2007-2009 fiscal year, so as to avoid a situation in which lawmakers take existing money and use it for other programs, relying on the additional tax money generated by this initiative to make up the difference (i.e. "treading water"). Finally, the money generated by the tax increase would be distributed on a per-pupil basis, not apportioned among the state’s 17 school districts like existing education funding.

And there you go, people! That’s 137 clear, simple words, to which the NRA could not possibly object. (They would have anyway, to be sure, but it may have been slightly harder.) Sure, we use the word "tax," which is easy to campaign against. But since the "taxees" are big casinos, we think that argument could be pretty easily overcome.

Anyway, let’s take a very quick look at the NRA’s arguments, and see where they are strong and weak:

1. The initiative is misleading because it refers to a "new" licensing fee when it’s really an increase in the existing gambling tax.

OUR RATING: Weak. While it may be more accurate to refer to this as an increase in the licensing fee (or gross gaming tax, as we know it more commonly), the fact is, this would be a "new" portion of that tax, dedicated to a specific purpose. And since it is being implemented by a vote of the people, it cannot be altered, save by a subsequent vote. That’s new.

2. The initiative is misleading because it fails to describe the fundamental change in education funding, i.e. the fact that the Legislature would be required to spend at least as much as is being spent currently on state schools.

OUR RATING: Weak. The teachers union’s description of its petition very clearly outlines that fact, when it says "To assure that money now used for the support of schools is not diverted to other purposes once money from the new license fee becomes available, the Legislature would be required to fund the public schools in a biennial amount at least equal to the amount of money provided for the 2007-2009 biennium, excluding money from the new fee and certain federal money and adjusted for changes in enrollment and inflation/deflation."

Sure, it’s more wordy than ours, but it’s still pretty clear. And, as a practical matter, this is true anyway: Every two-year budget for state schools will automatically be higher than the previous two-year budget, so long as the state sees record growth and the economy is subject to inflation. (If we ever see the schools budget actually decrease, there’s bigger problems than the wording of this initiative.)

Still, there’s an out: Any time the Legislature declares an "emergency" situation, it can get out of this minimum-funding requirement.

3. The description doesn’t warn voters that it changes the way education is funded (apportioned among school districts versus per-pupil funding).

OUR RATING: Weak. The words "we are changing the way education funding is done, but only with funds generated by this tax" don’t appear. That’s true. But the method of funding is described clearly. And it only applies to the funds raised from the tax increase, not to the whole of the state’s schools budget.

4. The initiative encompasses more than one subject (the new tax and the minimum funding requirement) and thus violates the law.

OUR RATING: Strong. The fact is, setting a minimum funding for school fund could, in fact, be its own initiative. But the reality is, it only appears here to avoid what we all know is going to happen: Raise a tax and funnel $200 million in the front door, and lawmakers will surely find a way to funnel $200 million out the back door, all while saying schools are still being funded exactly as before. It happened in California in the 1990s, when lottery money for schools started coming in. And it would surely happen here, with this so-called "non-supplanting" language.

The law, however, does require that an initiative be limited to "one subject and matters necessarily connected therewith and pertaining thereto." If we were the school district’s lawyers, we’d argue that the point of the whole enterprise is to get more money to schools via an increase in the gambling tax. That goal is thwarted if we raise the tax, but don’t prevent lawmakers from taking existing money once the new revenue is coming in. Therefore, they are properly connected, pertaining and all that.

By the way, when the teachers union last tried to put a tax on business profits (and oh, how we wish they’d gone down that road again!) in 2001, it was this very non-supplanting language that created trouble. It was argued that the business tax initiative mandated spending on education (thus tying the Legislature’s hands) without fully covering the expense. Could this be the initiative’s undoing again? We’re going to find out soon, as this war continues.

Remember, readers: This is only the first salvo. More lawsuits are sure to come, as well as competing initiatives, confusing ballot-box stuffers and all of that. Welcome to campaign 2008.