Columnist Jon Ralston: Death revives moribund session

Friday, April 20, 2001 | 3:39 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

A BILL THAT BEGAN with Democrat Joe Neal and became the property of his frequent antagonist, Republican Mark James. A handful of Republican senators defying their leader, despite Bill Raggio's passion on the issue. Democrats lavishing praise on James, an ambitious, blue-chip Republican. The Democratic Assembly speaker with a chance to establish his tough-on-crime bona fides. And a Republican governor, who showed his possible willingness to pardon in a controversial case, now signaling he intends to give the bill a lethal injection.

Will the wonders of Carson City never cease? How strange that death would revive a moribund legislative session. But that is exactly what has happened as a death-penalty debate, complete with Bible-thumping, nasty floor exchanges and bizarre politics, has taken center stage against a backdrop of two pending executions and other states acting, too.

Neal touched off this political conflagration by proposing a measure to ban the death penalty in Nevada, which appeared to be a quixotic move on par with his efforts to raise gaming taxes.

But then Judiciary Chairman James, who has had regular floor set-tos with Neal, grabbed the bill and converted it into a two-year moratorium on the death penalty while a study is undertaken to determine the fairness of its application here. James has some history in crime legislation, most notably his advocacy of truth-in-sentencing laws. He also has taken up the death penalty before, including his formation of a committee six years ago to study expediting death penalty appeals.

So Mr. Tough On Crime is taking no small political risk here in the land where people like the death penalty about as much as they like air. As he pushed the bill through this week, James directly confronted the Legislature's most powerful man, Raggio, who invoked his years as a Washoe County district attorney to plead for entombing a measure he believes is a referendum on the death penalty.

Raggio, though, could not hold his troops on this issue he feels so passionately about. James was able to peel away two Republicans (Lawrence Jacobsen and Bill O'Donnell) to go with the nine Democrats to prevent Raggio and others who wanted to strip the moratorium from the bill.

Raggio clearly is upset about the measure, and James surely has not endeared himself to his GOP colleagues (this is a biennial phenomenon) with this high-profile move. About all Raggio and James agreed on was to oppose an amendment, again passed over the incensed majority leader's objections, to allow those who want to die to be executed.

It's also worth noting that Minority Leader Dina Titus' Democrats voted monolithically on the measure, leading some to snicker that James is more part of her caucus. But that's de rigueur, too.

Now the question is what will happen in the Assembly, where Democrats dominate (27-15). If you assume that the caucus will automatically support the same position that their colleagues in the Senate did, you haven't been following the unusual dynamic here.

Speaker Richard Perkins, the Henderson cop who may occasionally gaze across the courtyard and muse what it would be like to sit in Guinn's office, already has left little wiggle room where he stands on the bill. His most unequivocal comments came when the Los Angeles Times' man in Las Vegas, Tom Gorman, asked him about the moratorium.

Gorman quoted Perkins as saying that he will block the two-year hiatus "with all the energy I have ... I've been a police officer all my life and I won't turn my back on the victims in this state." Can he hold his caucus on this one? Or will he, in the reverse of James, have to count on Republican support to kill the senator's efforts?

And how obligated will he feel to fellow Democrat Titus, the UNLV professor who put her folks on the line, considering she has been antagonistic toward the speaker's pet project, Henderson State College?

Perkins' success or failure will determine whether Gov. Kenny Guinn has to decide what to do with the bill. Guinn has to weigh the issue in the midst of two pending executions --including one scheduled last night of Sebastian Bridges -- and the controversial case of Michael Nevius, whose possible retardation has touched off a side debate on the death penalty's application.

Guinn, some thought, had sent some signals he might support the moratorium. But he now has, sources say, decided he will almost surely veto the measure if it gets to his desk. If the measure does reach the governor, though, it will have passed over the objections of the Senate majority leader and the speaker of the Assembly.

That has hardly ever occurred in the state capital, but a new wonder may be on the way.