Columnist Jon Ralston: Plot seals the silliest of sessions

Friday, June 15, 2001 | 4:55 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. Ralsto

CARSON CITY -- During a year in which expanding the Legislature was the central political issue, the Gang of 63 put an exclamation point last week on their effort to make the case for shrinking the number of lawmakers in the state capital.

It truly was a fitting end to an extended embarrassment: The most irrelevant caucus in state annals finally makes itself relevant so it can hold up a special session to ensure its perpetuation and kill (or at least place in limbo) two of the most significant measures of the year that were lobbied by almost every major special interest.

Who's to say they didn't accomplish anything this year? The Gang of 63 actually managed to follow up the Session of Nothing with The Not-So-Special Session of Less-Than-Nothing.

They came to finish reapportionment and ratify bills they had passed after midnight on the last day of the session because the Nevada Constitution says they have to pass them by, well, midnight. It should have taken a couple of hours because the political mapmaking deal was conceptually finished Monday and the maps were given to the legislative staffers early Thursday morning. Instead, it took them about 13 1/2 hours.

We really shouldn't be too surprised considering what transpired up until the special session convened Thursday. After all, this was the year the session ended with lawmakers claiming they could go past a midnight deadline, and then were told by a deputy attorney general that they could justify it because every day just might have two midnights and that a 120-day session really means a 121-day session because the first day doesn't count.

So why not have a special session end with lobbyists, lawmakers and the governor conspiring to make a case that they can treat two bills in the special session differently than all the others by signing a previous version of one (a rental car tax) and then going to the state Supreme Court (they are elected and got their pay raises done by the gang, remember) to get another (the energy bill) ratified. So who's to blame? For once, the answer is readily apparent: Jim Gibbons and the Assembly Republicans.

The congressman's culpability comes through the worst case yet of his eponymously named Tax Restraint Initiative, which he backed to enforce a two-thirds rule on lawmakers for any tax and fee increases. Supermajorities are a popular cop-out brandished by pols who seem to have forgotten the concept of majority rule and an idea that reposes huge power in small minorities -- a subversion of the entire government process.

So the Gibbons rule gave the 15-member Assembly Republican caucus the ability Thursday to stretch out the special session as they threatened to block those two measures, both of which required two-thirds, or 28 votes in the 42-member Assembly.

It's rare that you see politicians stride into the spotlight, douse themselves with gasoline and commit an act of self-immolation for all to see. But these folks were dripping with glee as they blustered about their newfound power, bragging and threatening, telling anyone who would listen that they were going to show the majority and the power lobbyists who was boss.

They did show us, all right: They got nothing and only hurt themselves. A wise use of minority power, I'd say.

The Assembly Republicans have to live with this: As they mewled about the lack of fairness shown them by the majority (hello, this is the most partisan political act there is, reapportionment, and you are in the minority), they decided to sacrifice the principles they had espoused only 10 days earlier for the higher principle of self-preservation.

Forget for a moment whether you like the policies espoused in the rental car tax bill, which will help fund education, or the energy package, which allows major users to leave next year and provides low-income energy assistance. The germane point is that we know how the Assembly Republicans felt during the regular session.

On the rental car tax bill, every Republican voted for it when it left the Assembly -- the vote was 41-0. On the energy legislation, the vote was 33-8 -- only two of the dissenters were Republicans. So a caucus that overwhelmingly supported two critical pieces of public policy was willing to scuttle them in a special session for raw political gain? Nice legacy, folks. And as a bonus: They managed to infuriate just about every special interest in the building, which ought to do wonders during campaign season.

As for the legacy of the Gang of 63, '01 version: They ended on a low note on June 5. And then they returned for a special session just to prove to the public they could do it even worse the second time around.