Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Let the majority rule

Friday, June 15, 2001 | 12:05 p.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WHAT'S THE difference between a majority and a minority?

Usually a whole lot. Just ask the folks who had to trek back up to Carson City because they couldn't concentrate sufficiently on their jobs as legislators to get their work done according to the Nevada Constitution.

Fortunately our good governor, Kenny Guinn, made them all return to the scene of their crime of nonfeasance to do the job right. As of this writing, the Legislature is in special session. With any luck, by the time this is published today they will be on their way home having finally done what we pay them to do.

The reason they couldn't get their work done right the first time had everything to do with majority, minority status and the long-term desires of those who felt ownership in their jobs -- if not their specific desks -- so much so that they tried all they knew to keep them. That meant that legislation, which was really the people's business, became hostage to the political aims of the folks who run the show.

In the state Senate that would be Bill Raggio and his majority Republicans and in the Assembly, Henderson's Richard Perkins and his majority Democrats. During the last few days, nothing moved through either house for fear that one of the two leaders was giving an advantage to the other in the all-important reapportionment effort.

Obviously they outwitted each other, and when the final bell for sine die rang --actually, it rang twice if you understand the convoluted thinking of the lawyers trying to justify the lawmakers' claim that one o'clock was the same as midnight -- they came up short. Thanks to Guinn they get a second chance to do the right thing. Just how the voters look upon this bit of mischief come the next election is anybody's guess.

This is one time when majority status meant something and actually worked to mitigate the harm either side tried to do to the other. There is another clear-cut example of the difference between majority and minority status. That is in the big Senate, the one located in Washington, D.C.

Much was made during the last election of the importance of having Nevada's senators split between both the Republican and Democrat parties. The theory went that having a member with both feet in each camp would be good for the Silver State when it came time for President George W. Bush to pull Nevada's name out of the nuclear waste dump sweepstakes hat -- the only name, by the way, in the hat -- and, thereby, set in motion a battle royale in the U.S. Congress.

That theory had very little time to play out and, in fact, didn't seem to be going anywhere when Sen. Jim Jeffords let his conscience get the best of him, which gave the Senate over to the Democrats.

And that is when the new majority leader, Sen. Tom Daschle, taking his lead from his good friend and political soulmate, Nevada's senior senator, Harry Reid, declared that the nuke dump issue was dead as long as the Democrats held the majority and as long as Harry was at his side.

Besides proving yet again the old adage that it isn't what, but who you know, the majority leader's comments and his subsequent affirmation of them when he was given a chance to backtrack, spoke very loudly about the power of the majority.

And now that it is beyond question that the folks who run Nevada's economic engine -- that's the gaming business for those who just got here -- are on board with this Yucca Mountain fight, it is no longer an inevitability that our futures will glow for all the wrong reasons.

Almost to a person, the gaming establishment is convinced that Yucca Mountain is not only bad for business, but it also is anathema to an industry that makes a living as much on perception as on reality. From quality of life issues to the quality of employees who move to town to support this burgeoning business, there is no doubt that a nuke dump would kill the golden goose and smash all the eggs that we have become so used to seeing around here.

So, given a choice between being in the minority and being in the majority, Nevada's fortunes and its future demand support for a majority that has come to her side in time of need. That majority includes Harry Reid, his talent and his friends. Theirs is a slim lead, to be sure, but a balanced one upon which the future of this great and growing state hangs.

This is not politics. This is personal.