Columnist Jon Ralston: Court must tie up Legislature’s loose ends

Wednesday, June 20, 2001 | 9:06 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 through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

ADMIT IT -- you thought the legislative session (both of them) was over.

They adjourned (twice), and Gov. Kenny Guinn signed an earlier version of the rental car tax to balance the budget. So now we can all finally sine die, putting a horrific Session of Nothing behind us.

Well, not yet. The Gang of 63 has gone home, but seven legislators, who also happen to be Supreme Court justices, still have some clean-up work to do.

Oh, they don't have much to consider -- just the measure that could forever affect the health of the state's electric utility, decide the course of the economy and have a tremendous impact on the bottom lines of every major and minor power user.

What a perfect way to end this session that didn't want to end, had one faux ending and now seems unwilling to end: A bill that resurrected deregulation, which was declared dead a few months ago by the governor and the Gang of 63, is now itself exhumed and pronounced alive and well by the state's most powerful forces.

Now they just need ratification for this final act of legerdemain from the state's highest court, whose justices were last seen traversing the hallways of the Legislative Building looking for raises. (Yes, they got them. No nexus intended.)

Ironically enough, the justices now have a second chance to change the course of state history, having first done so this session by ruling the teachers' business profits tax unconstitutional, thus ensuring no tax policy changes this session. That infuriated the major contributors to their campaigns who wanted the business tax and showed the justices can act unpredictably. Could the black-robed septet make two consecutive decisions against the wishes of the court's major campaign benefactors?

The legislation in question, Assembly Bill 661, was arguably the most lobbied measure of the session by gamers, miners and others who wanted to create a partially deregulated environment so they could flee the power grid next year. Sierra Pacific Resources agreed to the measure, arguing it would free up supply for other customers, so long as only major users and no small groups could leave.

In the insane Rush to Close, the Assembly never concurred in the Senate's minor amendments to the bill until 26 minutes after a midnight deadline that had been stretched to 1 a.m. by desperate lawmakers relying on shaky legal foundation. Now, I'm not a lawyer (I only play one in a column), but this all strikes me as legal mumbo jumbo to balance the budget and pass the bill most sought this session by the power lobbyists. A few questions:

* Why did the governor, in his proclamation for the special session, declare that one of the purposes was "to reconsider the matters ... approved ... between 12:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m., on June 5, 2001." Reconsider, meaning do them over again.

* Why should exceptions be made for the rental car tax (Stunt No. 1) and then the energy bill (Stunt No. 2) -- that is, why should the governor sign some earlier versions and not all of them? Why are they different?

* Why do they rely on an attorney general's opinion that says the post-midnight question is "unsettled" and that "prudence dictates that the latest time by which the Legislature should be deemed to have been required to adjourn (was midnight)"?

The major users and Sierra Pacific filed their writ about 12 hours after the special session ended, with the 64th legislator, Harvey Whittemore, who also happens to be a lobbyist and partner in Lionel Sawyer & Collins, joining with two sons of Sen. Harry Reid, Rory and Leif, who also happen to work for the law firm.

The Lionel Sawyer & Collins trio argues that Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes must give the earlier version of AB661 to the governor because both houses of the Legislature passed it (just as they did all others) and that Erdoes has failed to carry out her ministerial duty to pass the measure to the governor for his signature.

What could Erdoes have been thinking? Not, pray tell, that the governor, attorney general and the Gang of 63 had decided that bill was probably invalid because it missed the midnight deadline and that a new one had to be passed. No, the solid legal case is that the energy measure and the rental car tax are exempt from all the rules that had been set up.

Makes sense to me. I wonder if it will to the high court.