Big issues face lawmakers

Erin Neff

Friday, Dec. 6, 2002 | 4 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Dec. 8, 2002

State politicians typically take some time off after the November elections to quietly prepare for February's legislative session.

But the ramp-up to Feb. 3 is full of unprecedented verbal assaults in the press as well as television ad campaigns, petition-gathering and behind-the-scenes lobbying on taxes and medical malpractice.

With any number of issues vying for the 2003 Legislature's time, the rhetoric is increasing as lawmakers and others try to push their agendas.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said his press conference Tuesday was designed to tell all parties to remain cool and open to ideas. Instead, he threw down the gauntlet, declaring that a business tax would be part of any tax package and criticizing the business community for opposing such a proposal.

It was a risky move for Perkins, as it could leave his party's incumbents vulnerable to antitax Republicans in future elections. Also, Perkins comes out supporting the lead of the GOP governor, who doesn't even have the support of several leading Republicans in the Legislature.

"At some point in time we have to sit down with folks and say, 'What kind of a Nevada do you want 10 years from now?' " Perkins said.

That's the question educators are hoping lawmakers consider.

Clark County School Board President Sheila Moulton said that while it will be difficult for the 17 superintendents statewide to sell lawmakers on $879 million worth of additional educational expenses, they are committed.

"We've got to make a decision in this state, in this community, how we want the schools to be," Moulton said. "I believe the people in this state are ready to come to the table."

But educators, child welfare advocates and health care workers are facing an ominous hurdle. Proponents of social causes learned in 2001 that there wasn't any extra money in the state budget.

"I think that we're going to have a very difficult time adding new programs in a year when we're going to raise taxes," said Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas, the Taxation Committee vice chairman. "Just keeping government services at their current level will be the challenge."

And after Gov. Kenny Guinn announced last week that the state needs $800 million in revenue just to keep pace with current spending, supporters of increasing social services began writing off the 2003 session.

"We'll still be way behind the rest of the country as far as social services go and in terms of average per-pupil spending," said Paul Brown, southern director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.

Brown said it is critical for lawmakers to raise taxes to erase the deficit and advance some issues, such as education.

"There's a cost to not raising taxes," Brown said.

Moulton said the Clark County School District cut $90 million in programs over the past three years -- money that she said needs to be restored. She also said money is needed for teacher salaries.

"Teachers got a 2 percent bonus last year, but that was a one-time thing," Moulton said. "They haven't gotten a salary increase in four years."

While advocates stump for their piece of a nonexistent pie, others are taking to the airwaves with public relations campaigns to sway public opinion.

The most notable is Nevada Power Co.'s campaign, which features its "family" of employees. The message: We're real people, not a big business. The company is fighting a takeover bid from the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and in the last session legislators made it more difficult for public agencies such as the water authority to take over private companies.

Doctors have taken another tack, submitting a petition that would take medical-malpractice tort issue to a new level.

Under the law, lawmakers must act on the petition within the first 40 days of the session, therefore it's going to be difficult to fit much else onto the legislative calendar.

Two newly elected lawmakers, Sen. Warren Hardy, R-Henderson, and Assemblywoman Valerie Weber, R-Las Vegas, work for the contracting industry and are sure to put the construction-defect tort issue on the map.

Gary Milliken, a Associated General Contractors lobbyist, has been meeting with lawmakers for almost 18 months about the construction-defect issue. And while each legislator vowed to make the 2003 session the one in which the critical issue facing Nevada's second-leading industry was fixed, Milliken wonders how construction defects, medical malpractice and taxes will all make it through.

Also, Internet gaming, the death penalty, mental health issues and everything local governments want will be on the agenda.

"I don't know how they're going to do it in 120 days," Milliken said.

Lobbyist Harvey Whittemore said he believed the session will be "all taxes, all the time."

"We will eventually get around to some of the other stuff, but until a compromise is reached on taxes, the other stuff will just be on the back burner," Whittemore said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said he is shocked at the rhetoric this soon before a legislative session. He said he doesn't want to jump in and "muddy the waters."

But Raggio said he supports raising the so-called "sin taxes" on cigarettes and alcohol. Guinn has said he will ask for approval of those increases as soon as the session starts so that they can start generating new revenue.

"There are some things we have no choice on," Raggio said. "And there aren't too many people who object to raising those taxes.

On the other hand, "the business tax is in for a lot of trouble," Raggio said.

Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Kara Kelley said her organization is not opposed to new taxes, but objects to the gross-receipts tax, which is the centerpiece of the plan issued by the Governor's Task Force on Tax Policy.

"It is our responsibility to protect the interests of our businesses, and we don't believe the gross receipts tax is in their best interest," Kelley said.

The chamber's position finds support in some lawmakers, such as Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, who received her largest campaign contribution, $10,000, from the business group.

The powerful Culinary Union has readied an ad campaign criticizing businesses such as banks for backing away from a 2001 promise to pay more taxes.

Glen Arnodo, the union's political affairs director, vowed that his organization will continue to talk about taxes until the session adjourns.

"There's no question in anyone's mind, except perhaps for the chamber (of commerce), that there's a real crisis," Arnodo said.

Nevada cannot continue to rank 45th in per-capita spending on students and expect good schools, he said. Roughly 30,000 students in Clark County are children of Culinary workers.

"We have a huge stake in it," Arnodo said.

Recently the union tried to air a commercial supporting a broad-based business tax so that national and international companies such as Wal-Mart -- which currently pay no taxes in Nevada -- would be subject to a business tax.

Cox Communications refused to run the ad, stating the piece targeted Bank of America. The union is busily crafting an altered piece to try to get it aired.

"There needs to be a very healthy and vigorous debate," Arnodo said. "It can't just be a debate between business interests, between the gaming companies and the chamber of commerce."

Some Democrats say at the very least the gross-receipts tax needs to be thoroughly discussed.

"There's a lot of merit to discussing it now," Goldwater said. "A lot of what happens in Carson City depends on what our constituents think. And the best way to find that out is to debate it in an open way."

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