Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 | 5:06 a.m.
But as shocking as the protean political arena can be with its unpredictable developments that stun the Establishment and bit players pushing their way ephemerally onto the marquee, it never ceases to amaze how well the past foretells the future.
At the risk of defiling the corpse known as the 2003 Legislature -- this is one dead dog that should stay buried -- a final exhumation is called for because of the enduring controversy over the two-thirds requirement to pass taxes. Although the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional amendment somehow had evanescent qualities -- a bizarre legal finding yet to be resolved -- what's more interesting is the genesis of the supermajority provision in Nevada, and how 10 years ago the prologue to the future was being written.
A decade ago, during the 1993 Legislature, a little-known Reno assemblyman named James A. Gibbons from District 25 presented a plan to his colleagues. That idea, embodied in Assembly Joint Resolution 21, was the subject of a hearing before the Assembly Taxation Committee on May 4, 1993.
According to the minutes of that meeting -- minutes the Supreme Court justices surely had in their possession when they made their decision a few weeks ago -- Gibbons already was on the message that would define him and lawmakers were proving themselves positively Delphic.
As he pushed what would later become known as the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative -- he went from anonymous to eponymous fairly quickly -- the ambitious assemblyman said he did not want to cap taxes or spending.
"Mr. Gibbons thought it would not be difficult to impose a two-thirds majority if the need for new revenues was clear and convincing," the minutes read. Does that mean Gov. Kenny Guinn couldn't reach that legal, much less political standard of evidence?
Gibbons met with stiff resistance from the Democratically controlled taxation panel. Chief among the probing questioners was Larry Spitler, a Las Vegas assemblyman who is still active in politics with the American Association of Retired Persons.
Sayeth the minutes: "Mr. Spitler asked Mr. Gibbons in his research if the other states required similar legislation for approval of a state budget, or if the state remained with a simple majority to approve a budget and the two-thirds or three-fourths majority to approve the funding mechanism. Mr. Gibbons said his research did not focus on the approval process of the budget."
No kidding. And we see what happened this year because of that, ahem, oversight. And Spitler quickly displayed a prescience that was shared by many at the time about what the proposal could cause.
Spitler told Gibbons that if "on one hand a simple majority declared what the budget should be and on the other hand a supermajority declared the funding mechanism, it was actually empowering a smaller group of people not to fund the budget."
Was he dreaming of the Mean/Fearless Fifteen of Session '03?
Gibbons actually told Spitler he thought "the two should go hand in hand," according to the minutes. It's only a matter of time before two-thirds to pass the budget is enacted, further hamstringing the process and subverting the quaint little notion of majority rule this country was founded upon.
Yet another veteran Democrat, Assemblywoman Myrna Williams, later promoted to the Clark County Commission, also made some points that resonate a decade later.
She pointed out that Nevada, unlike other states with the two-thirds provision, was growing beyond its ability to provide for a burgeoning population. She said despite Gibbons' boiler-plate rhetoric on government waste, those who did not sit on Ways and Means had no clue as to whether or not there was fat to be sliced.
Sound familiar to any of the Mean/Fearless Fifteen, who spoke about so much while knowing so little about the budget?
Williams actually asked her GOP colleague if he thought his initiative "could possibly inhibit structural change by requiring a supermajority," according to the minutes. Gibbons, not surprisingly, disagreed, and said it would force government to make changes in the ways it does business.
Williams, according to the minutes of the meeting, said "a minority of people could make sure progress would not occur and change would not occur. Mrs. Williams said there were always people who were resistant to change. The fact needed to be considered (that) a small minority of people could blockade the ability to move forward and change policy."
And then this from the sponsor: "Mr. Gibbons surmised that was the one avenue that raised a flag on the issue, whether or not one addressed it from the minority standpoint of being able to say no versus the supermajority required to say yes on a tax bill." A flag, I see, that is now at half-mast, if on the Gibbons' mast at all.
The rest of the hearing consisted of various business types gushing about the Gibbons plan -- they, too, had a good crystal ball. And in a final note of irony, John Marvel, the Battle Mountain Republican whose vote became the final piece of this year's two-thirds, said the supermajority requirement "was somewhat fictitious" and was rarely needed on tax votes, except if they dealt with North-South taxation issues.
The rest is history, the past was prologue. And now, thanks to the overwhelming public support the initiative twice received and that high court flouting of those two votes, Gibbons has brought intended and unintended consequences: The rise of the loons and his potential ascendancy to a U.S. Senate seat.
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