Perkins, Hettrick to air differences

Erin Neff

Tuesday, July 8, 2003 | 9:51 a.m.

Each time a tax compromise was made between the two houses in the Legislature and between the two party leaders, the plan was knocked down because it was usually one vote short.

The latest compromise gone wrong is now leading to some finger-pointing that will result in a frank heart-to-heart meeting today between the Assembly's Democratic and Republican leaders.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, on Monday asked Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, to meet with him today to discuss what Perkins believes was Hettrick's inability to sell the latest compromise plan to his caucus.

"He kind of pulled the rug out," Perkins said of Hettrick in the short period after a long Saturday spent negotiating a tax deal between 13 of the Legislature's leaders.

Perkins said he has subsequently spoken to several members of Hettrick's 19-member caucus and was told that Hettrick phoned them in a lukewarm manner to describe his unhappiness with the compromise. Perkins says that surprised him because Hettrick was part of Saturday's negotiations and even offered many suggested parts of the plan.

Hettrick said Perkins' comments are typical of a process that has become awash in spin as repeated attempts at compromise have failed.

"I sat through that whole meeting Saturday telling everyone that $759 (million) was as high as we could go," Hettrick said. "After the meeting the four caucus leaders held a press conference and three of them said they were cautiously optimistic. I said I would have to take it to my members."

Hettrick said he has heard statements that he sabotaged the deal by trashing the compromise, but he insists he simply described how the negotiations went and what came out of the meeting.

"When I finished describing it, everyone said no," Hettrick said. "Some of them asked how I would vote and I said I could not support it because it contains a net profits tax and I made a commitment in December that I would not support an income tax."

Today's meeting in Carson City was called both to air out any political differences between the two leaders and for Perkins to gauge whether the elusive one vote is at all possible. Four Assembly Republicans have already pledged support for taxes, but a fifth is needed to join the 23 Democrats and form the needed 28 votes required under the state's two-third majority law for tax hikes.

"I want to know what are the real issues," Perkins said. "I don't get the sense that this is philosophy because the Senate Republicans agree to the compromise." Perkins said many members of his caucus are not satisfied with components of the tax compromise which includes a payroll tax many Democrats loathe and reportedly no version of the gross receipts tax many of them liked. "I feel it's my responsibility to sell it to my caucus," Perkins said.

Hettrick said he has been selling the tax plan to his caucus since February when most of his members supported zero tax hike. When Hettrick released his own tax plan mid-session, members stood in support of $511 million in taxes.

"We managed to sell that plan to enough of them, and now we have sold $704 million to some more of them," Hettrick said. "On Saturday I told the others we were at $759 (million), so how can they say that we're not trying to compromise?"

One source familiar with Saturday's negotiations said that some of the talk centered on nonrelated issues to the point that some believed obsession over past political deals was getting in the way of this one.

At the end of the 2001 session, lawmakers remained deadlocked over how to reapportion the state's political office districts between Republicans and Democrats. That forced a short special session to resolve the mapmaking and resulted in northern Nevada losing several legislative districts to booming Southern Nevada.

Assemblyman John Marvel, R-Battle Mountain, is the ranking Assembly Republican, and according to several sources familiar with the weekend negotiations, he started an argument about reapportionment during the tax talks.

Part of the reason reapportionment continues to worry Republicans is that voting yes for taxes leave many susceptible to primary election opponents, Hettrick said.

"The Democrats aren't looking at losing their political careers over this thing, our members are," Hettrick said.