Thursday, July 17, 2003 | 11:31 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- After more frustrating failed votes on tax plans, the state Senate this morning threw up its hands and said the other house would have to develop consensus on a proposal to fund public education.
"It is futile to continue efforts in this house," Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said this morning. "I see no reason to go through this process. It does not serve any useful purpose."
Raggio's comments today replaced the optimism he expressed Wednesday night despite two failed votes on a new tax plan -- votes that failed to generate even a simple majority of support.
With numerous senators frustrated by the continued lack of movement, Raggio decided not to try yet another tax plan today. Instead, he said, the Democratic-led Assembly would have to pass a tax plan.
Assembly leaders vowed to continue working, and pledged continued support to find a plan that two-thirds of lawmakers could approve.
"We're locking ourselves in a room and trying to come up with an idea," Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said. "We're going to meet with Senate Republicans, we're going to meet with Senate Democrats and with Assembly Republicans.
"We're not giving up," she added. "We're going to try to find a plan."
Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins scheduled a floor session of his house for this afternoon and pledged to spend the hours before working on a tax plan.
"The last thing we should do is give up," Perkins, D-Henderson, said.
Democrats in the Assembly have already acknowledged they don't have supermajority support for any of three major business taxes and had been negotiating the types of taxes that could be used as alternatives.
One plan Democrats are considering is a variation of a tax bill that came out of the Republican-controlled Senate with 15 votes several weeks ago.
The plan is expected to include a tax on banks and increases in the business license tax.
Meanwhile the public schools are hanging on every word from Carson City and from the courts, hoping to learn if teachers can be hired, if specialists can return to their area of expertise and -- ultimately -- if schools can open on time.
"There's nothing we can do but wait," Clark County School Superintendent Carlos Garcia said Wednesday after a rare meeting of seven active federal court judges to consider the latest legal wrangling in the Legislature's failure to pass a school budget and the taxes to fund it.
Wednesday's "beat the court" mentality in the Legislature resulted in chaos.
Democrats threw in the towel on their desire for either a gross receipts or net profits business tax. In doing so, they believed they were conceding a policy belief they had hammered for 120 days of the regular session and in the two subsequent special sessions.
As a result of what they saw as a concession, Democrats demanded that a new tax plan include increasing the current business license tax and implementing a tax on commercial leases for retail and a franchise tax on financial institutions.
Raggio trotted out his version of those parameters, one that did not include the commercial lease tax and did not include a franchise tax on financial institutions.
One bill draft included a 2 percent tax on financial institutions' gross payroll, which would raise less money. That plan would also have exempted banks from the business license tax.
The measure received nine votes in support in an initial roll call and seven the second time -- nowhere near the 11-vote simple majority, let alone the 13 needed for a two-thirds.
Raggio left Wednesday's session talking about proposals that might still get legs. But numerous senators went to him begging him to shut negotiations down in his house.
The frustration was evident as lawmakers continued to spend state resources, continued to draw salary checks and continued to disagree on taxes.
"The chair is getting tired of caucus after caucus after caucus with mini-caucuses in between listening to special interests," Raggio said Wednesday.
On Wednesday several senators, expressing frustration, asked that Assembly Republicans who have blocked a tax plan in that house appear before them today to outline what budgets they want cut and what taxes they would approve.
Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, amassed a list of potential cuts several weeks ago, but has not shared his list with other party leaders or the media.
Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus expressed frustration with that lack of information. "We are not the ones who are irresponsible," she said. "Show us your cuts, Lynn Hettrick, and I'll show you mine."
Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, said the public has a right to know what taxes those GOP Assembly members support and what they want cut in the budget.
Raggio's tax bill Wednesday included two nominal cuts -- one for $5 million from the welfare budget and another for $6 million from higher education.
While Raggio's new tax plan failed Wednesday, other senators floated ideas to raise the highest tier of the gross gaming tax to 8 percent. It is currently 6.25 percent and is proposed to be increased to 6.75 percent.
A vote has yet to be taken on that proposal.
A court decision is still pending on whether the Legislature can act on a tax bill that passed by simple majority vote -- as outlined in a state Supreme Court decision -- instead of the two-thirds vote required by the state constitution.
The Nevada Supreme Court ruled last week that the constitutional provision that the Legislature fund the public schools trumped the provision requiring a supermajority vote on taxes considered in this special session.
But 24 Republican legislators filed suit in federal court after the tax bill passed by a simple majority, arguing the voters' due process rights were stripped by the court's override of the two-thirds requirement voters had created by initiative process.
The Legislature is still restrained from considering that tax bill, by an order of Chief U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro, pending the decision by the full court.
archive
