2003 Legislature through the eyes of: Richard Perkins

Friday, June 13, 2003 | 6:22 a.m.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, has a name for Assembly Republicans who refuse to vote for new state taxes: They're the "just say no" crowd.

In a televised interview Thursday on "Face To Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE, Perkins said those Assembly Republicans are not just saying no to taxes, they're also saying no to education and progress in Nevada. And they're doing it just because they can, he said.

Perkins said one of the most alarming results of the Nevada Legislature's failure to reach a compromise on a tax package for the next biennium is the way it jeopardizes Clark County School District programs.

The district can't hire the hundreds of teachers it needs to hire because the budget remains undecided, and "starting on July 1, the state cannot send money to the school district for all those year-round schools, for the summer programs," Perkins said.

"Hopefully (school shut-downs) would never be necessary but that would perhaps get the attention of the 'Just Say No' crowd that doesn't want to participate in the funding of education," Perkins said.

Perkins questions whether senators were negotiating in good faith.

He said he thought a tax compromise agreement had been reached Tuesday night after lengthy negotiations among legislative leaders from both parties.

"We thought we had what was sign-off on some agreement and the very next day not only did we not get any conversation for 15 hours, what came out of the Senate wasn't recognizable relative to what we thought we had agreed to," he said. "I wish I had the answer to whether or not it was in good faith or (whether) we were deceived or turned around."

Perkins blamed Assembly Republicans who have resisted tax increases for failing to say what they would support.

"They haven't given any possible compromise of their own to get this done," he said.

The lower house leader said that the Assembly Republicans have taken advantage of the state law that requires two-thirds of each house of the Legislature to approve a new tax. That means only 15 of the 42 Assembly members can block action on a new tax.

"I probably underestimated the resolve, if you will, of a very small handful of what I would consider radical legislators in the Assembly that, for no other purpose except to show that they can, can hold up the process," Perkins said.

"I don't think that anybody has any real heartache over taxing gaming, big business and banks to pay for education. And yet we still have a small group of holdouts that are saying, 'You know what, we can hold it up because we can.' "