More than 200 bills beat deadline

Erin Neff

Tuesday, March 18, 2003 | 8:58 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers flooded the Legislature with more than 200 bills before Monday's deadline for the introduction of new measures, proposing new taxes, tax exemptions and a host of other changes to state law.

Two major tax proposals dropped in the state Senate. Senate Bill 382, sponsored by Sens. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, and Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, would raise taxes to make up the state's $704 million shortfall and fund the budget.

The other, Senate Bill 308, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, would shift future property tax revenue from the local governments to the state.

The tax proposals introduced Monday in the Assembly are:

Goldwater's bill eliminates the exemption from sales taxes for a used vehicle taken in trade on the purchase of another vehicle. It eliminates the credit against the insurance premium tax for maintaining a home office or regional office in this state.

It also asks voters whether they want to repeal the sales tax exemption on newspapers; imposes a 1 percent increase in the per-night room tax; and imposes a one-eighth of 1 percent increase to the gross gaming tax.

Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt on Monday issued a statement in opposition to the proposed increase in the room tax contained in the Goldwater, Mortenson and the Care-Amodei bills.

"The future of our children's education should come first in our state and should not be tied to unstable revenues such as the room tax," Hunt said.

The state's budget woes have kept many lawmakers from introducing appropriations bills, and will keep the total number of bills introduced this session at about 85 percent of the number of bills introduced in 2001.

Still, some appropriations bills made their way into the legislative session.

Assemblyman Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, introduced Assembly Bill 404, which appropriates a total of $750,000 for access to obstetrical and gynecological care. The first $500,000 would pay a portion of the operational costs of community health centers which provide care to uninsured. The rest of the money would be used as matching money from the federal government to repay loans on behalf of obstetricians who agree to practice in this state.

Non-tax-related measures introduced in the Assembly on Monday would affect a number of issues, including the state's drug laws, public records and construction defects.

Assembly Bill 362, introduced by Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, would remove marijuana and marijuana metabolite from the state's driving under the influence statute as controlled substances. The bill instead specifies an amount of THC, the chemical compound in marijuana.

"Just having marijuana on the list is inappropriate because it simply means a plant," said Giunchigliani, who served as chair of an unsuccessful ballot initiative last year that sought to legalize possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana.

AB363 would make a driver guilty of DUI with 20 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood. Current state law specifies 5 nanograms of marijuana metabolite per milliliter of blood.

Assembly Bill 400, introduced by Dawn Gibbons, R-Reno, at the request of the Peace Officers Research Association of Nevada, would withhold public records about elected officials and others.

The list prohibits the release of assessor's information or Department of Motor Vehicles information from a host of people including: legislators; the attorney general; any judge or justice statewide; any court employee, any state-employed attorney or investigator; any district attorney or deputy district attorney; any public defenders; any city attorney; any elected official; any retired municipal official who dealt with ordinances; any peace officer; any National Park Service worker; any DMV worker who conducts exams for licenses; and any employees of corrections, parole, youth services or juvenile detention and others.

Assemblyman John Marvel, R-Battle Mountain, introduced Assembly Bill 373, a bill which limits the time period by which a person can file a construction defect claim.

Assembly Bill 408, sponsored by Hettrick and Assistant Assembly Minority Leader Josh Griffin, R-Henderson, would prohibit homeowners' associations from banning the flying of the U.S. flag.

Hettrick also introduced Assembly Bill 426, which requires school districts to reimburse the university system for the cost of remedial education.

Assembly Bill 422, sponsored by Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, would exempt Nevada from the federal Daylight Savings Time law.

Giunchigliani introduced Assembly Bill 353 to reduce the seats on the Board of Regents from 13 to seven, and to require each seat to be up for election for a four-year term.

Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, introduced an omnibus homeland security measure as a companion to his terrorism bill.

The Senate introduced a total of 95 new bills Monday and the Assembly introduced 106 bills Monday.