Editorial: Doing the right thing

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2003 | 8:38 a.m.

On Wednesday the Nevada Supreme Court declined to reconsider its 6-1 ruling in July that found a constitutional mandate to fund education trumped another constitutional provision that said raising taxes requires at least a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. The court issued its ruling in July after an impasse in the Legislature -- a dispute over how much to raise taxes -- threatened to withhold funding from public schools. After the court issued its well-reasoned decision, which created additional pressure on lawmakers to take action, a budget-and-tax plan was passed with a two-thirds majority after all.

Republican legislators opposed to the final tax package wanted the rehearing because they feared it set a precedent. Yet as the Supreme Court noted in its opinion Wednesday, its ruling in July "did not eliminate the two-thirds' requirement, but it did indicate that the supermajority provision could not be used to avoid other constitutional duties." In the Assembly a band of Republicans had irresponsibly refused to increase taxes enough to fund the state budget, including public education, in an obvious attempt to score points with their partisan base.

While the Assembly Republicans who opposed the tax increases still want to divert attention from themselves and onto the Supreme Court's July decision, the reality is they are the ones who provoked the constitutional crisis. If they had just done their jobs in the first place, the Supreme Court never would have had to intervene.