Columnist Jon Ralston: Intrigue worthy of the Bard

Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 | 4:21 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION

August 28 - 29, 2004

Against the banal backdrop of a Seussian debate over Yucca Mountain ("I do not like it, Nevahduh I love") and an Oakleyesque shootout over property taxes ("Anything you can cap, I can cap lower") comes nothing less than a Shakespearean tableau in the state Senate.

The drama, pathos and ironies here are such that the Bard could only have dreamt of, a study in the lust for revenge and power that echoes the best elements of Shakespeare's best plays. And at stake is not just the future of individuals -- especially Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, a character who is part Caesar and part Lear. It is also, perhaps, a harbinger of a final geographical power shift from North to South and a replay of a tax battle that is bubbling again and creating toil and trouble in ways unimaginable a year ago.

This is a tragedy/comedy/history playing out in the primary's waning days and causing immense pain for a host of individuals and special interests as loyalties are divided and even subdivided as factions seek supremacy and the throne held for so long by King Bill.

Much of the drama is playing out in the primary between Sen. Ann O'Connell and Joe Heck, and, to a lesser extent, in the battle between incumbent Ray Rawson and Assemblyman Bob Beers. The results of those two races are considered so significant to Raggio's future that one member of his caucus already has inquired of legal authorities about what would happen if Raggio decides to resign after primary victories by putative enemies Beers and O'Connell.

Underlying all of this is the feeling shared by many of Raggio's friends that Carson City Sen. Mark Amodei has been the Iago (or is he Cassius?) of this tale, whispering sour somethings in O'Connell's ear to persuade her the king wants her dead and urging her to adopt her current strategy of assailing the modern version of Caesar's empire, the gaming industry. Long ago, Amodei provided me with a Shermanseque statement about his desire to have Raggio's job. And yet, his passive-aggressive behavior has Raggio and his allies on edge, especially because Amodei is so smart and cunning.

Amodei, along with Democrat Terry Care, was the sponsor of the tax bill that would have raised more money than the governor's billion-dollar baby and which O'Connell, now to her deep regret, signed onto. Whether it was courtesy to Amodei or disgust with the gaming-backed gross receipts tax no longer matters. O'Connell is on record supporting the bill and now is seeing that the quality of the mercy extended by the gamers is not strained.

O'Connell has now been cast as the lady who is protesting too much about gaming's jihad, especially since she was only too happy in past sessions to dally with other big businesses and be their taxation sentinel. (The fault, my dear senator ...)

O'Connell's open supporters include state Sens. Sandra Tiffany and Barbara Cegavske, who are like Lear's daughters, Regan and Goneril, but more like Lady Macbeth. Tiffany prefers the more in-your-face rendering of that character while Cegavske tries to conceal her Machiavellianism with a soccer mom sheen.

The gamers and others believe that without O'Connell in Carson City, Cegavske and Tiffany will return to being nettlesome backbenchers. But if O'Connell returns, they will become leading ladies, some of Raggio's allies fear, in a plot to make sure the majority leader does not have his title come the Ides of March.

The casinos see their efforts here as righteous, especially because they were willing to pay more last session (and did) and believe they are within their rights to occasionally try to erase someone they feel is inimical to their interests. But moderation in all things is not something the gamers are known to practice.

And commitment in politics is not something usually associated with the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which has had more tax plans than there are taxes and has been doing a spectacular Hamlet act with O'Connell. The chamber types are with her to win, but not with her in the attack on gaming because the group has casino members (for now). But wouldn't it be nobler to either suffer the slings and arrows with O'Connell, or sever their ties because of what she is doing to the industry?

The understudy for the role of the Danish prince this year is Rawson, whose supporters have been driven nearly insane by the candidate's "to be or not to be" performance. Meanwhile, Beers is a seriously Falstaffian figure, a Republican rogue who has delighted in pounding Rawson as a profligate spender. Supported by the likes of the puckish George Harris, Beers has continued to perform as if all the Legislature was his stage.

This play will not close Sept. 7, either. The gamers will not give up if O'Connell survives the primary and will try to defeat her in the general. The casinos and their allies will go after state Sen. Mike Schneider and others who signed onto Care-Amodei, including (two years hence) Maurice Washington, the Othello of this piece who was coaxed to smother the original tax plan last session.

The maneuvering next session, with Raggio's allies already reaching out to Dina Titus for a shared power arrangement (could the most pro-Southern Nevada lawmaker ever become the agent of Raggio's resurrection?), is beyond anything Shakespeare could have conceived. No matter what the outcome this cycle, when the Gang of 63 arrives in Carson City early next year, it is sure to a winter of discontent in the state Senate.