Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2004 | 11:20 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The applause told part of the story during the State of the Union speech on Monday: When President Bush said portions of the Patriot Act are due to expire next year, Democrats applauded. When the president called on Congress to renew them, Republicans cheered.
As Bush called on Congress to make his tax cuts permanent, Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada joined her Democratic colleagues in still silence while Nevada Republicans Sen. John Ensign and Reps. Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter joined their partisans in a standing ovation.
But after the speech, as the state's congressional delegation and other Nevadans who will feel the effect of Bush's proposals analyzed the speech, some differences emerged, especially on the Patriot Act.
The law and related provisions have been used to obtain financial records of criminal defendants in non-terrorism cases in Las Vegas and have been used to force resorts to provide to federal law enforcement records about guests.
Gibbons said, "There are good parts in the Patriot Act, but we are going to look at parts that are troubling." He said he is mainly concerned with a lack of notification for search and seizures.
Ensign, who is part of the president's re-election commitee in Nevada, said he is still researching the law.
"There is a lot of misinformation out there on it." Ensign said. "Things are being attributed to it that aren't. It isn't as bad as people think."
Berkley was unrestrained in her criticism.
"The Patriot Act has been abused in the state of Nevada," she said. "Rather than blindly repassing it, we need to rethink it."
Gov. Kenny Guinn, said he would support renewing the Patriot Act if certain parts of it were "massaged" and explained more clearly. "We need to continue this, but it doesn't have to violate the right of people," he said.
Guinn watched the speech with former President George Bush, who was in Las Vegas for a campaign fund-raiser for his son's re-election to the White House. Guinn said the elder Bush did not comment on his son's performance.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who watched the speech from an undisclosed location as part of a security precaution, said the broad-ranging speech addressed "the well-being of the American public" but did not say enough about the deficit.
He called efforts to bring health care to the poor "long-overdue," but he noted that Bush did not say how he was going to do it.
"I am concerned that the budget he will propose in a few weeks will include deep cuts to education, health care and employment programs," Reid said.
Reid said the president mentioned cutting the deficit in half over the next five years, but just a 50 percent decrease is not enough.
In addition to the deficit and health care, Nevadans commented about the president's plan to provide job-training money for community colleges, larger federal grants for students who take "demanding courses" in high schools, his proposed immigration policy reform, his support for traditional marriage and tax cuts.
Chris Chairsell, director for community colleges for the University and Community College System of Nevada, said she was excited by Bush's support for community colleges and "very heartened" by the fact the whole chamber applauded at even the mention of community colleges.
"This is the first time I've ever seen it in the Congress like this," she said.
She said agreed helping new residents and current students have better access to education will only help create a better work force, but she said she needed to hear more details about how the federal government intends to help community colleges.
Reid wondered where the money would come from. "I am in favor of the community college system -- that's where I started my education -- but you can't steal from Peter to pay Paul," he said.
Chairsell also supported Bush's desire to have larger Pell grants, or federal scholarship money for those who qualify, for student who take "demanding courses" in high school to prepare for college.
She said larger Pell grants can keep the middle class in school.
Bush touched on his immigration policy reform, proposing a "new temporary worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing employers when no Americans can be found to fill the job."
Peter Ashman, chairman of the Nevada Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyer Association, said he welcomes the dialogue on immigration policy, but was not clear what the president meant in his speech.
"Is the program only for those overseas?" Ashman wondered. "That temporary worker program doesn't do much for the 10 million undocumented workers."
Like Ashman, Reid pointed to the overseas aspect of Bush's proposal.
"Let's deal with those people that are here first before we bring more," Reid said.
In his speech Bush said he opposed amnesty "because it would encourage further illegal immigration and unfairly reward those who break our laws."
Ashman said the word amnesty to a lot of people means walking up to people on the street corner and handing them legal papers to become citizens, but that's not what is has to be.
Richard Ziser, who championed Question 2, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman and who is challenging Reid for his Senate seat, said he appreciated Bush's comments on moral issues.
The abstinence program Bush mentioned is "obviously" the best way to stop sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy and that he support moving money from condom distribution programs to this one, Ziser said.
On gay marriage, Ziser said, the president said Tuesday that "what's good enough for Nevada is good for the nation."
Ziser noted though that he would not like to see a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages since he would prefer to leave that power to the states and not touch the Constitution.
Nevada's delegation was split along party lines on Bush's request to make tax cuts permanent.
Ensign said making tax cuts permanent would give people more money that they could potentially come spend in Nevada. Reid said any tax cuts need to help the middle class and not the rich. He said making Bush's tax cut permanent wouldn't work.
Gibbons said he fully supports making tax cuts permanent. He said recovery from the recession is "made possible by reducing the burden on working individuals and businesses in this country."
Porter said families want to feel finanicial security and the tax cuts are "returning hard-earned dollars" to working families.
Berkley, noting that she voted for the first Bush tax cut and several others said no one can rightly call her a tax-and-spend liberal, but she did not want to see "senseless tax cuts."
"The administration is a collective drunken sailor and Congress is going to wake up with a tremendous hangover, and our children are going to have to come up with the asprin," she said. "It's leaving a bad legacy."
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