Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Court won’t review Nevada two-thirds ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning announced it would not review a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Legislature last year to temporarily suspend a portion of Nevada's Constitution to raise taxes.

However, that does not end a challenge by Republican legislators to the state court's controversial decision last summer. The court said the constitution's mandate to fund education took precedence over its requirement that increased taxes get a two-thirds vote, the legislators' lawyer said.

Attorney John Eastman said arguments will be heard April 15 before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on whether federal courts have jurisdiction in the case. The federal district court in Las Vegas ruled last summer that the issue had been decided by state courts and the federal court did not have jurisdiction.

Still, Eastman said he was disappointed by the the U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case.

"We always knew it would be an uphill battle," he said. "It was a long shot."

Supreme Court justices have complete discretion over what cases to hear. Their ruling on whether to hear a case does not include any opinions on the case's merits.

"It's a state issue," said Gov. Kenny Guinn, who instigated the case.

The state court decision broke an impasse over the state budget in the 2003 Legislature.

An $833 million tax bill needed to balance the state's budget required a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and Assembly and had repeatedly failed by one vote in the Assembly.

The impasse held up funding for education past July 1, the start of the fiscal year, and, after Guinn sued, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional requirement to provide support for public schools took precedence over the two-thirds majority needed.

The tax increase later passed by a two-thirds vote but the court ruling is still under attack by Republicans and other critics who say it will make it easier to increase taxes in the future.

Guinn said voters, if they wanted to, could require a two-thirds vote on both the budget and new taxes. In Nevada the budget has to be passed by the Legislature only by majority.

Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, who had opposed the tax increase, said the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court seems to say that the issue has to be decided first by the 9th Circuit. "I do not lose hope over this," Beers said of today's decision. He said the issue is "up to the voters" to decide in the upcoming elections. Beers has said he will run against state Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, who supported the tax increase.

Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, said the U.S. Supreme Court was right to deny the case because the state Supreme Court was correct in its original decision.

Neal said the Nevada court rightly ruled that the substantive needs of children in public education were more important than the procedural needs of the Legislature.

"It was a way to get past a procedural deadlock," Neal said. "The substantive provision overrides the procedural provision."

Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, said she had been surprised by the Nevada Supreme Court ruling but was glad the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

"Usually the Supreme Court will deny something for want of a federal question, and I suspect that is how they saw this," Titus, the Senate minority leader, said. "It's a state constitutional matter and it doesn't warrant getting involved."

Titus said she hoped the issue would be put to rest.

"I think we need to be thinking about the future and not the past, because we got two-thirds," Titus said. "I didn't see that decision as changing the constitution for the future because it was narrowly defined to that one incident."

Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, called the decision "good news."

Arberry, chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee that builds the budget, said, "A lot of hard work went into balancing the budget." He said he didn't want to have it torn apart.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said the high court's decision did not surprise her.

"Since the Legislature passed the school budget and the tax plan by two-thirds majority, there was no legal case left.

"Every member of the fairly conservative U.S. Supreme Court agreed."

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