Columnist Jeff German: Cabbies’ issues not resolved

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 | 11:02 a.m.

Barbara Buckley doesn't like the way business is conducted behind closed doors when the Legislature winds down a session.

The Assembly majority leader says she plans to introduce measures in 2007 to prevent a repeat of how Assembly Bill 505 made it out of the Legislature with a last-minute discriminatory amendment banning cabbies from accepting gratuities from strip clubs and other businesses.

Because of what's being called the "screw-the-cabbies" amendment, Gov. Kenny Guinn last week vetoed the bill, which was supposed to streamline the transportation regulatory process.

Buckley, a Las Vegas Democrat who is expected to become the Assembly's speaker in 2007, says she was as surprised as anyone that AB505 was approved in the Legislature's final days without any public discussion on the unrelated amendment.

"I wasn't pleased that so many people were affected by this, and they didn't have the right to have their voices heard," Buckley says.

Her words echo those of the governor, who is contemplating asking for an investigation into what went wrong with AB505, a measure the governor pushed throughout the session.

At a minimum, Buckley says, she wants to change the secretive conference committee process, which is where the "screw-the-cabbies" amendment was born two days before lawmakers went home.

A conference committee, which is made up of members of both the Senate and Assembly, is appointed by the leadership to resolve differences on a bill between the two houses.

Dozens of such committees were created at the close of this past session, and most of them met under the public's radar.

Assemblyman John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, took credit for pushing the cabbie amendment through the conference committee on AB505.

But Oceguera, who chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee, has refused to say which special interests put him up to inserting the amendment.

The amendment threatened to derail a long-standing, but controversial, tip practice that has become essential to the livelihoods of many drivers.

The topless clubs, however, which pay about $25 per passenger to cabbies to bring customers to their doors, are thought to be among Oceguera's accomplices.

More fallout from the ill-fated AB505, meanwhile, is expected this week.

By Wednesday cabbies plan to give Guinn petitions with 800 signatures from drivers and family members encouraging the governor to look further into how the bill sailed through the end of the legislative session.

The drivers, who have staged several public demonstrations in the past couple of weeks, haven't been this riled up in years.

They're also putting pressure on elected leaders in the city and county, which recently informed strip clubs about outdated ordinances banning kickbacks to cabbies. Like AB505, the ordinances are unfair because they don't prohibit limousine and shuttle bus drivers from accepting gratuities from the cash-rich clubs.

Until Monday night, most of the clubs, looking to hold onto their liquor licenses, stopped paying the cabbies, which only made the drivers angrier.

Craig Harris, a politically active cabbie who led the petition drive, says he hopes local officials listen to the drivers as well as the governor has.

"If the city and county don't change their existing ordinances," Harris says, "I would expect further inconveniences to the riding public."

With the lucrative Fourth of July weekend coming up for the tourism industry, that's not a threat to be taken lightly.