Friday, May 20, 2005 | 6:38 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
May 21 - 22, 2005
CARSON CITY -- Democratic leaders came into the 2005 legislative session armed with a focused legislative agenda.
Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, and Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, both of whom hope to be the state's next governor, have so far kept their party concentrated on their agenda's key components: the minimum wage, education and health care.
And now, with two weeks left in the session, the agenda's success will be determined as the Republican Senate and Democratic Assembly trade bills and negotiate.
"I think that, nationally, Democrats received some criticism for not having an agenda," Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said. "In the Legislature, Democrats have had agendas the past several sessions, but if you asked somebody a year later, people would have difficulty remembering.
"This time, we decided to publicize it more."
The Democrats' plan has kept them visible throughout the session. Republicans have been more low-key.
The Democrats are hoping their agenda will provide the party with a platform going into the 2006 election cycle after key losses in 2002, when Republicans swept all the state offices on the ballot, and in 2004, when Democrats couldn't swing the state in the presidential election.
The Democratic agenda was designed to appeal to large amounts of people. It included bumping up the minimum wage, creating a lottery to fund education, providing full-day kindergarten for all children and fostering the re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada.
The agenda, said Fred Lokken, an associate dean at Truckee Meadows Community College, reflects the meat and bones of the Democratic Party -- nods to unions, teachers and the social service network.
"As they've struggled here statewide in winning an election, they're using this to organize the support of the Democratic Party more effectively," Lokken said.
Both parties will be able to claim credit for capping property taxes, but Lokken said Democrats have been unified behind the rest of their agenda.
Some Republicans roll their eyes at Democrats' self promotion this session, often reminding reporters that, unlike Titus and Perkins, they're not running for governor in 2006.
Earlier this session Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said on the Reno TV program "Nevada News Makers" that Titus and Perkins have shown a sudden affinity for bills that benefit rural Nevada, not just Las Vegas.
"I think it is too much," Raggio said on the show. "People are making speeches, making statements and holding press conferences because of gubernatorial ambitions and other kinds of ambitions."
This week, Raggio was more subdued about the Democratic agenda, saying simply, "I guess you have to ask, how successful is it?"
In the short-term, the results appear mixed. Senate Republicans started killing off or changing some of the initiatives this week, when lawmakers faced a key legislative deadline.
Most legislative watchers predict Democrats have less of a chance to revive their plan to create a state-run lottery or pass a minimum wage increase linked to inflation than they do to pass less partisan issues, such as increasing funds for health care.
Long-term payoff
But the long-term payoff of the Democratic agenda is unclear, said Eric Herzik, political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.
"The Democrats certainly can be accused of playing it safe," Herzik said. "Their boldest initiatives are really very traditional Democrat initiatives, more spending on education and health care."
Republicans say some of the issues on the Democratic agenda are no-brainers, popular issues that, as Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, said, are "Nevada friendly, user friendly, whatever friendly."
Perkins poo-poos criticisms that the agenda grabs at obvious issues, saying Democrats didn't -- as suggested by some -- test their agenda with polls.
"If the worse criticism here is these things are poll tested, I'll take that," he said. "If it's poll tested, it means it's got citizen support. I guess that's what I see as our job here in a representative democracy."
Everyone in Carson City knows what Perkins and Titus want this legislative session. Raggio's priorities are less obvious.
"Republicans haven't really had much of an agenda," Titus said.
Republicans have displayed a more nose-to-the-grindstone approach to the session, saying their priority is to ensure that ongoing state government spending won't skyrocket because the state has a $600 million surplus.
"Everybody has their style," said Raggio, who has served in the Legislature for 32 years. "I don't know that press conferences help unless you have something very important to say."
Raggio says he hopes "to adopt a budget that meets the needs of the state -- a fast-growing state -- and be as fiscally responsible as we can possibly be."
Gov. Kenny Guinn has laid out his vision in the state budget, and the Senate has carried out Republican priorities.
Besides Guinn's $300 million rebate to taxpayers, he wants to put $100 million into schools for remediation, $122 million into the state's Rainy Day fund and millions into other educational and health care programs.
He also suggests cutting retirement health benefits to newly hired state employees, an idea Assembly Democrats have vowed to block on their side of the building.
Republicans remain largely united behind Guinn's budget, though, ironically, less enthusiastic about the rebate than Democratic leaders are.
Hettrick calls the rebate one of his top priorities, while Raggio has refused to publicly commit to the amount until the budget is fully hammered out.
Hettrick points out that the Republican Assembly members want to launch an agenda, but know better.
"In a minority, if you went out and established an agenda, you probably wouldn't pass any of those bills," he said. "Almost certainly the majority was not going to let you go out and pass your advertised agenda."
Herzik argues the Republican Party is split, and said the party's message is "blurred" this session.
There's still a gulf between fiscal conservatives who argue last year's tax increases were too much and moderates who say the state needs to keep up with the needs of growth, Herzik said.
Nowhere was that more apparent than in the Senate Finance Committee, which voted 5-2 to kill a bill from Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, to cap government spending based on a Colorado initiative called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR.
The bill would have limited government growth to the rate of population plus inflation.
Beers argues that the state budget is increasing at an alarming rate, and has vowed to take his plan to voters in 2006.
Just this biennium, he said, the budget will grow 24 percent, while the combined amount of population growth plus inflation is about 12 percent.
His spending cap could accompany an initiative pushed by Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, to cap property taxes similar to Proposition 13 in California.
Hettrick, meanwhile, is working this session to cut off those initiatives, saying he hopes to pass several constitutional amendments that would cap property taxes and government spending in less drastic ways than Proposition 13 and TABOR.
Hettrick said he's even willing to support ballot initiatives in 2006 to compete with TABOR and Proposition 13.
"I'm for low taxes, obviously," Hettrick said. "I'm for low government spending. But I'm not for breaking the counties."
Elections
The next two weeks will be key, as legislative leaders stream back and forth between the first-floor offices of Perkins and Raggio, trying to work out deals.
Democrats still vow to resurrect some of their initiatives, including a sales tax holiday and the lottery. One approach would be to amend their ideas into related bills that Senate Republicans care about.
Some issues are "tradeable" at the end of the session, political consultant Billy Vassiliadis said. But that's more like trading one building in Southern Nevada for another in Northern Nevada, he said.
Issues such as raising the minimum wage and creating a lottery "may be too philosophy-based" to barter back and forth at the end of the session, he said.
Meanwhile, Raggio hasn't made his pet issues as clear, though he is a longtime supporter of funding for higher education.
"That's why he's a difficult guy to trade with," Vassiliadis said. "He doesn't let you know what he wants."
No matter the outcome, the Democrats could benefit, Herzik said.
"You propose things, and if they don't pass, you can say, 'the world would have been a better place if we had been listened to. Give us the power to do so,' " Herzik said.
The problem for Perkins and Titus, Vassiliadis said, is that they largely share the Democratic agenda, meaning they can't take personal credit for it in the Democratic primary for governor.
Even Titus said she thinks voters will be much more interested in the issues that directly impact their wallet.
"What they're going to remember in 2006 is property taxes and the rebate," she said.
Herzik said it's unclear if the Democratic plan will work.
"They clearly had to do something to distinguish their policy positions," he said. "Whether this was enough, or whether it was bold enough or specific enough, I don't know."
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