Jon Ralston finds teachers union pitch tame by default

Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007 | 6:59 a.m.

If someone asked you to sign a petition to triple gaming's taxes to pay for teachers' salaries, roads and other infrastructure needs, what would you say?

If someone asked you to sign a petition that would outlaw aspects of a political system that operates on legalized incest, what would you say?

And if someone told you to sign the petitions because democracy is evanescent here and "our state is run by the casinos," what would you say?

As they assess the ballot initiatives being circulated by rabble-rousing attorney Kermitt Waters, the gamers have to be worried that many of those accosted outside their local supermarket are bound to answer: "Where do I sign?"

Once he fixes nagging legal, grammatical and technical questions, Waters is expected to file a series of petitions, the first as early as today. He had hoped to file his gaming tax petitions on Tuesday - yes, there are two - and his anti-corruption pieces in a few weeks. But he is being extraordinarily careful, which is not surprising considering the Nevada Resort Association this week filed a lengthy legal challenge to the teachers union plan to raise gaming taxes by just less than 50 percent - from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent on the wealthiest casinos.

Waters' plan is much more expansive than that of the teachers, moving beyond augmenting education funding to helping build roads, construct water and renewable energy facilities, and enhance Millennium Scholarship endowments.

The teachers may think Waters' plan makes theirs look reasonable - and some polling shows much more backing for the union initiative. And the gamers may dismiss Waters as a crank and portray him more as a pied piper leading Nevadans off an economic cliff than a Don Quixote tilting at the indestructible Strip windmill.

But Waters is not to be dismissed, despite a past that includes once hiring an impostor to take his LSAT (he was found out and kicked out of school before eventually getting his law degree) and being (briefly because, he says, vindictive prosecutors quickly realized they had no case) indicted for overseeing a continuing criminal enterprise. Even his present is eventful: Waters spends a lot of time in the Bahamas, expending hundreds of thousands of dollars, he says, trying to extricate a wrecked oil barge.

Waters is the kind of guy who would still be plenty colorful after he was bleached. But even if the gamers try to puncture the messenger, the color won't drain out of Waters' multiple initiatives, which could tap into a populist strain and a desire for change that courses though the local electorate.

In his folksy, Texas drawl, which frequently spits out sound-bite snipes at the state's political elite, Waters will give voice and perhaps substance to those who think the system is rigged by the moneyed elite. He is Ross Perot without (most of the time) the charts, fulminating against a political system populated by marionettes controlled by gaming puppet masters.

To some, it will sound like hooey from a latter-day Elmer Gantry; to others, it will sound like the preaching of a savior.

Almost all of what Waters is proposing will have visceral appeal. People generally want to jack up the gaming tax, and he will give voters the choice of adding a provision to erase residential property taxes. Waters also has plans in the works to restrict lobbying activities, bar family and business partners from appearing before elected officials, make "none of the above" mean something on ballots if it wins (the office would remain vacant) and prohibit judges from hearing cases in which a party has contributed to a campaign.

Some of this stuff will have serious constitutional questions, and Waters may well trim his broad agenda, which also includes barring corporate campaign contributions and reforming the initiative process itself.

Polling about these initiatives is about as meaningful as Nevada caucus surveys because of the multifarious uncertainties.

Will the Waters and teachers union proposals make it to the ballot? Will the gamers try to make a deal with their former friends, the teachers, and try to marginalize Waters? Will they simply hope they can get the courts to strike down both questions, thus giving Waters even more evidence for his arguments about a corrupt system? And if one or both make it to the ballot, will the gamers put up a competing ballot initiative?

That last question actually raises another question:

If someone asked you whether you would sign a petition to make gamers and big business, including mining, retailers and developers, pay more to pay for roads, education and so on, what would you say?