Friday, June 1, 2007 | 6:52 a.m.
CARSON CITY - If anyone doubts the power of the governor in this state, this session's denouement should forever erase any questions.
People in the Legislative Building can ridicule the governor - and they have and they do - for his inexperience and gaffes. But Jim Gibbons unquestionably has controlled the dynamic of the end-of-session's major maneuvers and framed the debate his way. This will be hard to fathom for many and difficult to accept for some, but Gibbons has led during these final weeks - although where that will lead two years from now is a different question.
First it was on the overall budget, when Gibbons' steadfast/stubborn/silly (choose your adjective based on your perspective) no-new-taxes mantra controlled what lawmakers could put into their deal. They knew they couldn't spend more than what the governor's original budget contained, so they had to play the game of shuffle-the-revenue-around to reach the final accord. And education, which had to go first because of Gibbons' ballot initiative, was dramatically affected by the governor's taxing edict.
Truth be told, Gibbons' veto threat last week over four minuscule items was both amateurish and meaningless. To declare that his top priorities were two-hundredths of a percent on the payroll tax, an at-risk kids program everyone supports, empowerment school funding and a terrorism hub in Carson City was inane.
Gibbons will get three of the four - the so-called fusion hub is opposed by major law enforcement officers and seems a bit of an id e fixe by the governor, if not an obsession. But he has promised to veto the budget if he did not get all of them, so that threat he made is now shown for what it was. But, for him, three out of four ain't bad, no matter how low he set his sights.
But it is the governor's second achievement, very close to fruition as I pen this, that is even more impressive. Thanks to legislative inaction on a transportation plan for three months, Gibbons was able to step into a vacuum and propose a raid of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority room tax revenue that was destined to sink here slightly faster than Venice is. It was not well thought out, it included other ideas that would deplete the general fund and it couldn't even get support from Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, who snubbed Gibbons when he announced the plan.
Now, though, a key part of the transportation compromise being bandied about here is a $20 million extraction from the Convention Authority. The gamers and authority folks never would have come to the table had Gibbons not forced them to with his dramatic overreach - maybe there was a method to his madness.
There are many policy questions surrounding the room tax diversion - why is this the best way to solve the transportation problems since there is little nexus between those who pay room tax and crowded roads? But, politically, the governor was able because of the legislature's abdication on this issue (until now) to present the only plan at the time in the process, so his linchpin became the compromise plan's linchpin.
During the last 48 hours or so, as lawmakers and lobbyists have tried to forge a compromise because the governor's bill is dead, Gibbons once again has asserted his executive power by forcing changes because of his tax pledge. Lawmakers have been hamstrung by the governor's insistence he would veto any tax increase and the inability to get the two-thirds to override him in the state Senate.
Yes, that has benefited several industries that are partly responsible for the roads problem. The truckers and taxis were supposed to be part of the overall solution - you see the nexus there - but now are going to escape scot-free because of the governor's pledge. That will mean less money and less of a long-term solution.
But the governor also will say he kept his promise not to raise taxes. And he has.
Governors always have disproportionate power in any state, but it is especially pronounced here because lawmakers meet only four months out of 24. And as this session comes to an end, never has it been more evident as Jim Gibbons has controlled the process - whether lawmakers like it or not, and whether the results are impressive or not.
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