Jon Ralston on how, believe it or not, the legislative session has been even worse for Gov. Jim Gibbons than his first week in office

Sunday, March 4, 2007 | 7:33 a.m.

One month into the legislative session and we have a governor under investigation by the FBI who has yet to elaborate on the centerpiece of his education plan, has no ideas beyond more study on how to fix Southern Nevada's clogged roads and is crippling the state's regulatory process to keep an inane campaign promise.

Across the capital courtyard, Assembly Democrats have lots of ideas that are DOA in the Senate (at least they have proposals such as full-day kindergarten and health care for the uninsured), the Republican minority in the Assembly led by Garn Mabey has podcasts (coming soon the Gang of 15 sings its rendition of the awful Little River Band hit, "Lonesome Loser") and state Sen. Bob Beers has TASCed himself with being de facto governor, issuing news releases and blogging so someone is speaking for the GOP (like many beleaguered teams, this one needs beers).

Is this any way to run a state?

No one could have predicted, after Gibbons' pratfall-filled legislative prelude, that the first month of the session could be even worse for the new governor. With his wife, Dawn, vetoing the governor's obvious choice for chief of staff (Robert Uithoven, his longtime lieutenant and campaign chief), a midnight swearing-in falsely advertised as necessary to protect us from terrorists (but actually designed to unseat a gaming regulator) and the governor's inability to identify one of his appointees (exacerbated by his failure to differentiate between India and Turkey, her country of origin), the Legislature had to provide some relief for the embattled chief executive.

Not so.

After his State of the State two weeks before the Legislature convened, Gibbons has struggled to convince even his ardent supporters that he knows what he is talking about.

He proposed a school empowerment plan, but then a couple of nights later was attending a remedial course to empower himself. He has since failed to present any details.

The governor proposed a homestead exemption for vacation homes, along with an adjustment to the threshold - an idea one Democratic legislator labeled "wacky" and that seemed a thank-you to his benefactors with Lake Tahoe ZIP codes. He then withdrew the second-home exemption, refusing to provide any explanation.

Gibbons also promoted a coals-to-liquid fuels plant idea, raising all kinds of questions about where the coal was going to come from and how he would deal with the proven increase to global warming. His energy adviser - the one from Turkey, not India - later announced that the governor's top priority was renewables.

And then after essentially appropriating his predecessor's budget and distributing it, he was astounded to find there were fees to help finance it. So now he wants to take them out, thus allowing industries to go unregulated or not well-regulated, because of a read-my-lips pledge he made during the campaign.

Even without an FBI probe splashed on the front page of one of the nation's largest newspapers, Gibbons was in trouble. But when that Wall Street Journal story rippled across the country, the governor suddenly was defending a friend who had taken him on a cruise and contributed to his campaigns and for whom he had advocated for federal contracts. And now he has hired a high-profile white-collar defense lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who has represented the likes of Jack Abramoff and Gary Condit.

Even Republicans are worried - some say they think Gibbons has no better than a 35 percent approval rating - and some surely have buyer's remorse. Loyalists have advised the governor to shake up an inexperienced staff, and I am sure Garn and the Mabeys could chime in with a podcast chorus of, "Where have you gone, Robert Uithoven, an administration turns its lonely eyes to you "

I doubt that will happen. Uithoven may just worry that he would be boarding a Titanic-like ship that may be slowly sinking.

Across the way, Speaker Barbara Buckley is enjoying her honeymoon, Beers is acting like he owns the place and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, ever sphinx-like, is waiting to play his hand, knowing this is a marathon and not a sprint.

Gibbons doesn't have that much time, though, to get his second wind. The session is a quarter gone, he has ever-diminishing credibility and he can't afford for anyone, after 120 days, to be asking that same question:

Is this any way to run a state?