Jon Ralston guides readers through the crazy maze that is the Legislature

Wednesday, May 16, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

If you find the legislative process to be labyrinthine, let me help you through the confusing maze.

I began this guided tour about two weeks ago, but I would not blame anyone who feels like a frozen and lost Jack Nicholson in that maze at the end of "The Shining." Follow along as I show you how a bill becomes law, gets exploited by moneyed interests through the regulatory process and is repealed by panicked, pork-hungry lawmakers, which causes the moneyed interests to wail, which helps induce the governor to veto the repeal with one hand but reinstate it with the other - temporarily, that is.

Lost, are you? Terrified, even? Even Stephen King or Stanley Kubrick couldn't come up with something that frightening or mind-boggling.

And add this to the mix: In trying to have it both ways with a veto of the law that gave tax breaks to green builders and an executive order designed to override his own veto for three months, Gov. Jim Gibbons created serious constitutional questions and (at least technically) violated his "no new taxes" pledge, if only ephemerally.

Ask any conservative you know, and he or she will tell you that if you take away a tax break, that's a tax increase. So if Gibbons' executive order suspends tax breaks implemented two years ago to all but four applicants, might the others who want them and believe they are entitled (there are more than two dozen in the pipeline) think their taxes have been raised?

Yes, the executive order lasts only three weeks , but it could be extended - and what is more likely is that a bill eventually will be signed by the governor that takes away some of the tax breaks (at least that's how the applicants will see it ) that would save them millions and cost the state an equal amount.

But I digress. And this is confusing enough already without trying to find syllogistic significance. Still, let me take one more wrong turn in the maze before searching for the exit:

This mess is further complicated by the governor requesting an opinion from the attorney general on how he should handle the repeal, partly so he could have political cover for whatever he did. Catherine Cortez Masto is a Democrat, which makes that political ploy even better.

But now that he has vetoed the measure, he is insisting on keeping the opinion confidential, so we have no way of knowing whether she actually advised him it was copacetic to sign it. And she can't talk about it either, saying Gibbons is the client and the privilege reposes with him. Getting dizzy yet?

We also don't know whether Cortez Masto advised Gibbons that it was fine to issue an executive order that lasts until June 4, when the Legislature is slated to adjourn, that stays a statute passed in 2005. This order essentially says regulators who are mandated by law to take applications cannot take applications, which opens an entirely new avenue to get lost on in this political jungle.

How can a governor possibly use an executive order to supersede a law? He can't, of course. And I would almost guarantee that Cortez Masto, unencumbered by attorney-client privilege, would say so. Think of the Pandora's box that would open: A governor who did not like a law would not have to veto it and risk an override; he could simply issue an executive order staying it.

In the order, Gibbons, who is a lawyer, quoted the Nevada Constitution, Article 5, Section 1, to justify his ability to do what he has done: "The supreme executive power of this State shall be vested in a Chief Magistrate who shall be the Governor of the State of Nevada."

Yes, supreme executive power. But the Constitution does not make him the Supreme Being.

As lost as we may be in this tangled thicket, surely this is obvious to anyone. (The governor's office believes the order is legal because of the finite time limit and the imperative to create order out of the chaos. But although they may remove some trees that needed to be felled in this specific case, the forest of future orders remains standing.)

So where are we now?

Until we find out what lawmakers plan to do next and whether Gibbons will approve of the bill they write, it's probably best to stand still for a while. You never know, in the legislative labyrinth, what might be around the next corner.