Jon Ralston offers reasons for calling a special session

Friday, May 18, 2007 | 7:21 a.m.

CARSON CITY - The question people ask the most this time of year, usually with a lugubrious look, is a simple one: Will there be a special session?

My answer: There should be.

No, not for the entertainment value it would provide for the Fourth Estate. Not because the 120-day limitation is arbitrary and has caused a half-dozen special sessions since its implementation. And certainly not so some of these legislators can extend their Warholian moments or so some of these lobbyists can bill their clients for the extra session.

With two weeks and change until the scheduled adjournment on June 4, we are once again poised for a Rush to Close where putative compromises turn real problems to mush and political posturing substitutes for meaningful deliberation. Someone here should stand up and say the Legislature will not end until:

The governor's plan not only won't solve the problem - it would raise a fraction of the money needed - but it also may be illegal, has little nexus to the problem and will blow a sizable hole in the 2009 budget. Other than that, it's genius.

So let's stop playing games. The governor kept his "no new taxes" pledge and repaid the campaign favors of Gondolier Numero Uno Sheldon Adelson by trying to gut the convention authority. Fine.

So now lawmakers can get serious, pass a plan that combines some of the recommendations of a thoughtful task force and impose some taxes on industries that affect road quality. It won't be easy. So take a special session to figure it out.

The simple truth is Gibbons barely increased the lower education budget beyond growth, thus keeping the public schools on a treadmill that only makes parents sweat as they wonder why we are going nowhere fast.

It's not about empowerment or all-day kindergarten, either. It's about finding ways to keep and attract teachers, create better accountability measures and deal thoughtfully with a growing minority population.

And, yes, it's finding a way to fund education not to the national average - a modest goal if ever there were one - but so the public school system here is a source of pride for the community and not a target of contumely.

And nothing less than hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake as regulators subverted the intent of a 2005 law and allowed people to apply well after certain of the tax breaks had expired. A tremendous liability for the state has now been created because many major companies believe they had approval for massive tax breaks and surely will not go quietly if they are denied them now.

This is a Hobson's choice for lawmakers: They can't afford to lose all that tax money, which will further hurt schools. But they also can't withstand a raft of lawsuits from major companies that will have good cases because they believed they had a, ahem, green light.

And those are only three pressing issues that a special session could be used to resolve. There are other Damoclean swords hanging over these folks - hundreds of millions (again) in a retirement fund liability and a spending cap that will hit in 2009 that could force Draconian cuts in state services.

It would probably be asking too much for the special session to also include a thoughtful and lengthy debate over future tax policy so we don't end up where we always end up - cobbled-together, half-baked solutions that cost more than they ever save in the long run. But that long run is fast approaching, so it's time to take the time now to settle some of these issues once and for all.

Now that would be special.