Goodman, gamers grapple with Gov. Gibbons

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Saturday, May 26, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Given 120 days to write a college term paper, who among us would be finished writing in 110?

So it's no surprise that with just days to go before the Nevada Constitution mandates the Legislature shut down, lawmakers were working late Friday, meeting today and likely meeting Memorial Day in a race to finish. The smart money is on a special session.

Most of the big issues are still on the table: how much money for schools and roads, and how to fix tax breaks for environmentally friendly buildings that will cost too much without significant changes.

Gov. Jim Gibbons managed to steal much of the buzz Friday, if not always intentionally.

At a Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority meeting in Las Vegas, Mayor Oscar Goodman and gaming officials verbally pummeled him for suggesting room-tax money set aside for the tourism agency be diverted to road projects.

"I think it's outrageous (Gibbons) goes forward with a plan like this without considering the devastating effect it would have on this authority and the health of our tourism economy," Goodman said.

Gibbons says his plan would raise money for roads without raising taxes. In Carson City, industry lobbyists were ignoring all that, furiously negotiating their own plan on orders from Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio . They need a plan to pass both houses by Monday. By doing that, the Legislature would give itself a chance to override a Gibbons veto.

After Monday, Gibbons could use his constitutional power to sit on the bill for five days, by which time the session will have ended. The Legislature wouldn't have a chance to override the veto until next session, in 2009.

But here's another complication: The new Education First constitutional amendment, whose chief sponsor was Gibbons, requires the Legislature to fund education before anything else. Legislative negotiators were still working on the education budget late Friday.

The Legislature got its own pops in Friday.

At a Senate Finance Committee hearing, the governor's lobbyist asked that Gibbons be given more authority over the Nevada National Guard.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, teased him: "Next he'll (Gibbons) be wanting to have a war czar in his own Cabinet."

And, the Assembly offered a subtle but significant rebuke to Gibbons, passing a Titus bill that would regulate legal defense funds. Earlier this year, Gibbons was discovered to have created a secret legal defense fund to deal with three scandals that erupted last year, including an ongoing FBI investigation of his relationship with a defense contractor.

Sun reporter Richard N. Velotta contributed to this report.