Pondering the future of state politics

By Jon Ralston (contact)

Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Can a political tsunami become a policy wave?

That is the question analysts across the country are asking about President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders as they look at the hammerlock the party has on the federal government. As conservatives rationalize and fulminate, or try to spin the devastation as a chance to rebuild and become stronger, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid government will try to solve the metastasizing economic crisis while not lurching too far to the left.

Closer to home, the same question should be raised about the effect of the Democratic temblor that shook the state and may have changed the political fault lines for the foreseeable future. Democratic-Republican. North-South. Young-old. What happens to address the budget crisis in Carson City during the next six months or so will not stay in Carson City and could determine the state’s political and policy destiny.

So what will the Democrats do after their resounding Tuesday victories? I have always been wary of so-called macro messages from campaigns, especially locally. The Democrats have all of the swell offices in the Legislative Building not because they presented superior ideas or candidates — or did I miss them? — but because they had superior organization and a nontoxic partisan brand.

Legislative contenders were dragged across the finish line by an Obama/Democratic Party/union grass-roots effort. Most of the critical races were over after early voting, when the machine had produced large enough leads so a GOP Election Day advantage would be fruitless, save for a few Assembly races that reduced Speaker Barbara Buckley’s supermajority margin for error to nil.

Calling Buckley’s 28 members a veto-proof majority always has been hype. Nothing is veto-proof coming out of the Assembly unless both houses can override — and rookie Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford can count only to 12, or two votes short.

And that’s on a good day. In Carson City, it’s not just a Gibbons-Horsford-Buckley government. There’s a fourth X-factor by the name of Bill Raggio, the single most skillful, cunning legislator of this generation.

Raggio probably can do more being two votes from a majority than most leaders could do with a supermajority. And Horsford will have his hands full once he announces committee assignments because members of his caucus will not be happy. One will be Mike Schneider, who covets but probably will not get Commerce and has always been seen as a relatively conservative Democrat. And Reno’s Bernice Mathews often has been seen as having more allegiance to Raggio and her region than her party, which Horsford will have to confront.

Raggio may not exploit opportunities to pull votes from Horsford to try to create a de facto majority — he will be thinking of his legacy, I am sure. The chemistry between Horsford and Raggio, who couldn’t be more different, will be critical to Session ’09 and solving the budget crisis.

One is a young, black neophyte from the South with plenty of star potential and just getting started; the other is an octogenarian, consummate member of the white political Establishment from the North at the end of his career.

Can Horsford mature quickly enough to be able to hold the reins of this obstreperous dozen, and will Raggio be fully engaged in the minority? We shall see — and soon.

The stakes here are enormous — politically and substantively. If the Democrats rubber-stamp an administration budget that decimates programs and turns paltry education funding into nonexistent education funding, the long-term consequences will be dire. They also could resurrect Gibbons, who might present a visionary State of the State with a creative plan for the state’s future, although that, to be charitable, seems unlikely. The governor undoubtedly will once again delve deeply into his handy Book of Cliches and try to show he stands up for Nevada families so they will not be taxed because government should run like a business by cutting the fat and tightening its belt.

If Obama’s victory tells us anything beyond the numbers, it is that people are willing to listen beyond the sound bites. They want leaders who not only offer hope and change, but will do something other than divide and actually produce results.

Such is the opportunity presented to the Democrats in Carson City and to Republicans who care more about the state’s future than Jim Gibbons’ future. The choice will be quite simple: myopia or leadership.

By the time decisions must be made, the wave will be long forgotten and the endgame will be about 2010 and beyond and the dovetailing of politics and policy once again. Who controls Carson City will control redistricting, reapportionment and, thus, the state’s future.