The predictable ending of the 2009 legislative session

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.

After nearly 110 days filled with less mystery than a pull of a Megabucks handle, lawmakers are poised to enact the tax package that could have been foretold six months ago and are stuck on the same kind of minutiae that holds up every session.

If this is change we can believe in, I liked it better when the good old boys ran the show. I know: A tad harsh. Or is it?

As much as I think the state’s youngest majority leader in history and first female speaker were dealt a horrible economic hand, what are Steven Horsford and Barbara Buckley going to tell their supporters come sine die?

1. We folded because the Republicans bluffed us on government reform.

2. We wanted to beat Sir Bill of Reno at his own game, but we overplayed our hand.

3. We called the Republicans’ bet, we fixed the budget as best we could and we managed to walk away from the game with a tax bridge and a plan for 2011.

We will know the answer in a few days if lawmakers of both parties keep their commitment to submit a budget/tax package to The Man Formerly Known as Governor in time for a veto/override scenario that will not cause a special session Ø can control. But if these Democratic leaders really want to lead — and it may be too late to hope for much — they need to stop playing Louis Renault and stop reading Sir Bill while switching to Sir Winston.

Instead of saying they are “shocked, shocked” that public benefits reform was the GOP’s condition for supporting taxes — something that was known for six months — perhaps they should start saying “never, never surrender” to both the business community’s and labor’s demands.

“It’s so childish,” said one frustrated insider. “They have known for months they have to get to 14 (votes in the Senate) and that they have to do something on reforms.”

Instead of being caught up in the usual end-of-session myopia, which biennially causes lawmakers to be unable to see outside the Legislative Building, instead of listening to hectoring from the Chuck Muths on the right who threaten retribution against the tax-raisers and the Progressive Leadership Alliances of Nevada of the left who threaten initiatives, and instead of whining about the other side not negotiating in good faith, what if they actually decided — and I know this is heresy — to simply be honest with those unlucky enough not to be in Carson City these last, glorious 10 days of Session ’09?

“The governor’s budget was an abomination,” they could begin. “On this, most Republicans and Democrats agree. And because most Republicans are either on the record with statements or votes that show they support the add-backs to the budget, that means they implicitly support new taxes. Taxes are painful, but we are passing the least injurious ones to businesses to save the state. And we also are setting the stage for a true tax-broadening effort in 2011 — and we pledge today that if this does not occur, you should vote us out of office. And, finally, the Republicans are insisting on reforming the overburdened retirement and health benefits system as well as how collective bargaining and prevailing wage laws are implemented. You know something: They are not all wrong. So we will enact reforms that do not tilt the balance so far away from our labor friends that we will have abandoned our political principles but also far enough so that we adhere to sound financial principles. Let’s get out of here.”

Would Democrats really sacrifice months of hard work fixing the laughable budget submitted by Ø over a change of two years in retirement age or a tenth of a point in a retirement benefit multiplier? And are Republicans so enamored of their leverage that they would be willing to snuff out the session’s work of crafting a new budget by blasting through a deadline that will allow The Man Formerly Known as Governor to reimpose a 36 percent cut in higher education?

What do you call elected officials who would make those choices? Anything but leaders.

Major damage has been done and this session has been about incrementalism, as they all are. Maybe it was enough simply to block the executive budget, to apply a tax bandage and make promises for two years hence. Perhaps it was a one in a billion — or one in 3 billion — that they would hit the policy jackpot.

But when it all began, it was nice — if not insane — to hope for more.