Get ready for the June train wreck

By Jon Ralston

Friday, April 22, 2011 | 2 a.m.

When a freshman Republican not really considered a player in his own caucus trips up Assembly Democratic leaders during their choreographed budget ballet, they need some new steps.

This was not “Swan Lake”; it was a swan dive.

And that cold water the Democrats plunged into Tuesday during a five-hour evening floor debate was chilled by a GOP Assembly caucus that turned up its collective nose at Democrats’ tax dance, with the first act unveiled as a pirouette around the education budget.

As I watched (through my computer) Las Vegas rookie Mark Sherwood declare the process a “farce” and then demand to know what taxes Democrats would raise, I knew the curtain had come down on what must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

To hear frustrated veteran Democratic leaders Marilyn Kirkpatrick and William Horne lecture Sherwood for his disrespect to the process and tradition, I wondered if they understood who really looked foolish.

A farce? How about theater of the absurd?

As I previously told you, I thought at least the Democrats deserved credit for trying to press Republicans on their support for the governor’s budget by conducting these so-called Committees of the Whole (the Senate followed suit Wednesday). Although I feel their pain, I don’t get their strategy.

Did they expect the Republicans to simply see the light when they have been blinded by the sheer brightness of the no-tax message? Did they expect anything but deaf ears from a GOP caucus that has ear plugs supplied across the courtyard? And did they expect that Gov. Brian Sandoval, who has shown at every turn he knows how to keep the caucus in line, would not be prepared?

As one capital wag put it, “It’s like Sandoval brought a gun to a knife fight.”

Maybe Democrats will reveal some better weaponry by the time sine die rolls around, but there was an endgame feel to what occurred this week, and it was a familiar one. I’m sure I’m not the only one who had flashbacks of The Great Non Tax Debate of 2003, which took two special sessions and a court intervention to resolve. And this time, the governor is on the no-tax side, raising prospects of unprecedented budget delays and specters of a government shutdown — although few think it will reach that point.

Yes, what happens on Day 73 doesn’t usually mean much. But unless Democrats are willing to sit down with Republican leaders and give them what they want on collective bargaining, retirement system and education reform, it’s going to be a long, hot summer. And the real danger, with the governor holding fast and backing up his troops, is whether Republicans will simply feel they can keep raising the bar to sell their tax votes.

As one seasoned Carson City observer put it, “They’ll be lucky to get extended sunsets, and the Democrats may pay a big price just to get that.”

Indeed, to persuade Republican lawmakers to not allow taxes to sunset — that’s worth about $700 million — Democrats may have to give up so much that they lose votes in their own caucus, especially some passionate and — perish the thought! — independent-thinking freshmen.

“We’re just going to be voting governor’s rec (recommendation) until we actually get into some negotiations down the road,” Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea informed Democrats on the floor Tuesday night.

Sophomore Assemblywoman April Mastroluca would later lament that reflexive obedience to Sandoval. “If we just blindly vote ‘gov rec, gov rec, gov rec,’ anyone could sit in your seat,” Mastroluca said. “There needs to be discussion.”

Or they could at least stop listening to their master’s voice to be legislators instead of rubber stamps.

Speaker Pro Tem Debbie Smith did yeoman’s work for Democrats during the floor session, detailing the $1.1 billion in education cuts and the gimmicks in Sandoval’s plan, saying at one point, “This budget kicks the can down the road about a billion dollars.”

True. But Smith seemed genuinely flummoxed by the GOP hard line. The public expects compromise, she argued, “they don’t expect us to stay in our corners.”

Actually, the public expects action instead of impasses, or the public just isn’t paying attention. The governor has the louder voice, the right wing the bigger megaphone to drown out reasonableness with retribution.

My daughter wandered in toward the end of the session and asked what I was watching. I told her Republicans were supporting the governor’s cuts to education in his budget.

“Why would they cut?” she said. “We’re the future. That’s just stupid.”

If only it were that simple. And if only Democrats weren’t bringing knives to a gunfight.

(I will have my take on John Ensign’s dramatic resignation Sunday.)