Coolican: State Republicans turn socialist every other year

By J. Patrick Coolican

Monday, May 30, 2011 | 2 a.m.

CARSON CITY — The goofy carnival known as the Nevada Legislature — with its dozens of simultaneous games of “heads I win, tails you lose” run by a host of clever carnies — will soon come to a merciful close.

Last week, disaster loomed, as Democrats seemed intent on surrendering to Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget of deep cuts in education, health care and social services.

But then we were saved in classic only-in-Nevada fashion: The Supreme Court ruled the Legislature couldn’t take $62 million from the Clean Water Coalition, which water ratepayers in four local governments in Southern Nevada had contributed to.

This raised questions about other state government plundering of local money — including hotel room taxes, school construction bonds and property taxes — creating a hole as large as $656 million in Sandoval’s budget.

The Democrats’ budget didn’t have those holes, but it did continue taxes passed in 2009 that are set to expire.

The result, as I’m writing Friday evening: A negotiation to continue those taxes passed in 2009 in exchange for a Republican wish list of education reforms and changes in public employee pay and benefits and some other less worthy goodies.

That’s all well and good, but Southern Nevada should now focus on using the court’s curtailment of state legislative power as a legal and political rallying cry to start governing ourselves.

What do I mean? Every two years, Southern Nevada goes up to Carson City with hat in hand, hoping to get our fair share and a decent tax system, and every time, a coalition of snickering rural and Reno townies and traitorous southern Republicans sends us home disappointed.

UNLV political scientist Dave Damore has tried to quantify the inequalities, although state finances can be so opaque that it seems almost impossible to do so. His best estimate is that taxes collected from economic activity in Clark County — where nearly three-fourths of the population lives — account for more than 85 percent of state general fund revenue, and Clark County receives around 66 percent of state appropriations.

Why is this so?

Our growth the past decade hasn’t shown up yet in the way we apportion representatives. That will change because of the redistricting this year that, based on the census, will move legislators south.

Even so, the Republican power base is in the north and rurals, led by Sandoval, whose budget took money from the south (or pushed new responsibilities on to us) and gave to the rest. Southern Republicans have gone along like puppies and without seeing the paradox in their geographic socialism — stealing from the productive south and giving to the rest.

At root, however, the problem is embedded in the state constitution. We have no local control, and most important, no ability to tax ourselves.

The absurdity of the situation was thrown into sharp relief this session when we had to go begging at the Legislature to continue a quarter-cent sales tax — applied only in Southern Nevada — to pay for water and sewage infrastructure, including the “third straw” into Lake Mead.

As of late last week, it had passed the state Senate — no thanks to Sens. Michael Roberson, Elizabeth Halseth and Barbara Cegavske, Southern Republicans who voted ‘nay’ — but hadn’t passed the Assembly.

Why should we have to come to Carson City to secure our water supply? It’s water!

And the same goes for schools and universities, health care and social services. If the rest of the state wants to live like it’s 1955, that’s their choice. We’re trying to build something, and we should be allowed to.

Where I grew up in New England, every spring we would vote on the town tax rate. I can think of nothing more conservative, or democratic, and we should be given the same right in Southern Nevada.