Despite their recent majorities, Democrats fell short of grand plans

By David McGrath Schwartz

Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Elections have consequences.

That’s what the reigning parties say to explain the millions of dollars spent to win political races. Winners get to govern according to their philosophies. At least theoretically.

Then there’s the reality of a system stacked against big changes regardless of how impressive the victors’ showing at the ballot box.

Democrats have learned that lesson to their frustration the past two legislative sessions.

With state Sen. Steven Horsford leaving the Legislature to run for Congress and Republicans believing they can retake control of the state Senate in 2012, it’s time to ask: What did Democrats achieve by taking the majority in 2008 and holding it in 2010?

The Senate caucus, the state Democratic Party and independent groups spent $2.5 million — an unprecedented amount for legislative races in Nevada, according to sources — to unseat two Republican senators and take the majority in 2008. It was the first time Democrats had controlled the upper house since 1991.

Months later, as the 2009 Legislature convened, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, once considered too liberal for leadership, headed the lower house — the Democrats’ great progressive hope. Horsford, a passionate advocate of education and the poor with a moving personal story, headed the Senate.

Horsford “believed he could reshape the fabric of the state,” said one source who worked with him.

Democrats and their allies had high expectations — expectations that ran head-on into the reality of governing in the deepest recession in modern Nevada history.

On tax and budget increases — the core issues for many Democrats — the 2009 and 2011 Legislatures were sessions of frustration. They were foiled by the economy, two Republican governors and a system that requires a two-thirds majority for a tax increase.

As a result, the problems most Democrats, and many Republicans, see with the state’s tax system and education funding levels remain.

“A lot of progressives worked tirelessly building support for revenue,” said Erin Neff, executive director of the liberal advocacy group ProgressNow Nevada. “We feel as though the Legislature failed. But the Legislature always fails.”

Neff, like other Democratic supporters, said it was less about who was in leadership than the system, which allows a one-third minority to thwart plans to raise taxes.

There were some major policy victories for progressives, such as a domestic partnership bill for same-sex couples passed in 2009 and transgender rights legislation in 2011. Democrats passed bills to force banks to mediate with homeowners before foreclosures. Horsford passed a bill to reopen downtown access to a historically black Las Vegas neighborhood that had been cut off by a highway project.

The Legislature also rejected Gov. Jim Gibbons’ budget in 2009 and passed a series of tax increases. But needing Republican votes in the Senate, the taxes passed on GOP lawmakers’ terms.

Then-Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, required that the taxes passed in 2009 expire in two years, unless reauthorized by the Legislature. He also dictated the size of the tax increase.

The fight was repeated this year. While the 2009 taxes were eventually extended, it was only after a Nevada Supreme Court ruling stopped the state practice of taking money from local governments, setting Gov. Brian Sandoval on a desperate search for money to fund his budget.

During both sessions Republicans, knowing they had enough votes to block a tax increase, used their leverage to negotiate concessions on things like collective bargaining for public employees, and scaled back government workers’ retirement benefits and health care.

The 2009 taxes are again scheduled to expire in 2013 unless the Legislature extends them, setting up yet another similar game of chicken between Democrats and Republicans.

Danny Thompson, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, the state’s largest umbrella labor organization, spent the 2011 session complaining that Democrats were trading permanent reforms to public employee benefits for temporary taxes.

With Horsford running for Congress and favored over more moderate state Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, Thompson last week was more generous.

“In many ways at the Nevada Legislature, the measure is not that you pass some sweeping change,” he said. “The measurement is, ‘We didn’t get killed there.’ ”

He said Democratic lawmakers made sure that Republican demands for reforms were curtailed. “Sometimes, when you walk out the door with what you came in the door with intact, you’ve won,” he said.

Horsford said he was proud of his tenure — he was the state Senate’s first black leader and its youngest.

“Did we accomplish everything we would like to accomplish? No,” he said. “The economy we’re dealing with forced us to adjust our objectives.”

He recited a long list of bills that passed, from changes to how teachers are evaluated to foreclosure mediation and public works projects.

Buckley, the former Assembly speaker, who was forced out by term limits after the 2009 session, said Monday-morning quarterbacking of Democrats’ approach and whether a different strategy could have achieved more is pointless.

“It’s very hard to be a leader in tough times,” she said. “It’s easier when times are good, money is flowing.”

“I don’t think there is any set of Democratic legislators who could have produced a different tax structure for the state of Nevada,” she said.

Asked how much elections matter given the dynamics in Carson City, Terry Murphy, a lobbyist and political consultant, said they do because it’s important not to have “real lunatic idiots” in office.

“More than accomplishing great things, good people are able to stop horrible things from happening,” Murphy said.

Thompson, the labor leader, and others see the past two sessions as proof that the legislative system is “broken.” It’s simply too difficult to pass taxes, even with Democrats in control of both houses.

His conclusion: The only way to get a clear policy victory is having voters enact the law themselves. Taxes, he said, are “something that clearly need to be passed through the initiative process.”