Home

2AM Club Guide

Archive

Contact

Personals

Wildside Personals

Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

LEGISLATURE FIDDLES WHILE NEVADA BURNS: Gov. Kenny Guinn says he's "very disappointed" that the Legislature failed to pass a schools budget, as well as the taxes to fund the entire state at its fruitless 10-day special session--which followed the 120-day regular session. But Guinn also claims "important efforts by the Nevada Legislature were made" toward reaching an agreement.

Insert barnyard epithet here.

"Important efforts"? Not even close. Petty gamesmanship and a desire for revenge, more like it. Those Assembly Republicans--once dismissed by Guinn as irrelevant--proved they're relevant, all right. In the meantime, schools don't know how many teachers they'll be able to hire, just a couple of weeks from the start of the new fiscal year. The voters are treated to an ugly spectacle, not to mention getting a slap in the face from the Legislature, which has--for the third, and soon the fourth--time in the last two years, utterly ignored a voter-approved limit of one, 120-day session every other year.

Now, the final battle is joined. Even if lawmakers ignore voter-approved deadlines, they can't ignore the end of the fiscal year. Republicans have talked a big game about not caring whether state government shuts down; after July 1, they may get their wish. If Oscar Wilde was right when he said when the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers, the Republicans may find out getting what you want is sometimes the worst thing of all.

GRAVITAS: You've got to give Assemblyman Bob Beers credit. Instead of slinking away to a cave to wait out the week between now and the start of the Double-Secret Special Session, he confronted a hostile audience Monday during a meeting at Katz Elementary School to discuss his opposition to Guinn's tax plan. Beers said he wants to reopen other areas of the state budget for cuts, and since Guinn refuses to do so, he and fellow Republicans will vote no on the taxes that are now needed to fund schools.

"A classic tax-and-spend, conservative-liberal debate is under way. And your children have been taken hostage," said Beers, wearing a mask and asking for $100 million in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills and a fully fueled jet to whisk him to a non-extradition country of his choosing. Only kidding. He wasn't really wearing a mask.

More common was the view of parent Erica Mayer, who said: "Everybody is blaming everybody else, and it's the kids who are going to suffer. Why does it have to be this way? We have grown people in the Legislature who are screwing our children." And they say public school isn't like Catholic school. Only kidding.

Steve Sebelius writes a daily e-mail newsletter, the E-Briefing, from which "Democracy in Peril" is excerpted. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com. To subscribe to the E-Briefing at a Mercury reader special price of $20 per year, go to www.lasvegasmercury.com/ebriefing.