KNAPPSTER George Knapp is a longtime reporter and anchor for KLAS Channel 8.

Thursday, May 15, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Knappster: Secret legislative club will decide Nevada's budget fate

By George Knapp

CARSON CITY--As Nevada lawmakers grapple with our state's dire financial situation, it occurs to me they are completely overlooking an obvious solution. Instead of raising taxes by a billion dollars or more in order to shore up our woefully underfunded schools and social programs, perhaps they should drastically cut taxes instead.

After all, this is the logic that now prevails in Washington. Just cut taxes, especially in the high-income brackets, and the economy will take care of itself. Plus, tax cuts eventually will increase government revenues, at least according to the pretzel logicians.

This solution would seem to have considerable appeal here in the state capital. Four months after Gov. Kenny Guinn graphically documented Nevada's pathetic budget picture, our legislators have yet to get off the dime on the tax question. The money committees have essentially mandated that a tax increase will be necessary, because they've signed off on $1 billion in unfunded expenditures. But there certainly has been no rush by lawmakers to bite the big-ass bullet by choosing their tax poison.

Make no mistake--there are still a few diehards who look at Nevada's crumbling, stumbling schools and see huge potential budget cuts, but for the most part, lawmakers acknowledge the obvious: Our state has been skating by for too many years on a hodgepodge of fees and levies. It's time to endorse more broad-based revenue sources so we can extricate ourselves from the bottom of the social indices barrel.

I don't know what the legal profession has done to tick off the Legislature, but it seems as if everywhere you turn here, lawyers are taking it in the shorts. The talk is that attorneys will be singled out as one of only three professions facing "service taxes." (Accountants and architects are also on the short list.) Add to this the pending assaults on the pockets of lawyers in the form of medical malpractice reform and home construction defects legislation.

Say, maybe our misunderstood legal eagles should do what doctors have done--pretend they can no longer make a living in Nevada and threaten to leave the state altogether. On second thought, there is a remote possibility that Nevadans would call their bluff.

Monday night marked the first working meeting of an ad hoc leadership group known as "The Core." Lawmakers from both parties gathered behind closed doors to finally begin the process of formalizing a final tax package. Outside the meeting, a cadre of high-powered lobbyists buzzed around, offering last-minute words of advice.

Understandably, some lawmakers who have been left out of this loop have expressed reservations about the process: a small group of lawmakers, meeting in private, deciding policy for everyone else, under the watchful eyes of bigshot lobbyists--it all sounds a bit sneaky and mysterious. Yet it's naive to suggest it has ever been different. Politics is the science of horse trading, and such dickering frequently takes place in smoke-filled rooms.

Perhaps soon our tax prophets will descend from the Mount and let the rest of us read what's been carved into their stone tablets.

Legislature notebook

A measure by Assembly Democrats to establish a "no-call" list in hopes that Nevadans might avoid troublesome, unwanted phone calls from telemarketers received an intriguing response in the Republican-controlled Senate. Sen. Randolph Townsend's Commerce Committee essentially gutted the "no-call" plan, then okayed a "do-call" list, presumably at the request of those thousands of Nevadans who just can't get enough calls from telemarketers, especially during dinner or late at night. ... Uber-lobbyist Billy Vassiliadis told friends a few years ago that he intended to cut back on his lobbying activities and concentrate on his Las Vegas advertizing biz. Vassiliadis probably has spent more time in Carson City during this session than any other. This says plenty about how serious his gaming industry clients have taken the tax-and-budget crisis. ... A quiet little ceremony was held here this week to recall the memory of one of Nevada's strangest-ever lobbyists. "Ambassador Merlin" was the name he used at the Legislature. He claimed to be a space alien and was instrumental in the creation of Nevada's E.T. Highway. Merlin's death a few years ago was said by local cops to be from natural causes, but folks here (including a few lawmakers) suspect it was murder. Knappster wouldn't be surprised if the case was reopened sometime soon.

Names, faces

and places

Perhaps you've read reports about dealings between infamous ex-madam Heidi Fleiss and an Australian brothel company. The Aussies say they hope to build a Disneyland of Sex down under, but also have their eyes on Nevada, where they want to develop a brothel-slash-resort. How real is this plan? Sources say Fleiss has personally been in talks with a brothel owner about a possible joint undertaking. ... Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, a Las Vegas regular, is reportedly casting covetous glances at one of our town's best-known topless clubs. Flynt supposedly wants to turn the strip joint into a grand pantheon of sexual activity, something akin to a museum of sex. We'll bet this won't be your typical stuffy museum. ... Rick's Tally Ho, a tiny nude dance club on Highland Drive, has quietly changed hands and names. The place is now called Sheri's Cabaret and is now owned by some of the same people who own Sheri's Ranch, a Pahrump brothel resort.

Former Las Vegas Mayor Bill Briare is writing a book about his years at the helm of our fabulous town. Wonder what the low-key Briare thinks about the guy who now sits in his old office? ... There is a lot more to the story about District Judge Jesse Walsh and her demeanor in running the local drug court. Prosecutors and defense attorneys all seem to have their own stories, and at least a few of those tales are likely to surface. ... Can anyone tell me why it's seemingly impossible to find a VHS or DVD copy of Francis Coppola's One from the Heart, an odd, early '80s movie set in a faux Las Vegas? ... We are fast approaching the one-year anniversary of the Nevada Supreme Court's hearing of appeal in the Ted Binion murder case. No decision has been announced by the Supremes, but court insiders say this isn't entirely unusual. Knappster was told there has been ongoing discussion between the justices about the issues in the case. Legal briefs have been passed back and forth. And I am reminded that in some complicated cases it has taken the court up to three years to reach a decision.