DEMOCRACY IN PERIL

Thursday, January 22, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

In 1994, a Republican assemblyman from Reno named Jim Gibbons was running for governor against popular Democratic incumbent Bob Miller. And part of his campaign was the "Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative," a constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote to create or raise taxes.

The Gibbons tax initiative won; the Gibbons candidacy faltered.

But Gibbons ran for Congress in 1996 and has been easily re-elected ever since. And now, with Gov. Kenny Guinn preparing to take a dip in the lame-duck pond, Gibbons is again mulling a run for governor. And now, as then, he has an initiative to sell.

Gibbons calls his effort to rewrite the state's constitution "Education First." It would require the Legislature to pass the education budget before any other spending measure.

Why? In a bit of historic and political irony, the Education First measure is a response to last year's Nevada Supreme Court decision setting aside the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative, after the Legislature funded all budgets except education and legislative Democrats hoped to pry a two-thirds tax increase vote from a reluctant Republican minority. In Gibbons' mind, if the education budget is funded first, schoolchildren can never again be used as a political crowbar.

And although Gibbons' hatred of taxes didn't work as an electoral tactic in '94--he lost to Miller 53 percent to 41 percent--a decade may make all the difference. If Gibbons does decide to run for governor, his name will appear on the same ballot as the second incarnation of Education First. (As a constitutional amendment, it has to appear on the ballot twice once it qualifies, once in 2004 and again in 2006.)

Democrats and teachers union leaders aren't buying Gibbons' new initiative, saying it's an election gimmick and does nothing to get more money for education. (The state Democratic Party shrugged off its usual lethargy to note that Gibbons had actually voted against money for teacher pay, Pell grants and school construction in Washington, D.C.)

And they all have a point: Promoting "priority" funding for schools gives Gibbons a great election issue, although the measure won't add much to bare-bones education budgets. He can campaign as pro-schools while also saying he's anti-tax, the best of all possible worlds for a conservative Republican running in a state where taxes are as popular as teetotalers lately.

Another gubernatorial election, another Gibbons initiative. But this time, it just may work.

Steve Sebelius writes a daily e-mail newsletter, the E-Briefing, upon which Democracy in Peril is based. To subscribe to the E-Briefing at a Mercury reader special price of $20 per year, go to www.lasvegasmercury.com/ebriefing.