Legislators “Offended” and “Insulted” As They Make Symbolic Party-Line Vote Over Education Budget
Submitted by Nevada News Bureau on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 7:00am
CARSON CITY – It was not until 30 minutes before midnight that a six-hour debate in the Assembly ended with a promise to talk more later.
After listening to presentations outlining more than $1 billion in “major reductions” to the K-12 budget, legislators debated their willingness to compromise or negotiate about Gov. Brian Sandoval’s proposed general fund budget.
“My caucus will be voting gov rec,” said Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, using an abbreviation for the governor’s recommended budget. “So you’re not going to get the wiggle room you’re looking for.”
In the end, all 16 Assembly Republicans voted in a symbolic motion to support a motion passing Gov. Brian Sandoval’s recommended budget. All 26 Assembly Democrats opposed the motion.
Republicans repeatedly said they want to see specific tax proposals as well as a reassurance that reforms they want will pass out of the Assembly as a trade for tax increases.
“Until we have the discussions about the reforms and the revenue package, we will continue to have a discussion about gov rec,” Goicoechea said.
Democrats stressed the need to debate specifics of the governor’s proposed education budget. Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, said the Assembly needed to find common ground for an acceptable level of cuts before they could discuss additional revenues.
“We rarely change a lot … 10, 15, 20 percent of the budget,” he said.
He called the six-hour marathon hearing in the Assembly chambers was a success.
“We got the temperature of where people are at,” he said. “It felt to me that we saw a few people who said we can look at a few things.”
Sprinkled throughout the hearing in Assembly chambers were instances of legislators calling each other “disingenuous” and saying they were “offended” and “insulted” with each other.
The verbal sniping came only hours after the Senate inducted former Sen. Bill Raggio into the Senate’s Hall of Fame. Raggio, a legislator who retired earlier this year, was a constant critic of the partisan hardening and lack of respect characteristic of 21st century political debate.
Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-Las Vegas, said Nevada’s Assembly was starting to look like D.C.
“If we want to have D.C. politics, here it is,” she said.
Both Democrats and Republicans did, however, say that the new process of having budget discussions involving all 42 Assembly members appealed to them more than having a few key legislators meet and make decisions in private.
But that does not make anybody more likely to agree.
“It looks like we’re going to be here for a very long haul,” said Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas.
Assemblyman Mark Sherwood, R-Las Vegas, called the whole hearing a “farce,” to which Kirkpatrick, retorted: “if you don’t respect the institution, don’t come back.”
As Wednesday morning drew close, Goicoechea said there’s “no doubt” everybody wants to find a solution.
“This is the beginning, this isn’t the end,” Smith said. “This was the first tough discussion we had … We can’t call each other disingenuous because we disagree. It’s not a farce. It’s not a train wreck.”
But by 11:30 p.m., the only unanimous motion was for the Assembly to retire for the night.
